Re-Charting a Unit

[Capt_Redfox30]

I am going to be re-charting a unit in my group, that was shut down about 10 years ago because of limited membership.  After looking at the various recruiting pages from the National RRO, I still have a few questions. 

What is the best method to get out into the community to get the word out.  The end result of this is to advertise an open house in a few months, I just wanted to know what are some other best practices that have worked for other units to either restart or get members in the door.

My thought was to just contact various civic groups, VFW, Legion, Elks, local aerospace clubs, rocketry, EAA, homeschooling organizations.  Should a presentation be done with all of those groups, or just send some basic information to them to hand out to there membership along with the open house details?

If possible a local media presence will be out there with newspapers, tv, radio to help spread the word.

Is that enough,or should a different approach be taken?

Any advice would be appreciative, thanks. 

[DakRadz]

In the organizations you want to inform that target cadet recruitment (homeschooling, maybe model rocketry, etc.), I personally think that actually doing a presentation or even 5 minutes of face time would be best. This allows you to answer enough questions to ensure parents know you aren't sending little Timmy to Lackland.

Having been confronted while in uniform for everything from "Thank you for your military service" to "How can you be in this kind of military" to other strange assumptions from the public, people really do assume the best and worst if they see even the flyer with uniforms. Those all happened while I was (mostly) a baby-faced 14-20yo cadet in NJROTC, AFJROTC, and CAP uniforms.
And parents can easily dismiss the program without a second chance if those opinions are not buffered with in-person knowledge exchange. I've answered all sorts of questions related to the same assumptions while doing recruitment drives as a cadet officer in all three programs.

The open house might be the better forum for a presentation or more in-depth info, but a Q&A session could increase the pool of attendees from that group.
YMMV, and plenty of others have far more experience in this field, so I reserve the right to defer to better ideas.

I don't know about recruiting adults yet, so I will leave that to the experts.

[etodd]

Having been confronted while in uniform .....

Which is why I like to talk to folks in street clothes. Start off casual and then let the photos show the folks in uniform.

(I'm not an official recruiter. Just a layman spreading the word.)