Now is the time to put recruiting first on your unit’s priority list. Whatever you used to do for recruiting, do that and do new things. Make more effort. Talk about recruiting in meetings more than you used to do. Have special meetings. Get your Scouts involved! Why? It will take this kind of effort to recover from COVID as well as other shocks that have happened to membership over the last five years. Fortunately, new efforts will be easier thanks to new tools. But you’ll need to know how to use them!
First, wave goodbye to those paper membership forms! You can take adult and youth applications online, and you will never have a lost application. Montana Council is making it even easier with the creation of unit-specific URLs that go directly to the Be A Scout registration page. The formula is:
www.scoutingmontana.org/unit type and number. For example:
www.scoutingmontana.org/pack3552
www.scoutingmontana.org/troop551
www.scoutingmontana.org/crew2526
Analytics show people are more likely to go to a web address than scan a QR code, so use this new tool in your recruiting materials.
Another reason to use online applications is that you can apply a discount code to waive the new member fee of $25, but only when applying online. The code is “MTNEW” (all capitals, no space), which you type in the discount code box, and click on “apply discount”.
Girls in Boy Scouts isn’t new, but now we have more thanks to the inclusion of girls in Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA. It is important to keep the lines clear between the Boy Scouts of America and Girl Scouts of the USA programs. This is a great poster if you have questions or need a refresher.
Before you spend time making a poster, form, or anything for your unit’s membership, look through materials that are already available and adapt them to your unit.
Membership materials, including the videos from the summer training sessions and drive links with documents, are available under Forms and Resources on the MVD webpage. This new fee graphic will also make your recruiting job easier. The big change here, besides a small increase, is that all membership fees are now 12-month fees, renewable after the 12 months rather than linked with the recharter cycle.
The meeting about this in July is available on YouTube, and it explains the change from BSA National. Watch the video, look at the resources, and go out and give youth a chance to be a scout by joining your unit.
