Have you held your Fall “Join Scouting Night”? We have and it was a lot of fun. We held it at our normal meeting place because the elementary schools we normally recruit from had restrictions that prevented us from setting up inside due to the pandemic. We were only able to setup a trifold and hand out flyers. Only one of the schools let us have a person there, the other booth was unmanned. No activities were allowed as in years past. But, we worked with what we had and used these booths to publicize our “real” JSN the next week.
We were outside at Rockbridge UMC for our JSN, which is actually very well suited for a ScOUTING JSN. We setup a campsite complete with a tent, a campfire, and s’mores. Roasting marshmellos over a fire and making / eating s’mores was a big hit. Some of the kids didn’t like marshmellos but they still made s’mores for their mom or dad.
We had a STEM station too (Pack 170 is very big on STEM). The kids built catapults from rubber bands and craft sticks and they got to test them out too. We took the opportunity to teach them about Newton’s Laws of Motion. We also talked about how a catapult is a combination of lever and fulcrum.
Our third station was knot tying where Scouts and visitors had the opportunity to tie up one of our leaders using this long-time staple of Scouting. The idea was to teach them some basic knots and let them practice by tying up a leader. It was okay but was not a favorite.
Last was our information and registration station where parents were able to ask questions and get more information about the program. We had application forms, displays of past Pack activities, and a copy of the Pack calendar. It was a great night and 6 families signed up with our Pack.
S.T.E.M Fact
An object (like our catapult) at rest will remain at rest until a force acts on it.
S.T.E.M Fact
The rate of change in momentum is directly proportional to the force applied (the force you use to pull the catapult down is equivalent to the force it uses to project the load).
S.T.E.M Fact
When an object applies a force to another object, the second object applies an equal and opposite force on the first object.
S.T.E.M Fact
The arm of the catapult acts as a lever while the base is its fulcrum. The farther the end of the lever extends from the fulcrum, the easier it is to apply a larger force to the system.
To be fair, we have been recruiting all year long with limited success, or so we thought. We had a bicycle rodeo in the spring. A lot of families from the community showed up and we had 11 names on our contact list at the end of the event but no new Scouts. During the summer, we had monthly hike and fish summertime pack events that were open to the community. We gained 1 new Scout from that. Our Lego Derby summertime pack event was also open to the community. It was held at Cedar Park Nissan and was a smashing success, for fun, but no new sign ups.
It wasn’t until our fall JSN that we really learned how successful our previous events were. Most of our new families told us that they had been to one of our earlier events. The moral of this story is “Stick with it”! Adding just one new family to your unit IS a success.
