Middle School Recruiting

[DC]

Okay, my squadron is in pretty poor shape in the membership department. We are down to about 10 active cadets, three of which are cadet officers, and one SNCO... We tried reaching out to JROTC cadets through one of our cadets who commands his JROTC unit, that netted us about six cadets, none of them are around a year later, and while they were active they hardly participated because of other commitments (Drill Team, etc.). I am interested in targeting middle school kids, they will have the most time to participate in the program, but I don't know how to reach them.

I joined CAP when I was 12, but I was (and still am) really into the Military and aviation, so CAP was a dream come true to me, but I know I was hardly a representative of most 12 year olds. So again, how does one get the attention of a 12/13 year old and sell CAP to them.

[baronet68]

...how does one get the attention of a 12/13 year old and sell CAP to them.

Good article about CAP recruiting:
http://www.cadetstuff.org/archives/000073.html

Another good one about how to host a successful open house:
http://www.cadetstuff.org/archives/000113.html

[BillB]

One thing you might do is find out why MCCS dropped from thirty or so active cadets down to the number you have now. If the cause of that drop still exists you may recruit new cadets and have them drop out after a short time. It helps recruiting in middle schools if you have home school cadets that can go to the middle schools to put up posters (with the scholls permission) or set up recruiting tables. National can supply brochures that can be distributed at events such as in schools. While your squadron is a fairly long distance from where Group level activities are held in Tallahassee or Jacksonville, you might get with the Gainesville Squadron to set up a joint activity. A squadron without activities, quickly loses cadets. So you really have three problems. recruiting at schools and retention of the cadets you do get. Plus what caused the drop in membership in the past three years.

[DC]

Most of our current cadets are home-schooled (including myself), and getting a recruiting table together shouldn't be a problem. I think our retention problem is that our Cadet Program fell into a state of only fulfilling the minimum requirements, most of our cadets haven't been to a group activity (as you stated, we're on the southern edge of Group II, so activities help up north are difficult for some of us to get to) let alone an activity like Encampment, which is pretty sad since Camp Blanding is right in our backyard...

We are working on setting up recruiting booths at local schools, but I am not sure what message a middle school aged potential cadet is going to want to hear. I have had little success with the 'What are you interested in' approach that most people preach, most people just seem to shrug and walk off..