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Joined: Tue Mar 31, 2009 5:08 am
Mon May 17, 2010 7:54 pm
Another 10 Simple Ways to Grow Your Group
After I finished the first article I was doing some minor editing and had a couple more ideas. Then another. Then another. So I just went ahead and wrote another article which I submitted to Scouting Life as well.
If you have other ideas please share.
Garth
So, you didn’t find anything you could possibly use in the first list of 10 Simple Ways to Grow Your Group. Or maybe you tried all of them and you’re ready for some new ideas! As mentioned previously, you need to be anxiously engaged in finding new members because, for the most part, hordes of youth are probably not going to be beating a path to your door unless they know something about your group.
With this list, together with the previous one, you’ve received 21 suggestions describing ways to increase your group’s membership. Every community has something unique about it and so do you. If you have an idea or suggestion of something that has worked in your group, you’re invited to send it to the author at scoutleader101@gmail.com. We’re all in this together and it’s only together that we’ll achieve the goal of doubling our membership by 2014-2015. You, the individual leader, CAN make a difference. Be a part of bringing Scouting to even more youth in your groups, areas, and councils.
Without further ado, on to the list!
1) Use youth leadership
Baden Powell said that the Patrol System isn’t one way to run a scout troop, it’s the only way. As leaders within Scouting we need to be making sure that our youth have the opportunity to develop their leadership potential. It’s important to remember that our role as leaders is not to become one of the youth or to be their buddy. Our job is to help train our youth and bring them up to our level. To this end we need to be ensuring that an active and functioning pack Sixer Council, troop Court of Honour, and company Executive are operating. As leaders we need to let the youth have the opportunity to plan their program and make the decisions. Our role is to make sure that we create an environment where they can do this safely within the bounds that have been set for the organization. It’s their program so let them plan it.
2) Make noise
Whether your group is planning an activity, a fundraiser, or a camp make sure that you let the outside world know about it. Create a press release and send it out to all of the media outlets in your area while at the same time recognizing the target audience of the media organization. The National Post is probably not the best recipient of an announcement about an upcoming bake sale! You will have more success with community league newsletters, smaller weekly newspapers and television stations that concentrate on community programming. As an extension to this idea, consider offering to write a weekly or monthly column for your community newspaper or perhaps suggest a weekly cable TV show that highlights outdoor education.
3) Keep up a constant presence
Most buildings where large numbers of the public congregate, such as supermarkets, libraries or malls, will have informational bulletin boards. Make sure that that you are posting information on your group’s activities so that the public can see what you’re doing. This is why running a compelling program (see #9 from 10 Simple Ways to Grow Your Group) is so important. Make sure that you are creating something visual and dynamic. A poster full of words will just get lost in the clutter. Going geocaching? Or rapelling? Or building a catapult? Help the public feel invited by posting your calendar letting them know when and where your group will be. Make sure you are changing the information regularly and double check that the contact information is correct.
4) Attend information nights
Local malls or other businesses will often sponsor public trade shows or other types of awareness events. Whenever you can link the purpose of the event to something that Scouting is involved in, ask to have a booth. Emergency preparedness fairs, environmental awareness campaigns, community registration nights, and outdoor sportsmen type shows are all examples of events where having a booth could be beneficial. If you do so, fight the temptation to just sit at a table that has a few brochures placed on it. Give out samples of popcorn, have posters printed showing the exciting activities your youth are involved in, or set up a kub kar track and have impromptu races…just make sure that your booth is exciting and dynamic and inviting. Set up your table at the back of the booth area and don’t sit at it. Have your members staffing the booth smiling, saying hi, and offering brochures, popcorn samples or “coupons” for two free meetings! Work with your local council as they have a lot of promotional items to use as give-aways.
5) Be seen at large public events
From the Caribou Carnival in Yellowknife to the PNE in Vancouver to the Nova Scotia Multicultural Festival in Halifax most communities have some type of annual celebration or fair. These events are full of opportunities to be seen and to highlight your group’s activities. Host a lost children booth, run a concession, or simply provide a day of fun program activities for members of the public to participate in.
