A new position has been created to help units with their recruiting and retention. This position is called the Unit Membership Chairman and this adult volunteer will focus on, you guessed it, recruiting new scouts to the unit and retaining them as well.
Some of the responsibilities of a Unit Membership Chairman include:
- Meet with the unit leaders and committee monthly to discuss membership goals and retention.
- Conduct at least two recruitment/Scouting promotion events per year to ensure unit growth using the peer-to-peer recruitment method.
- Distribute membership fliers to schools and churches in the unit’s area.
- Conduct Scouting rallies and boy talks in schools, leveraging council support when needed.
- Attend the district’s membership chair training sessions, which will focus on best practices.
- Have your unit be involved in the required amount of Adopt-a-School service and community service projects needed for Scouting’s Journey to Excellence score.
- Ensure that new youth and adult applications along with funds are completed and turned into the council service center within a week after receipt of the applications.
- Work with the unit committee to ensure the unit reaches Scouting’s Journey to Excellence gold status in membership.
- Update the unit’s BeAScout pin and follow up with leads.
- Have your unit participate in a fall and spring recruitment plan.
- Work with the district transition chair to encourage youth to transition to the age-appropriate program as they grow older.
- Have an annual customer satisfaction survey done with current Scout families.
To learn more about this program, I suggest you read the post at Bryan On Scouting as well as the Unit Membership Chairman page at scouting.org.
This is a much needed position. Most times recruiting and retention is left to the Cubmaster or Scoutmaster. This should take some pressure off those volunteers and let them get back to delivering a quality program to our scouts.
During 2014, the Vulcan District Membership Committee will be working with all units on a year round recruiting/membership plan. If you would like more information, contact Vulcan Sr. District Executive Michael Wells.