By Russ McNeilly, NEIC VP of Membership

Scouters represented scouting at 113 schools throughout northeastern Illinois on Sept. 19 as part of the School Night For Scouting (SNFS) council-wide recruiting effort.

We’re grateful to the many leaders who are reporting a huge increase in their family contact lists. SNFS complements the “Invite, Invite, Invite, Ask” strategy that recruits two to four times more scouts. Packs were able to use SNFS to sign up youths on the spot and increase their invite list. In fact, Pack 663 in Zion now has a list of 47 families to invite to its next event. Pack 231 in Gurnee and Pack 916 in Evanston built on their great success going into SNFS, and now their invite list is even bigger.

Here are some great stories and tips from those packs:

We’re getting back into the schools and presenting a great public image. Granted, some units are just starting that relationship, and some are getting all kinds of benefits from the local school. It’s a journey. Plus, through the fall, we’re continuing to run a large ad campaign “You Belong in Scouts!” on Facebook and YouTube to drive the public to your unit. 

The key thing is that we’re rebuilding those school relationships. Jeanine Richards and Kristen Cade from Pack 663 tell it like this: “We’ve been working with the schools, and our district executive, Taylor Lindblad, has done a lot of contact with them. Though our kids aren’t at those schools anymore, the combination of volunteers and scouting pros gave us legitimacy.”

Key tip: Coordinate with your district executive and stay in regular contact with your local school.

“We made sure to work with the grounds director at the school district so we could hold rocket launches at three schools on SNFS,” says Chris Hersee from Pack 916, one of our great rocketmasters.

Key tip: The school district’s grounds director is a possible route for access to your local school.

“Leveraging a relationship with the parent-student organization and the school is key,” says Eric Muschlitz from Pack 231. “With those relationships, we continue to be invited to participate in events like the back-to-school picnic and fall festival.”

Key tip: Think of the parent-teacher organization (PTO) or parent-student organization (PSO) as your buddy. Scouting aligns beautifully with the goals of those groups. Contact your PTO or PSO president today!