It is often said that a picture is worth a thousand words. Never has this been truer than when explaining scouting to a new boy or his parents.
This year, our pack decided to work on improving our recruiting numbers in several ways. One of those came upon us purely by accident when a den leader began working on a scrapbook for the tigers. The project soon snowballed into a pack wide project with several parents offering up their pictures to be included. Scouting themed scrapbook supplies are prevalent and before long we had finished our scouting year and had a photo record to go along with it. The scrapbook made many appearances at summertime pack activities but when we started taking the book into schools and churches to show prospective parents was when it got the most response.
New parents are always curious to see what exactly they are getting into when signing their child up for scouts. Being able to flip through an entire year of events in a matter of moments and seeing smiling faces looking out from the pages was a powerful pull. For the boys, pages with the titles like Camping, Archery, BB Shooting, Soccer and more caught their eyes instantly. It was also a good jumping off points for questions from both sides. How much camping do you do? What is the difference between a den and a pack? What is the Blue and Gold? The scouts also enjoy the book. When we set up at the schools open house, we often had boys dropping by to show friends and family which pages they appeared on.
Displaying photos at a recruitment event could be done may other ways as well. Our pack has also produced a simple slideshow for larger events and power point would work equally well.. I have seen poster boards and presentation boards full of photos displayed as well. It could even be as simple as putting photos into an album. The main goal is simply to give a visual element to support what we already know; Scouting is fun for everyone!