To grow a small squadron

[Cadet Mac]

Hello, I'm in a VERY small squadron, with officially 17 or 18 cadets and 16 senior members. However, 10 cadets are active, with 5 on staff, and fewer seniors. I have tried everything in my power to recruit cadets at my school, but one potential cadet's parents doesn't want him to join, and the other is of unknown status. As a result, I wish to give a presentation to my fellow cadets to encourage them to bring people to the squadron meetings. Any advice on recruiting tactics I may put into my presentation?

[coudano]

Worry less about your presentation,
and worry more about making your squadron meetings interesting and fun.
And worry more about having weekend activities frequently (once a month, or even more), and that those are interesting and fun.

If your squadron is active, and fun, you frankly won't NEED a bunch of presentations,
the program will attract the members itself.

[jimmydeanno]

In reality, you're about twice the size of the average CAP unit.  But I understand where you're coming from.  The key here is fixing your squadron's climate and programs before bringing new people in and focusing on external recruiting efforts.  You also have to remember that depending on the area you live, you may have reached the market saturation point and may only be able to grow slightly temporarily.

Part of putting recruiting into people's minds isn't just giving them a presentation, but talking about it regularly.  I used to make a joke that every week was "bring a friend to CAP week."  It helped, really.

[NIN]

Maximum effective range of "recruiting" is 1 meter (arm's length).  (face-to-face talking to distance)

Beyond that, its "advertising."

People need to see/hear "Civil Air Patrol" in the paper, on flyers, in school, on the radio, etc, over and over before they go "wait, what is that?"

Concentrating on the schools sounds like a dead end.  Build a web page, create a community event, sponsor something at the local air museum (if you have one), word of mouth, plan and run an open house, plan a T-flight cycle to train new cadets. As Dano suggested: Make it fun and they will beat a path to your door.

Put your event in the news paper's calendar. Get a press release out there every time a cadet gets promoted, etc.

1/2 of your cadets are "staff". Thats a high ratio for only having 10 active.  Put those 5 to _work_.

[Stonewall]

"Staff" is a funny word in CAP, among the cadet ranks anyway.  Recently I noticed a C/A1C standing out of formation and asked what she was doing.  Her reply?  "I'm on staff."  On staff?  "Yeah, (not yes, sir) I'm the cadet recruiting officer and the supply officer," she says.  There is a difference between additional duties and "being on staff".  You may be in 1st Element of Alpha Flight, but you can also have other duties as assigned.  Hey, Airman Tentpeg, you're the alternate supply box guy.  That doesn't mean you don a beret and stand in the back of the flight while the 2 remaining cadets not on staff stand in formation.

I've always had a "book them and they will come" sort of attitude on recruiting.  If you have a quality program in place, with a solid schedule of activities, with structured meetings and training, then people will be drawn to you. 

The only "recruiting" I ever did was more of an advertisement.  Roughly 3 times a year (sometimes 2, sometimes 4) we would put out an announcement that we were starting a new T-Flight.  Basically, this told people that there is limited time and if you want to join, you better join on [insert date here] or you'll have to wait 3 to 6 months.  Use posters, the community announcement section in the local paper, and even put flyers up on the community board at the library or grocery store.  You may only draw 5 to 10 perspective cadets, but if you only have 10 active and you add 5, well, you just increased your size by 50%.  You can't put one poster up, and you can't tell 2 people.  You MUST utilize redundant means of announcing your intent.

On the date that you announce, let's say February 28th, you put on your poster, in the newspaper, and on the flyers "JOIN THE ROUGHNECK CADET SQUADRON OF THE CIVIL AIR PATROL FOR A NEWCOMER ORIENTATION AT 7:30 PM, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 28TH AT THE MAIN CONFERENCE ROOM OF ACME OPERATIONS BUILDING, CHESTY PULLER MUNICIPAL AIRPORT." Or something similar to that.

This has to be planned.  You can't just decide to do this next week.  Plan it at least one month out and have a REAL PLAN for the orientation.  It's not a squadron event, it's a guest event.  Have the rest of the squadron actively engaged in something REAL, not just hanging around. The guests need to see what you guys do at regular meetings, not "Simon says drill offs".  It takes a single senior member and maybe 2 cadets to do this.  Have a cadet officer and senior NCO, as well as the deputy commander for cadets.   Have a short video of CAP, spend 15 minutes talking about the program and what your specific program has to offer and why it's SO COOL to be a part of.  Then, and I really like doing this, have a 4 man ground team set up in advance to demo a "FIND" or how to use an L'per to find an ELT.  Explain that airplanes have ELTs, and when they crash, we go looking for them, and this is what it sort of looks like.  No machetes or boonie caps.  Just make it look good and professional.

Finish with a Q&A, then say "ladies and gentlemen, I appreciate you taking the time to learn about our program.  In two weeks, March 14th, we'll be kicking off our next T-Flight, where new cadets spend 8 weeks (meetings) learning the basics of CAP before graduating as Airmen and joining the ranks of the rest of the cadets.  I hope to see all of you there.  During week 3, we'll offer applications for membership.  We want to make sure that YOU"RE SURE you want to join before we start the application process.  Again, thank you."

Recruiting Resources:  Click HERE

[Walkman]

Maximum effective range of "recruiting" is 1 meter (arm's length).  (face-to-face talking to distance)

Look at this poll I did a little while ago:
http://captalk.net/index.php?topic=16271.msg293766#msg293766

One quarter of the respondents listed personal invitation as the reason they checked things out. Echoing the earlier responses, first build an awesome program. On the cadet side of things, when there's always something cool going on, everyone in that cadet's world will hear about it one way or another.

"Dude, where were you Friday night?"
"I was setting up my tent for a weekend of search & rescue training with my Civil Air Patrol squadron. Spend the weekend finishing up my qualifications so I could go on a real mission sometime!"
"Really, that sounds seriously cool!"
"Yup!. You should come with me to the squadron next week."

Once you've got cool stuff going on and the unit is feeling good about itself, then you can really begin the recruiting process in earnest.

IMO, you'll have better retention if you bring in new people in groups as opposed to onesey-twosey. It's easier to keep people progressing in the beginning if there's a group and you'll begin to build some esprit d' corps.

It's also easier, IMO, for people to sometime overcome their fear of others when you give them a certain point to focus on. This is where Stonewall's advice comes in. Plan an open house event. Yes, do all the advertising and general media stuff, but give each squadron member a goal to bring X number of people. You'l harness a cool synergy with those elements aligning.

Do a search here for 'pipeline" recruiting. There's a ton of great advice from people that have had huge success in this way. 

[NIN]

Our archives are busted beyond belief, but here's a link to an article I did 12 YEARS AGO...

http://archive.cadetstuff.org/archives/000113.html#000113

[lordmonar]

Focus on your program.

If you are out doing things.....then it will generate interest.

Make sure you have  a stong new member program....CAP has one in the can (FAST START).

If you want to do a shot gun recruiting event.....find out where your target audiance lives and then do a recruitment drive.

Do color guard presentations at school, little leage games, etc.

Do community service projects....like cleaning up a road, lake shore or stream bed.....and get that out to the public as a new relase.

If you do any ES training get that out as a new release.

Facebook, web pages, twitter.......and then get those links out to all your school freinds.

Don't forget the the middle schools.....that's where the 12 year olds live.

[Cadet Mac]

Thanks for all of your advice. I'll be sure to notify my squadron's leadership to put in more interesting activities, and not just parking cars at a farm show. I'm still going to stick with my presentation, because I keep telling my fellow cadets to recruit and they're not listening to me.