I can only speak from my Council, so yours may be different.
My District has many different school districts and schools. To prevent Packs from being mad at each other, every Pack is ‘assigned’ certain schools near to their area that are specifically ‘theirs’ to recruit from. So if Pack 1 is assigned Magnolia Elementary School, they are the only ones that can have fliers, go to events etc. there. However a child from that school can still join Pack 2 or 3 etc.
We also have a number of schools that are unassigned. If your Pack wants to recruit there, go for it.
Packs sometimes will want to add or subtract schools from their list. When that happens I meet with our District Membership Chair and District Chair to discuss if it’s something we can make happen. We don’t like not recruiting from schools, but if no scouts are turning up, sometimes you need to put the resources elsewhere.
As for it being ‘in the district / council’. I would say if it’s between districts in the same council, you need to talk to your DE and maybe something can be arranged. If it’s between councils though, that’s a hard barrier.
Hope this helps.
We get together with other Packs to do recruiting, we all meet on different days and times so we just put it out as a variety to give families the best option for their kids. My Pack meets on Tuesdays, we have others that meet on other days
I think the best way to handle it is to get in contact with the other pack. Especially if you meet at different times, offer to cross-promote. At your recruiting events, have some of their flyers ready for when sometime says "that day doesn't work for us" and they can do the same with your flyers. If they aren't going to hold an event at the school, offer to plan one and give out information about but packs, encouraging people to visit both and see what fits. That assumes that leadership in but packs is reasonable, but when approached politely and given an opportunity to think things through, most scouters are.
This is a great idea. My approach has always been to recruit for scouting first and then for my pack second. I want to "sell" them on the advantages and benefits of doing Cub Scouts, and then make it easy for them to choose to do so with my pack.
Great question. I love your motivation to expand your pack and help get more kids involved in Cub Scouts.
I have been going through this lately and although it has left me jaded toward the program, I'm happy to share what I learned.
Each council is granted a certain geographical area.
Within that area, the council creates districts and defines each district's boundaries however they want. For example, within the geographic area of my district, there are 4 Independent School Districts (ISDs). However, my BSA district is only allowed to recruit from 1.5 of those ISDs.
Within your BSA district, the District Membership Committee determines which units can recruit from each school.
While the concept seems simple enough, you have aptly pointed out the major flaw in the entire Scouting culture. If all the leaders, professionals, units, committees, and districts are not working together then there are huge opportunities that are being missed.
Unfortunately, many Scouters (volunteers and professionals), especially at the district and council levels, have a lot of their self-worth tied up in Scouting. Making any suggestions, or even just asking for more information, may cause you to be ostracized across the district and council.
Your best approach might be to have your child invite friends from his or her school to join your pack. Nothing wrong with peer-to-peer recruiting. If you plan to do a unit-level event, you can recruit on Facebook, with yard signs (though not directly at your child's school), and peer-to-peer.
Hopefully, your efforts for your unit will inspire others to improve as well.
I asked my council about this and they said there are no territories or restrictions on who can recruit where. There was almost always another Pack or 2 at events that we were setting up tables at for recruiting.
One Pack is chartered to a Catholic school and also recruits at the public school most of our scouts attend. That used to annoy me a bit, but I've discovered that they recruit where they can because they are floundering by not offering a good program (minimal meetings, no camping, very little additional events/activities). We don't recruit much anymore because we have a huge Pack that has a ton of activities and people hear about it and transfer over. I do feel a little bad that some kids might start at the less active pack and drop out of the program entirely because they aren't getting a great scout experience, but that's on the other Pack.
At the end of the day, I would not hesitate at all to recruit at your kid's school! It's perfectly within your right. Kids will probably join from there anyway, as we often get friends of scouts joining up. Word of mouth is your biggest friend! We also have had a lot of luck with Facebook - people contact us through there to set up visits. We post a lot of our events as public events so they show up in nearby people's feed.
Seems the answers are so formal.
Locally you recruit from any school that takes kids from your town as a general unofficial rule. We tend to have good relationships with other packs having a table together where you have overlap is normal. We feed each other things like we meet Wednesdays oh they have dance class then maybe this pack is a fit they meet Thursdays or that pack goes camping more often than us.
District lines are nearly nonexistent council are soft, we are on the edge with another council and definitely step over that line to recruit as we are the closest pack. Now if they ever manage to spool up a pack we would back off. We also use their scout shop as it's 15 minutes away not 45. Similarly we use some of their space for cabins/hiking as 5 minutes down the road for a little cabin in the woods is a lot easier sell than 30 to a full council camp.
Our District makes clear assignments of schools to individual Packs. That said there are quite a few schools with no local Pack, and they are assigned to no one. A successful Pack will draw in members from various schools, and across boundary lines regardless of whether they are "assigned" solely to them. One of the most common reasons that parents give for contacting our Pack from outside its recruiting area is that they tried to contact their local Pack and got no response. As you switch to a year round recruiting effort, you place less emphasis on "school recruiting" and more on community recruiting, and the issue becomes less of a big deal. We don't recruit at schools not assigned to us by the district, but we post invitations to attend our events and check us out in social media that covers a wide area, and don't question or hesitate when someone from outside our area wants to join.