6) Look the part
In all that you do, wherever you go, make sure that your youth look like they belong to Scouting. Could somebody walking by know that your youth are something different from any other group of youth? Wear the uniform smartly, correctly and with pride.
7) Be experts in the field
Does your local school have an outdoor education course? Is there any kind of continuing education or community extension program in your area? Offer to run a program by teaching a course on GPS navigation, or building a shelter, or Leave No Trace camping, or planning a backpacking trip, or any of the numerous other topics that are Scouting related.
8) Contact past members
There are a variety of reasons but sometimes people need to step away from Scouting for a period of time to concentrate on other priorities. When you know in advance that this is going to happen, keep the avenues of communication open. Send regular updates on what the group is doing or send along a picture of a recent activity. Write a short letter asking how things are going and offer assistance as appropriate. To locate previous members try looking within MMS. Check the Inactive Members tab to find a potential source of leaders and youth. Hey! There’s Bob’s name! Whatever happened to him? Well, this is your chance to find out, get caught up and invite them back.
9) Incentive Program
There’s nothing like a little cash to motivate people! Consider setting up an incentive based program so that people who refer new members receive a financial reward. For example, existing members might receive a $10 coupon for purchases at their local Scout Shop, or receive $5 off their next year’s registration fee for every new member they refer. Remember that new members will sell popcorn and participate in other fundraisers so the extra money they raise may more than make up the discount they received. Another option is to consider canvassing local businesses to see if they might offer coupons or other gifts for distribution as incentive prizes.
10) Stop holding annual Bring a Friend nights
Yes. You read that right! Stop holding your annual Bring a Friend nights. Instead, make EVERY week a Bring a Friend event. We need to stop teaching our youth that they can only bring a friend once a year! Be ready though! If you’re going to be making pop can stoves or carving a new woggle, make sure that you have extra supplies in case new people happen to visit. Do your risk management and be prepared with appropriate paperwork for parents to sign (see BP&P 13012.3).
If you have other ideas please share.
Garth
So, you didn’t find anything you could possibly use in the first list of 10 Simple Ways to Grow Your Group. Or maybe you tried all of them and you’re ready for some new ideas! As mentioned previously, you need to be anxiously engaged in finding new members because, for the most part, hordes of youth are probably not going to be beating a path to your door unless they know something about your group.
With this list, together with the previous one, you’ve received 21 suggestions describing ways to increase your group’s membership. Every community has something unique about it and so do you. If you have an idea or suggestion of something that has worked in your group, you’re invited to send it to the author at scoutleader101@gmail.com. We’re all in this together and it’s only together that we’ll achieve the goal of doubling our membership by 2014-2015. You, the individual leader, CAN make a difference. Be a part of bringing Scouting to even more youth in your groups, areas, and councils.
Without further ado, on to the list!
1) Use youth leadership
Baden Powell said that the Patrol System isn’t one way to run a scout troop, it’s the only way. As leaders within Scouting we need to be making sure that our youth have the opportunity to develop their leadership potential. It’s important to remember that our role as leaders is not to become one of the youth or to be their buddy. Our job is to help train our youth and bring them up to our level. To this end we need to be ensuring that an active and functioning pack Sixer Council, troop Court of Honour, and company Executive are operating. As leaders we need to let the youth have the opportunity to plan their program and make the decisions. Our role is to make sure that we create an environment where they can do this safely within the bounds that have been set for the organization. It’s their program so let them plan it.
2) Make noise
Whether your group is planning an activity, a fundraiser, or a camp make sure that you let the outside world know about it. Create a press release and send it out to all of the media outlets in your area while at the same time recognizing the target audience of the media organization. The National Post is probably not the best recipient of an announcement about an upcoming bake sale! You will have more success with community league newsletters, smaller weekly newspapers and television stations that concentrate on community programming. As an extension to this idea, consider offering to write a weekly or monthly column for your community newspaper or perhaps suggest a weekly cable TV show that highlights outdoor education.
