Our squadron is now down to 10 cadets and 3 SMs. Does anyone have any good open house ideas? The other cadet officer and myself are planning it. I'd like it to be as interesting as possible. There will be a slide show of pictures playing, boards about CAP, and several promotions (including myself). :-\
Talk about only the things your unit does, or is able to do in the very near future.
One key will be blanketing the appropriate area with flyers, community access TV and radio spots, maybe even consider
targeted internet ads.
Don't plan on putting on too much of a "show", instead, work to bring in as many people as you can, and plan
on actually talking to them in a way that is inviting and makes them want to join.
See if you can bring in people from group or wing to discuss larger-scope activities, and make sure everyone is knowledgeable
on the joining process and timeline, and prepared for the "second and third question".
As part of this, you should also have a real plan with what you will >do< with all these new people. Picture the
impact on the unit if say 10-15 people joined. They will need to be engaged day-1 or will not stick around.
It's everyone's job to bring in new members, and everyone should take that job seriously.
If every member can get 3-4 people to show up, and only one joins per member, that double the unit overnight.
What Eclipse said, especially the part about sticking to what it is that you do/will be doing in the near future. I've talked to members that said they were told about CD and balloon flights on their first night, neither of which are things my unit does. It's a disservice to the potential member to inflate your unit into something that it isn't.
I'd also recommend that you keep in mind that this is not a one-time fix. Open Houses and recruiting efforts need to be recurring and regular in order to be successful. We ran our first one in some time a couple of months ago, and plan to run another this coming Spring. Set up a time line that fits for your unit, and stick to it.
Also, don't expect your first Open House to be incredibly successful. We canvassed about 20 local schools and about the same amount of local businesses and libraries with fliers for the month leading up to our most recent recruiting event. We had Cadets talking about it for weeks, and encouraged them to invite friends, parents, siblings, etc. We also pushed AEM recruitment in schools by talking with teachers and gearing our fliers to promote that part of the SM program. We ended up having about 8 potential Cadets and 5 potential SMs show up. We had three Cadets join, and no SMs. The numbers weren't great, but we got our name out there with local schools and have started to build those relationships. We also got practice in how to run the Open House- what talks to give, how to present the unit, and how to effectively engage potential members. All of those skills are only going to get better the more you use them.
Quote from: 68w10 on December 11, 2013, 04:51:45 PM
I'd also recommend that you keep in mind that this is not a one-time fix. Open Houses and recruiting efforts need to be recurring and regular in order to be successful.
+10
With the size of you unit currently, you'll do much better keeping it low-key. Going all out on a huge shin-dig where not many people show up gives makes a worse impression. I'd go the route of giving everyone a "quota" of invitees that can commit to coming. If everyone ends up bringing 2 people, and a quarter of those join, you'll have some good momentum and the new people will keep your hands pretty full for a little bit. I encourage everyone to maximize their personal social media as well.
Search "pipeline recruiting" here on CT and you'll find some excellent ideas on open houses and other techiques.
Indeed, I had a nice reply all typed up and then lost it to the server fairies.
Open Houses do work. So does pipelining. Part of the success of an open house is based on critical mass, so it is important to remember that if it doesn't appear to work the first time, all is not lost and it is not an indictment of the concept. Its just that things start small.
My unit has been doing open houses and pipelining for 12 years now. We've had pretty steady membership numbers over the years (I sat down a year ago and ball-parked how many new cadets and seniors we'd brought thru our doors in that time. The number was astonishing!) and more importantly, we had pretty good retention of that membership.
Open House turn out is often a function of your current membership. You have 25 cadets & seniors? Yeah, don't expect 100 people showing up. You'll be happy to get 10. Or 8. And maybe 3-4 members out of that.
So you have 25 members and you might recruit 3 or 4... Next open house, you have 29 members and recruit 4 or 5. Now you've got 34. Following event you get 4 or 5, etc. It is about managing a slow growth to the unit, not wild influxes of people.
(for the record, our last open house netted us 12 new cadets and 2 adults. and that was a little "light")
An open house should be well communicated to your membership and your community. Don't expect one avenue to carry the freight. Flyers, newspaper, word of mouth, school recruiting, community calendars, etc. All these work together. (Flyers seem to be the most effective. Helps get a thing on the fridge at home where mom & dad can get it on their schedule)
When you hold your open house, setup 2-3 "displays" (aerospace, ES, maybe). Do a short formal (rehearsed!) powerpoint about CAP followed by a short Q&A, maybe present an award, and then do some mingle time after with your food table. This is where your "maximum effective range of recruiting" comes into play. Cadets talking to other teens, adults talking to parents, questions that folks wouldn't ask at the Q&A coming out, etc.
Don't emphasize things your unit doesn't do. If you're not into ES, then mention it, but then drive on. If you're not a big drill team unit, then mention that drill team exists, but don't dwell on it. If your unit has a killer color guard, have them post the colors, etc.
A note on pipelining: It works. People who have tried it and stick with it know that it works. We've done it for 12 years and it is definitely one of the success factors to retention. It requires the unit to stay the course, however, when it comes to actually doing it.
In our pipelining, we had the policy that you had to attend 3 meetings to join. So we had the open house (1), the BCT forming week (2) and the first week (3) and then we did our formal inprocessing night (CAPF 12 or 15 printed, mom & dad sign, checks, membership boards and BDU issue) If a potential cadet missed the open house but came on BCT week 0 we'd let that slide because their 3rd meeting would be inprocessing. Anybody showed up after BCT week 0 (forming week), we gave them the nickle tour, asked them for their contact information and told them we'd be in touch before the next open house.
In EVERY instance where a potential cadet showed up on the inprocessing night and wanted to join, and the commander said "Oh, thats fine, we'll let them join.." (ie. did not follow the policy) that cadet did not even make it thru Basic Cadet Training. Seriously. That requires people to say things like "Sorry, can't join now, but in the spring.." which seems highly counterintuitive. But I'm here to tell you: if a young man or woman comes back 3-4 months later to join, they're motivated to be in CAP and will often be there beyond their first year.
Darin Ninness's points are absolutely right on. When he talks about pipelining, if that makes you scratch your head, go look at the Cadet Great Start manual for an explanation.
Also, to expand on some things Darin said, the open house should be tied into a Curry program or basic cadet training or whatever you prefer to call it. I like Cadet Great Start because it starts with planning an open house, goes into the open house itself, then continues on with Curry training, and ends with cadet promotions and flying. I think it makes sense to see those multiple pieces as part of a larger system, especially a system built around pipelining. Just like he said you can't have one publicity channel pull the full weight, you can't have "just" an open house or "just" Curry training, you need multiple components to get cadets "off to a great start."
http://capmembers.com/cadet_programs/library/cadet_great_start.cfm (http://capmembers.com/cadet_programs/library/cadet_great_start.cfm)
PS: The Cadet Great Start manual is good but I wish they'd update it. It's 5 years old and a little dated but still workable.
Has anyone thought about (or done work they wouldn't mind discussing) modifying the Great Start program for Seniors? I know we have Level 1 training, but I wonder what we could take from Great Start that would be applicable to SMs.
From what I've looked at, the new Level I is a SM version of Great Start.