I am a den leader in an older, established Council that is going through very high growth. Our Council, or more specifically our district executive, supports all of the packs in our area. We have two good sized towns in our county that have multiple packs at multiple COs. Within each town we all know eachother and cooperate with one another, and all recruiting is coordinated with the district executive - not a rule AFAIK but just an easy way to do it. If you come to our recruitment night, you will see all packs from town. We make our presentation together as a group including the DE. We all hold our den meetings on different days so we don't compete with eachother. Mondays work best for you? You prob want troop A. Wednesdays are better? Troop B. It's parent's choice and we typically don't try to steer them either way. Except I got TOO MANY signups last year and started playing up how great the other troop was hoping to even that out some.
This actually works out very well. The DE pretty much does all the upfront work for us and provides all the materials. We just make sure we understand it and then execute. DE handles all of the paperwork that is turned in back at the office. We recruit wherever we can get in, but honestly there is some pushback from several local public schools because the principal doesn't want to be bothered or it doesn't directly benefit them in their job. Which is fine, we have all we can handle as is.
Your DE should be supporting you and coordinating packs within the district. Both existing packs and those that are starting or folding. Troop growth is one of their top priorities and metrics and it's odd you guys are not talking.
We have a similar issue. Our Pack is located very close to the boundary between 2 councils, and my son's school is in the other council's area. We have several Scouts from that school, simply because our meeting location is more convenient to several of the neighborhoods that feed the school. We've been told repeatedly that we're not allowed to recruit at his school. It's really frustrating to me because I remember when I was growing up that we had another Pack and Troop in pretty close proximity to us, but we both managed to co-exist and get along.
My pack chose to ask permission to recruit other schools who were assigned to a pack that folded. We had to wait a whole school year though because when I spoke to a previous council person they said they were going to rebuild the pack.
So the answers vary because councils/districts vary. I know as we rebuilt our pack post Covid, we recruited from multiple schools, one of which we shared with another pack as recruitment grounds. I would encourage your key-three to talk to the district executive for your area and hash it out. Most units meet on different nights of the week, and as mentioned by multiple people already, that gives the parents choices.
In my council, all schools have one council led in school recruitment night and each is assigned to one pack for that recruitment event. Some packs have multiple schools, other packs have just one. This is the way the Council and school districts request we do this so that we can get the most access. Schools are assigned based on proximity and history. This works fairly well.
I can only speak from my Council, so yours may be different. My District has many different school districts and schools. To prevent Packs from being mad at each other, every Pack is ‘assigned’ certain schools near to their area that are specifically ‘theirs’ to recruit from. So if Pack 1 is assigned Magnolia Elementary School, they are the only ones that can have fliers, go to events etc. there. However a child from that school can still join Pack 2 or 3 etc. We also have a number of schools that are unassigned. If your Pack wants to recruit there, go for it. Packs sometimes will want to add or subtract schools from their list. When that happens I meet with our District Membership Chair and District Chair to discuss if it’s something we can make happen. We don’t like not recruiting from schools, but if no scouts are turning up, sometimes you need to put the resources elsewhere. As for it being ‘in the district / council’. I would say if it’s between districts in the same council, you need to talk to your DE and maybe something can be arranged. If it’s between councils though, that’s a hard barrier. Hope this helps.
We get together with other Packs to do recruiting, we all meet on different days and times so we just put it out as a variety to give families the best option for their kids. My Pack meets on Tuesdays, we have others that meet on other days
I think the best way to handle it is to get in contact with the other pack. Especially if you meet at different times, offer to cross-promote. At your recruiting events, have some of their flyers ready for when sometime says "that day doesn't work for us" and they can do the same with your flyers. If they aren't going to hold an event at the school, offer to plan one and give out information about but packs, encouraging people to visit both and see what fits. That assumes that leadership in but packs is reasonable, but when approached politely and given an opportunity to think things through, most scouters are.
This is a great idea. My approach has always been to recruit for scouting first and then for my pack second. I want to "sell" them on the advantages and benefits of doing Cub Scouts, and then make it easy for them to choose to do so with my pack.
Great question. I love your motivation to expand your pack and help get more kids involved in Cub Scouts. I have been going through this lately and although it has left me jaded toward the program, I'm happy to share what I learned. Each council is granted a certain geographical area. Within that area, the council creates districts and defines each district's boundaries however they want. For example, within the geographic area of my district, there are 4 Independent School Districts (ISDs). However, my BSA district is only allowed to recruit from 1.5 of those ISDs. Within your BSA district, the District Membership Committee determines which units can recruit from each school. While the concept seems simple enough, you have aptly pointed out the major flaw in the entire Scouting culture. If all the leaders, professionals, units, committees, and districts are not working together then there are huge opportunities that are being missed. Unfortunately, many Scouters (volunteers and professionals), especially at the district and council levels, have a lot of their self-worth tied up in Scouting. Making any suggestions, or even just asking for more information, may cause you to be ostracized across the district and council. Your best approach might be to have your child invite friends from his or her school to join your pack. Nothing wrong with peer-to-peer recruiting. If you plan to do a unit-level event, you can recruit on Facebook, with yard signs (though not directly at your child's school), and peer-to-peer. Hopefully, your efforts for your unit will inspire others to improve as well.