3) Keep up a constant presence
Most buildings where large numbers of the public congregate, such as supermarkets, libraries or malls, will have informational bulletin boards. Make sure that that you are posting information on your group’s activities so that the public can see what you’re doing. This is why running a compelling program (see #9 from 10 Simple Ways to Grow Your Group) is so important. Make sure that you are creating something visual and dynamic. A poster full of words will just get lost in the clutter. Going geocaching? Or rapelling? Or building a catapult? Help the public feel invited by posting your calendar letting them know when and where your group will be. Make sure you are changing the information regularly and double check that the contact information is correct.
4) Attend information nights
Local malls or other businesses will often sponsor public trade shows or other types of awareness events. Whenever you can link the purpose of the event to something that Scouting is involved in, ask to have a booth. Emergency preparedness fairs, environmental awareness campaigns, community registration nights, and outdoor sportsmen type shows are all examples of events where having a booth could be beneficial. If you do so, fight the temptation to just sit at a table that has a few brochures placed on it. Give out samples of popcorn, have posters printed showing the exciting activities your youth are involved in, or set up a kub kar track and have impromptu races…just make sure that your booth is exciting and dynamic and inviting. Set up your table at the back of the booth area and don’t sit at it. Have your members staffing the booth smiling, saying hi, and offering brochures, popcorn samples or “coupons” for two free meetings! Work with your local council as they have a lot of promotional items to use as give-aways.
5) Be seen at large public events
From the Caribou Carnival in Yellowknife to the PNE in Vancouver to the Nova Scotia Multicultural Festival in Halifax most communities have some type of annual celebration or fair. These events are full of opportunities to be seen and to highlight your group’s activities. Host a lost children booth, run a concession, or simply provide a day of fun program activities for members of the public to participate in.
6) Look the part
In all that you do, wherever you go, make sure that your youth look like they belong to Scouting. Could somebody walking by know that your youth are something different from any other group of youth? Wear the uniform smartly, correctly and with pride.
7) Be experts in the field
Does your local school have an outdoor education course? Is there any kind of continuing education or community extension program in your area? Offer to run a program by teaching a course on GPS navigation, or building a shelter, or Leave No Trace camping, or planning a backpacking trip, or any of the numerous other topics that are Scouting related.
8) Contact past members
There are a variety of reasons but sometimes people need to step away from Scouting for a period of time to concentrate on other priorities. When you know in advance that this is going to happen, keep the avenues of communication open. Send regular updates on what the group is doing or send along a picture of a recent activity. Write a short letter asking how things are going and offer assistance as appropriate. To locate previous members try looking within MMS. Check the Inactive Members tab to find a potential source of leaders and youth. Hey! There’s Bob’s name! Whatever happened to him? Well, this is your chance to find out, get caught up and invite them back.
9) Incentive Program
There’s nothing like a little cash to motivate people! Consider setting up an incentive based program so that people who refer new members receive a financial reward. For example, existing members might receive a $10 coupon for purchases at their local Scout Shop, or receive $5 off their next year’s registration fee for every new member they refer. Remember that new members will sell popcorn and participate in other fundraisers so the extra money they raise may more than make up the discount they received. Another option is to consider canvassing local businesses to see if they might offer coupons or other gifts for distribution as incentive prizes.
10) Stop holding annual Bring a Friend nights
Yes. You read that right! Stop holding your annual Bring a Friend nights. Instead, make EVERY week a Bring a Friend event. We need to stop teaching our youth that they can only bring a friend once a year! Be ready though! If you’re going to be making pop can stoves or carving a new woggle, make sure that you have extra supplies in case new people happen to visit. Do your risk management and be prepared with appropriate paperwork for parents to sign (see BP&P 13012.3).
