The Recruiter Strip is worn by Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts who have recruited another boy to join Scouting.

The patch is worn centered beneath the right pocket of the field uniform.

There isn’t a formal list of requirements for earning the patch. It is a recognition of a boy who has successfully recruited another boy to become a Scout. Your council might have specific guidelines, so check with them about earning the strip.

Normally the strip would be earned only once as a Cub Scout and again as a Boy Scout. Of course, it’s great to recruit more boys, but you wouldn’t want a shirt covered in Recruiter strips!

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Our older Scouts were doing Totin Chip instructions with the younger Scouts recently. One of their friends who had dropped out of Cub Scouts went riding by with his sisters. He took his sisters home and return on his bike. (He lives right next to our church.) Went right up to the guys and asked them what they were doing. They explained and he said he wanted to learn about axes too.  So he stayed for the rest of the meeting and then went home and brought his mom up so she could sign him up for Boy Scouts.

He explained to my husband (the Scoutmaster) that he only wants to do the fun stuff. My husband just smiled and said that was OK. After all, isn’t most of the stuff they do fun stuff?

Totin Chip Requirements

This certification grants a Scout the right to carry and use woods tools. The Scout must show his Scout leader, or someone designated by his leader, that he understands his responsibility to do the following:

1. Read and understand woods tools use and safety rules from the Boy Scout Handbook.
2. Demonstrate proper handling, care, and use of the pocket knife, ax, and saw.
3. Use knife, ax, and saw as tools, not playthings.
4. Respect all safety rules to protect others.
5. Respect property. Cut living and dead trees only with permission and good reason.
6. Subscribe to the Outdoor Code.

The Scout’s “Totin’ Rights” can be taken from him if he fails in his responsibility.

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Mike wrote to me with this question about Cub Scout recruiting:

I’m hoping I can solicit your help in a project. I’ve been a scouter for the past 6 years… DL/CC/CM all through the cub years and now I am on the council board. One issue that’s been troubling me for several years is our declining ranks in cub scouts.

I’m a strategy executive by profession and I’m convinced that the BSA messaging and recruiting campaigns, while having inspiring tag lines and great potential, aren’t properly targeted or executed. Specifically, they are not delivering a valuable enough message to the biggest decision maker in a young boy’s life… his mom.

What I’m proposing is a mom-to-mom campaign that can be executed locally to recruit families into cub scouting. I’d like your thoughts on this idea. What does a mom want to hear? What do you say to other moms to convince them to give it a try?

I think you are correct that the parents are the primary influence in determining if a boy joins Cub Scouts. There are so many different activities competing for our children’s time. Parents need to know that whatever they sign their kids up for will be worthwhile. I think the idea of a mom-to-mom campaign is a great one.

For our family, we liked how Cub Scouting provided a way for our sons to be recognized for whatever they were interested in. My oldest loves being outdoor – he can get an Outdoor Activity Award. Another of my sons loves to play chess. He can get his chess belt loop and pin. Another just likes to try new things and explore new ideas. He got lots of arrow points. My fourth son loves basketball. He got his basketball belt loop and pin.

Another thing I really like about the program is that it allowed our sons to move outside of their normal social circles. The guys they hung out with in Cub Scouts were not necessarily the same ones they hung out with at school. When I talk to other parents about Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, and Venturing, I always bring this up. I think that learning to get along with different groups of people is an important part of youth development.

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Laurie recently wrote to me with this question:

Dear Scouter Mom, I am enjoying your website and facebook updates. I have a tiger and a just enrolled boy scout(14yo 8th grader) I am trying to figure out how to get him launched. I have been to 2 boy scout meetings-on the peripherie, to try and get him connected with a troop. He is excited but nervous and since this is his first exposure to boy scouts ( he was a wolf when he was 7-not a real good experience) I feel like if he can get plugged in he would perhaps stick with it and catch the wave. He has a friend his age who is in his troop. that was the hook in. the troop camps once a month and is “boy led”. I am just not sure who to go to for advice or guidance about where my son should start.

I have looked over the book and am kind of trying to get a feel for where to start. I am struggling with trying to be a supportive mom, yet not overly do for him. But he needs a starting point.

I wonder if you have any advice for a mom of a new, kind of nervous, boy scout. Actually, I am amazed he’s going through with joining. I don’t want him to lose enthusiasm but he seems kind of lost at the moment.

