Tonight was our Ice Cream Social to officially kick off our Scouting year and welcome new recruits. Having a masters in public relations, I wanted to be sure that parents felt good about having their son in my den, as well as understood what we would be doing and what would be expected of them. My problem is that I am very artistically challenged (and, as I discovered almost three hours later, I really need to invest in a real paper cutter), however, I know that people are very visual so I took the time to give visual representations for the parents.

Science Fair Board

I hate these things, really, I do. But, they work. I bought the board for 88 cents at Walmart, and two poster boards – one red, one blue – for 97 cents each to make the backgrounds because I just hate excess white space (comes from too many years as a web developer). I googled for the Wolf logo, printed it as large as I could on an 8×10 paper, cut it out. Then did the same for the Ethan Wolf so that parents could see what colors their son should be wearing this year. I also put up a photo of the handbook so anyone unfamiliar would order the correct one.

Below that, I printed out all the images of the belt loops for Wolf. The required are in color, the electives are in red. I have the required ones all in one row below the Wolf logo. The electives frame the calendar outline I’ve put together of which items will be worked on and when (see my page at the top, Year of the Wolf).

In the center of the board are two bulleted lists. The one on the left is the list of all the places we will visit as a den and a pack for the coming year. The list on the right is of all the different community service groups we will work with or do benefits for this year.

The outer panels are our “bonus” items, things not in the handbook but we will work together as a den to achieve. On the left: Scout Strong Healthy Unit, information on the denner system, and the Crime Prevention award (still available from my council). On the right: Messengers of Peace, Conservation Good Turn, World Conservation Award, and (hidden by my file box) BSA Emergency Preparedness.

New Parent Guide

This is something I wish I had when we joined as Tigers last year. I wasn’t really sure what I was getting into, especially since I had done Girl Scouts but didn’t have a relative who had been a Cub or Boy Scout to know anything about them. So here’s my contents:

Inside the folder pocket are items that parents will most likely need to pay attention to, sign and return, etc. I managed to score these folders at the end of spring for 10 cents each when a Fred’s store was closing down. I found the file folder holder for $1.99 at Goodwill, it worked perfectly for holding the guides for parents to easily grab. I also paid for the copies myself using the BSA discount program at Office Max.

• Printout of the modified Wolf requirements (15 of them sent to me free by the ScoutStuff.org when I ordered my son’s Wolf book back in May).
• Flyers for our two upcoming events (a weekend camping trip on Jekyll Island and our Eclipse Day program)
• A list of homework items each Wolf needs to do this month outside of den meetings.
• Family talent survey sheet.
• ScoutStrong Healthy Unit snack sign up sheet – each Wolf will need to bring a healthy snack to be shared to at least two den meetings.
• Information to register participation in our NOVA program (which I also lead).
• Two copies of the parts A and B BSA medical form as we require one for the child and one for each parent participating.

 

The three prongs are holding together a kind of workbook/notebook for the parents. They contain:

• A letter from me outlining what I hope we will accomplish this year, explaining the denner system, our meeting dates and times, information on uniforms, encouraging participation in the NOVA STEM program, items inside the folder, and optional awards they can work on at home with their Cubs.
• The “Cub Scouting and Your Family” handout that comes with the family talent sheet.
• Our advancements calendar for the year.
• A handout on the denner system since this will be new to parents.
• A one sheet copy of the Outdoor Code and Leave No Trace that they can put on their fridge at home to help the Wolves learn to recite.
• Optional award requirements for Crime Prevention Award, ScoutStrong PALA, National Parks Service Scout Ranger, and BSA Fun for the Family program (you can see requirements for these here).
• Individual community service log.
• One baseball card holder page to save the cards the Wolf may earn for awards this year.

 

Sign Up Form

Since families fill out a registration form and turn it in to the pack committee, I wanted to be sure I captured information to help me get ready for our first official pack meeting. So I put together a small “sign up” sheet in MS Word that simply has four columns: Cub Name, Parent(s) Name(s), Cub birthday, and if the Cub plays any sports (this helps me in planning).

 

All of this is really simple to do, but takes time. I started working at the beginning of May planning out my entire Wolf year, so when I was ready to make visual pieces, I already had all the information at my fingertips, just had to reformat, print and physically cut and paste.

Good luck to you on your recruiting!