Join Scouting Month Is a Storming Success
Jeff Hunt
Scout executive
South Florida Council |
In the past, the South Florida Council had great success with the one-night approach to fall recruitment. However, the hurricanes of 2004 and 2005 required a new plan to prevent "putting all of our eggs in one basket." The storms not only caused recruitment nights to be canceled and rescheduled multiple times, but also threw our follow-up training schedule into disarray.
In 2006, with the help of the professional and volunteer team, we developed a Join Scouting Month. The one-month approach allowed the units to stagger the recruitment nights over the end of August and the beginning of September. This recruitment method proved very successful with more than 2,500 new families joining Scouting and the council ending the year with 5.2 percent traditional membership growth. The fact that the professional staff could attend many more recruitment events was another benefit of the new strategy. Each youth-serving executive could provide the joining gift and collect the applications that night with all of the approval signatures and fees.
The plans for 2007 are the same, but with one more tweak. More adult leader training opportunities are being added. We firmly believe that adult leaders must be trained within two weeks of taking on their responsibilities. Training provides the necessary confidence to run a great meeting and, thereby, retain more youth.