I have looked over tenderfoot rank and all that entails. This is where I think he should start. Some early success is needed here to maintain his interest. Any advice appreciated.

Basically, if you had a boy in this position how would you advise him to get started?

So, what steps can a parent take in encouraging a new Boy Scout who has just joined a troop with little or no previous Scouting experience? We have had several kids join our troop in the past few years with a similar Scouting background. They have had very little or no Cub Scouting experience and have joined the troop in 7th or 8th grade. Some have stuck with it and some have not.

If you need help, you should talk to the troop Committee Chair. He or she should be able to help you or give you the name of a committee member who helps answer all of those questions from new parents. You might also want to check out Beginning Boy Scouts, which answers a lot of basic questions.

As far as helping him to stick with it, the biggest factors I see with those who have stayed with the program:

1. A friend in their patrol who is an active member of the troop.
2. Parents who are willing to get them to the meetings and activities.
3. Parents who are willing to get involved with the troop committee and learn how Boy Scouting works.

You might be surprised that I didn’t mention the requirements in the handbook or advancement. My advice would be not to worry too much about advancement. If he is an active member of the troop, that will happen naturally. He will fulfill those requirements as part of what the troop does. If he feels he is not getting enough support in advancement, he can talk to his patrol leader or the troop guide.

It sounds like he already has the first point covered.

For the second point, all I can advise is to take the time to make sure he gets to as many troop meetings and activities as possible. I know it can be difficult for families with busy schedules, but there is no substitute for being with the troop. Unlike Cub Scouts, there is not much he can accomplish at home on his own as a new Scout. The fun is in being with the other guys. And the more he does with them, the more comfortable he will become.

For the third point, contact the Committee Chair and ask how you can help the troop. The best way to start is to ask when the committee meets. Our troop committee meets once a month and parents are encouraged to attend whether they are official committee members or not. In the committee meetings, you will find out about what different roles they need adults to fill in the troop. You should also find out about training opportunities so you can understand the program better.

If you are interested in knowing more about Boy Scouting, I also recommend you set up an account at My Scouting. After you login, click on eLearning on the left. Then go to the Boy Scout tab. Scroll down to see the full course list. I recommend you take these courses:

• This Is Scouting
• Fast Start: Boy Scouting
• Troop Committee Challenge

Those three courses will give you a good overview of the Boy Scout program. Of course, you should feel free to take any of the other courses there also. You will need to do the Youth Protection training if you get more involved in the troop. If you have any trouble finding the right courses, your Committee Chair should be able to help you out.

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Barbara asked this question recently on the Facebook page:

Just found your page and I’m anxious to poke through it. Anything on how to handle huge Packs? We currently have 88 registered Cubs and we’ll probably hit 100+ by the fall. I’ve just signed on as the committee chair and I want to help continue our legacy of crossing over enthusiastic Cubs into Boy Scouts. How do we keep boys from feeling lost in the shuffle?

So, a few weeks ago I answered a question about very small Cub Scout packs. This is the other side of the coin.  I think the answer here is in the dens. Ideally, the size of each den should be six to eight boys. So if you have 30 Tiger Cubs, you really need to divide them up into four or five dens. Den meetings need to be run independently of each other and at pack events, boys and their parents should stay grouped in their dens.

So what is the reason this is not always done? Not enough den leaders! You have all of these kids and only one or two parents have volunteered to be leaders. It is easy for the other parents to say, “Why can’t we just put them all together?” The reason is that it isn’t fair to the Cub Scouts or the Den Leader. The Den Leader will get frustrated and burned out and the Cub Scouts won’t be getting the attention they need and deserve.

So, how do you come up with those other leaders you need? I would go ahead and divide the boys into dens. Tell the parents in each den to get together and figure out how they will provide leadership for the den. It might seem a little harsh, but usually somebody will step up. Then, make sure the reluctant leader gets lots of training and support. You will probably have to invest a lot more time and energy into this leader than the one who volunteered right away. But in the end, you will have a better program and hopefully you will end up with another adult who is excited about Scouting.

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Cindy asked this question on my Facebook page:

Hi, all! I am in need of some advice. We are in the process of starting up a new Pack. At this point, it will likely only have the minimum number of required scouts (5) and they will be of various ranks…1 Tiger, 2 Wolves, 1 Webe 1 & 1 Webe 2. Den meetings for 1 scout seem kind of lame, but combining Webes and Tigers isn’t much better. Any ideas on how to run den meetings for these guys while we wait on building in the fall?

