Pack 29's first recruitment event.

Just some of my patches from the last 25 years

Today Pack 29 had our first real recruitment event.  It was at the Canandaigua in Bloom festival, on Main Street and we expected a big turnout.  My wife and I had been working on crafts and games that would draw in kids hoping to set ourselves apart from all the other groups there.  My father and I showed up to the site and started setting up our area.  We had a 20'x10' canopy and a couple of tables.  From there we set up the portable Pine Wood Derby track we have.  I also displayed a Cub Scout and Boy Scout Uniform.  Finally we set up out paper airplane range, we made a launcher and a target for the planes.

My youth uniform and a Cub Scout Uniform we have

Now that we had everything set up it was time to wait for the kids to show up.  Unfortunately the crowds did not come, past events on Main Street have brought in huge crowds, but this one did not.  We did ask every kid no matter what age if they wanted to race Pine Wood Derby cars and that brought them in.  Most of the people we talked to are from out of town and already scouts, it is great to see but not too helpful for us.  We did reach out to some kids that are going into kindergarden and talked to their parents.  These people are interested and are now on our email list and are going to keep in touch.  I did talk to one parent that said he will sign his son up for the pack, but not until after summer soccer is over.  It is not a number but it is a start.

Don't mind my terrible job cutting

The portable track

While we did not recruit an entire pack full of kids we created interest for ourselves and created connections with parents.  Some other positives from this event, the local news paper is going to do an article about the rebirth of Pack 29 and we are being asked back to other events on for the City of Canandaigua since we had such a great presentation and had the most interesting area.  Also we have been given the contact information for a local youth group that has a lot of Cub Scout age boys.