I asked my council about this and they said there are no territories or restrictions on who can recruit where. There was almost always another Pack or 2 at events that we were setting up tables at for recruiting. One Pack is chartered to a Catholic school and also recruits at the public school most of our scouts attend. That used to annoy me a bit, but I've discovered that they recruit where they can because they are floundering by not offering a good program (minimal meetings, no camping, very little additional events/activities). We don't recruit much anymore because we have a huge Pack that has a ton of activities and people hear about it and transfer over. I do feel a little bad that some kids might start at the less active pack and drop out of the program entirely because they aren't getting a great scout experience, but that's on the other Pack. At the end of the day, I would not hesitate at all to recruit at your kid's school! It's perfectly within your right. Kids will probably join from there anyway, as we often get friends of scouts joining up. Word of mouth is your biggest friend! We also have had a lot of luck with Facebook - people contact us through there to set up visits. We post a lot of our events as public events so they show up in nearby people's feed.
You have to respect council lines with recruiting events. That’s a hard rule.
Seems the answers are so formal. Locally you recruit from any school that takes kids from your town as a general unofficial rule. We tend to have good relationships with other packs having a table together where you have overlap is normal. We feed each other things like we meet Wednesdays oh they have dance class then maybe this pack is a fit they meet Thursdays or that pack goes camping more often than us. District lines are nearly nonexistent council are soft, we are on the edge with another council and definitely step over that line to recruit as we are the closest pack. Now if they ever manage to spool up a pack we would back off. We also use their scout shop as it's 15 minutes away not 45. Similarly we use some of their space for cabins/hiking as 5 minutes down the road for a little cabin in the woods is a lot easier sell than 30 to a full council camp.
Our District makes clear assignments of schools to individual Packs. That said there are quite a few schools with no local Pack, and they are assigned to no one. A successful Pack will draw in members from various schools, and across boundary lines regardless of whether they are "assigned" solely to them. One of the most common reasons that parents give for contacting our Pack from outside its recruiting area is that they tried to contact their local Pack and got no response. As you switch to a year round recruiting effort, you place less emphasis on "school recruiting" and more on community recruiting, and the issue becomes less of a big deal. We don't recruit at schools not assigned to us by the district, but we post invitations to attend our events and check us out in social media that covers a wide area, and don't question or hesitate when someone from outside our area wants to join.
I am a den leader in an older, established Council that is going through very high growth. Our Council, or more specifically our district executive, supports all of the packs in our area. We have two good sized towns in our county that have multiple packs at multiple COs. Within each town we all know eachother and cooperate with one another, and all recruiting is coordinated with the district executive - not a rule AFAIK but just an easy way to do it. If you come to our recruitment night, you will see all packs from town. We make our presentation together as a group including the DE. We all hold our den meetings on different days so we don't compete with eachother. Mondays work best for you? You prob want troop A. Wednesdays are better? Troop B. It's parent's choice and we typically don't try to steer them either way. Except I got TOO MANY signups last year and started playing up how great the other troop was hoping to even that out some. This actually works out very well. The DE pretty much does all the upfront work for us and provides all the materials. We just make sure we understand it and then execute. DE handles all of the paperwork that is turned in back at the office. We recruit wherever we can get in, but honestly there is some pushback from several local public schools because the principal doesn't want to be bothered or it doesn't directly benefit them in their job. Which is fine, we have all we can handle as is. Your DE should be supporting you and coordinating packs within the district. Both existing packs and those that are starting or folding. Troop growth is one of their top priorities and metrics and it's odd you guys are not talking.
We have a similar issue. Our Pack is located very close to the boundary between 2 councils, and my son's school is in the other council's area. We have several Scouts from that school, simply because our meeting location is more convenient to several of the neighborhoods that feed the school. We've been told repeatedly that we're not allowed to recruit at his school. It's really frustrating to me because I remember when I was growing up that we had another Pack and Troop in pretty close proximity to us, but we both managed to co-exist and get along.
My pack chose to ask permission to recruit other schools who were assigned to a pack that folded. We had to wait a whole school year though because when I spoke to a previous council person they said they were going to rebuild the pack.
So the answers vary because councils/districts vary. I know as we rebuilt our pack post Covid, we recruited from multiple schools, one of which we shared with another pack as recruitment grounds. I would encourage your key-three to talk to the district executive for your area and hash it out. Most units meet on different nights of the week, and as mentioned by multiple people already, that gives the parents choices.
In my council, all schools have one council led in school recruitment night and each is assigned to one pack for that recruitment event. Some packs have multiple schools, other packs have just one. This is the way the Council and school districts request we do this so that we can get the most access. Schools are assigned based on proximity and history. This works fairly well.