I would consider running concurrent den meetings if possible. One of the main reasons boys join Cub Scouts is the social aspect. They want to do fun things with other boys. If you can have them meet at the same time, you can do some of the activities together and some separate.

Pick a “theme” for the meetings. For example, Tigers, Wolves, and Bears could all work electives related to art at a meeting and Webelos could work on Artist.  That way they could do an opening ceremony together and maybe one or two of the other requirements and do the parts that are different in their “dens”. Then they could all get back together at the end for a game.

If you expect to add additional Scouts in the fall, you want to stay away from anything which is “required” for the rank. For Tigers, Wolves, and Bears, anything in the electives section will work. For Webelos, Citizen and Fitness are required for the Webelos badge and Outdoorsman and Readyman are required for the Arrow of Light. They will also need to do some (but not all) other activity badges. So it might be good to decide which activity badges you will do to meet the rank requirements now and then work on the “extra” activity badges over the summer.

Another option is the Cub Scout Academics and Sports program. This supplemental program can be used for any of the age levels and has a lot of fun activities. Some of them can be used as requirements for the Webelos activity badges, but these are often options. If your Webelos breeze through the requirements for one of the belt loops, you can challenge them by having them work on the pin.

Even if you run your den meetings together, I’d recommend you have a clear distinction between den meetings and pack meetings. Your den meetings should be focused on age appropriate activities related to their rank advancement while pack meetings should be your more typical family events.

I’d recommend you try to get a Den Chief or two from a Boy Scout troop. If your chartered organization has a troop, ask them first. Otherwise, just find a troop in the area and ask them if they have any Scouts would would like to be a Den Chief. In this situation, a younger scout (11 or 12 years old) will work fine. They will help inject some fun into the program.

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Maybe you’ve heard about this coed Scouting program for young men and women and you’re ready to try to organize a Venture Crew. You might even have a specific group of young people in mind. It could be you know of a group who want to go out hiking or work on model trains together or maybe you just want to get a church youth group going. So where do you start?

The Boy Scouts of America way of starting a Crew is shown in bold below. Our Crew is about 18 months old now. Like many things in life, we didn’t follow the plan exactly, but it was close enough and seems to be going alright.

Your chartered organization makes a commitment with the Boy Scouts of America to charter a Venture Crew. We already knew that our Crew was going to serve as the high school youth group as our parish. And there had been a Crew a few years back, but it had become inactive. So this was already in place for us, especially since our church already chartered a Cub Scout pack and a Boy Scout Troop.

A committee is organized to recruit Advisors and Committee members. This was basically my husband and myself. We wanted to get this moving, so we asked around and spoke with some other adults who also thought we needed an active youth group at our church. The funny thing is though that none of the adults actually involved in this initial process ever became active in the group once it was formed.

The new Committee members get trained. We did this a little out of order just due to the timing. Plus, I didn’t really have a firm commitment from any adults at this point because they all wanted to see if there kids were really interested before they signed up as Advisors and Committee Members. So we had our kickoff meeting in October, but our adults did not get trained until December. Since my husband and I were already very familiar with BSA rules, regulations, and procedures and we already had youth protection training and since the other adults involved were willing to defer to us, we were comfortable with this.

Program capability inventory is completed. We did this out of order also. We waited until after the kick-off meeting to do this. Once again, we really needed to see who was signing up before we took this step. At the kick-off we had the youth members fill out some surveys about what they were interested in doing. And we had all adults present fill out surveys about their talents and interests.

Invite new members to join. We sent out flyers and encouraged kids to come to the kick-off meeting. We had a good turn out – about 20 kids – but not all of them signed up. In the end we had about 15 sign up and 7 parents volunteered to join my husband and I as advisors.

Crew officers are elected and trained. We waited before doing this. Even though a Crew is supposed to be youth run, we decided to wait until January to have elections. I told them up front that I would take care of the first few months and then they would be in charge after elections. This actually worked out well for us, because some of the kids who were really enthusiastic at the kick-off only came to one or two more activities and then were never heard from again. If they had been elected officers I’m not sure they would have stuck with it. As it turned out, our officers are youth who are really taking charge and participating.

So are you ready to start a Venture Crew? It really is a fun way to bring the values of Scouting to a whole new group of young adults.

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Our Crew has been trying to recruit lately. The problem they are having is they talk to Bob and he isn’t sure he wants to go unless Tim and Amy are going. They talk to Tim and Amy and they are wondering who else will be there. And on and on…

Then there are the dues. We charge $30. $15 of that covers the BSA registration and the other $15 lets us have a small budget for the Crew, which is also our church youth group. The parents are reluctant to pay the dues. They don’t know if the kids will like the group. What if they only come to a couple of activities? Are their friends joining? We’ve already said that they can come to one meeting and one activity and see if they like it before they pay, but the parents are still unsure.

How do we get beyond these barriers? Our youth members are doing their best efforts to contact these kids and get them in, and they seem interested. But they just can’t seem to commit by signing up.

Case in point – our council is having a ski night for Venturers in a couple of weeks. I need to register the kids by Dec 27 to get the really good group rates.  About half a dozen of the teens they are trying to recruit in say they want to go. But they won’t send in their money until they know which of their friends has already signed up. It is the same with registering them as Venturers, which they must do to participate in this event. Who else has registered so far? It is like a game of chicken!

I am going to contact the Crew officers to see if they want to contact the ones who said they wanted to go skiing one more time before the deadline.  The officers are getting frustrated though. They have really been trying to recruit for several months now and still haven’t been able to get one new member.

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Recruiting and retention is a hot topic in Scouting. Today we’ll focus on Cub Scouts. How do we get them and how do we keep them?

Recruiting methods can vary from one council to another. But on the Pack level, a personal touch works well. If you are charted by a church or school or other organization which has a ready supply of grade school kids, then recruiting Tigers is pretty straightforward. Go to the first graders and talk to them directly. Make sure you get some information to the parents also.

How do you get more Wolves, Bears and Webelos though? First, look for the new kids at your school or church. A family who has just moved to the area might be looking for a way for their son to make some new friends. Talk to the parents personally. Tell them what a great program you have. Explain how Cub Scouting is a wonderful way for their son to broaden his social circle.

Don’t forget to keep trying to recruit the kids who have been around but who have never been Cub Scouts. Or maybe they tried it and decided it wasn’t for them. Fourth grade is an especially good time for this. Explain that the Webelos program is completely different than the programs for the younger Cub Scouts. Emphasize your outdoor program and the adventure it provides.

What is the secret to retention? The best way to retain your Cub Scouts is to have a great program. Make sure your direct contact leaders (Cubmaster, Den Leaders, etc.) are trained. This is the first step. Then recruit other adults to plan other activities. Have variety in your program. And don’t forget to throw in plenty of hikes, family campouts, Webelos den campouts, and other outdoor activities. When most kids think of Scouts, they are envisioning lots of outdoor adventure. Make sure they aren’t disappointed.

What does your Pack do to encourage recruiting and retention? Share your best ideas by leaving a comment.

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Every February at our Pack Blue and Gold banquet, we have a group of Webelos cross over to Boy Scouts. Getting new youth into the Troop every year is essential. Otherwise our numbers will decrease due to older Scouts aging out of the program or due to Scouts deciding to drop out.

But there is another group which is prime for recruiting. We know of a number of middle school students who are not currently involved in Scouting. So this is a good time of year to try to recruit them into the Troop.

The best recruitment tool we have is our current Scouts. And in the past, we have gained two or three Scouts per year just because a youth member has asked a classmate to come see what our Troop does.

They usually plan a “fun” meeting in September to invite potential Scouts to. Let’s face it – inviting somebody who is completely unfamiliar to the program to a meeting which is all business might not be the best enticement. The meeting can be focused on organized games or an “open house” type event. Basically,  they plan something pretty lively and invite their friends to come.

After the meeting, the Scoutmaster (my husband) follows up with a call to the parents to explain the program. This is important, because sometimes there is more resistance from the parents than from the middle schoolers.

As an added bonus, Scouts who bring a friend to the meeting are fulfilling Requirement 10 for the First Class rank: Tell someone who is eligible to join Boy Scouts, or an inactive Boy Scout, about your troop’s activities. Invite him to a troop outing, activity, service project or meeting. Tell him how to join, or encourage the inactive Boy Scout to become active.

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