Great report Wendy!
Thanks for getting this out.
See you Sunday!
Subject: 282 Social Media and Roundtable Update
Hello All,
Wow have we had a pretty busy summer so far! I want to start this update by thanking everyone for all the awesome pictures and videos from our outings etc. This last round of the pictures of the month we had multiple images selected from the Alaska outing as well as the last backpacking outing (way to go Mr. Willett and Dr. Saxman)!
These images we share help folks not only get a sense of what our Troop is like and about but also the positive impacts of Scouting and a positive social media presence.
Lots of new info so apologies for the length of this email ahead of time.
New this go around is we have a Troop Instagram account (thank you Duncan for helping set this up!). You can find it under the name Troop282otcbsa if you are on Instagram.
Our Facebook page continues to be a leader among the councils unit pages as far as followers, reach, and consistency which is great! This is in large part thanks to all our adult leaders and older Scouts submitting and sharing content. We still need more parents to share the post as this helps increase our reach in our area though.
Recruiting is a big message for this fall especially using Social Media, this is in large part due to the Springfield School district using Peachjar for coms to parents and no longer allowing print/paper flyers or posters due to budget constraints and environmental impacts. Eugene 4j school district will be following suit in the coming months as well they advised me. What does this mean for recruiting? Any groups that want to get info etc out to parents will need to use Peachjar to do so, it’s free to the schools but charges a fee to any groups wanting to use it so in our case it would be $20 a school per flyer. There is a discount code that National has secured for us until the end of this year. The other option is what is called geo-fencing, it’s using Facebook to essentially share an event to a certain demographic, it’s roughly a $1.00 a day depending on the filters you want and length of time etc. and has the event show up in the target demographics news feeds. National has done a pilot of this and saw a 7% increase in units on average that participated in this, the highest was in packs. Of course this is all reliant on the actual event being good with details about theme, location, and timing playing heavily into the results.
Links to more info: https://scoutingwire.org/add-facebook-geofencing-to-reach-more-families/
https://scoutingwire.org/where-is-the-best-location-for-a-joining-event-the-data-may-surprise-you/
And if we really want to break new ground we could be the first to do something like this: https://scoutingwire.org/utilizing-facebook-live-for-open-house-and-join-events/
This also brings up the point about our charter org and how many families we have that attend or are connected to our charter org. For example do we have Scouts that participate in Scouting Sunday at One Love? Do we work with One Love on any service projects? Our charter org should have a sense of what our unit is about and through our partnership be able to help promote our unit. Charter org reps are a part of the key 3 and should be encouraged to attend unit meetings, committee meetings and round tables. (BSA National 2019) Currently some families are under the impression that troop 182 is more connected to One Love then we are (due to some 182 parents attendance at church services and activities, as well as those parents social media post about these activities etc. ), many believed that our charter org was ECS and not One Love so there is some definite confusion out there about this partnership.
There is a fall kick off event at the end of this month that will share content etc. Every unit should be sending their committee chair, Scoutmaster, and recruitment coordinator/lead to this event. Info about the event is under the Greenwood closed group page events. Time and location: August 28th at 7pm at the Scout office
https://www.facebook.com/events/823103821425543/?ti=icl
National Jamboree 2021- leaders haven’t been selected yet, there are a few last interviews so we should hopefully hear something by the end of this month. That being said pre registration is open, I sent an email out about it to everyone and posted it to our closed page as well.
https://form.jotform.com/92094798782981
Roundtable- Fall will be bringing a slightly different look to our Roundtable. The first change folks will notice is it will be in a new location (on Norkenzie where the Cub Scout day camp has been held). The second is that it will be a Lane County Roundtable, Cascade and Greenwood districts combined. This will allow for a fresh set of presenters and topics as well as an increased opportunity for fellowship among our scouting community. The ask is that each unit have at least 3-5 Scouters in attendance for each Roundtable (with at least the Scoutmaster and/or committee chair at each one). Breakout sessions are being worked on and will be communicated ahead of time. Each unit may be asked to also take turns helping with certain breakouts as well as the flag ceremony and cracker barrels/Dutch oven demos and/or trainings.
Annual Planning: There is more focus around getting an annual calendar up by September, this allows for a more wholistic view of events and allows families to plan ahead for trainings and outings etc. In order for this to happen though I believe we would need to know or confirm our 2019-2020 PLC? Wasn’t sure if or when that would be discussed, our goal though at first should be to get at least 6 months out on the calendar for outings, trainings, service projects etc. This will also help us assign scouts and leaders to the district roundtables (first Thursday of every month).
Lastly our website page still needs to be updated. We had another parent reach out and advise there are old links on it as well as outdated info. This could impact recruiting as it may frustrate a new parent that isn’t familiar with our social media pages and is looking for contact info etc. It’s still Googles first result when someone searches Troop 282 Eugene Oregon (Facebook is the second result) and it has a screen that pops up saying the website is for current members only (does any current adults actually use this?). Most unit website are not for internal use but rather external info and promotions so this seems very strange to most. Here is the pop up that appears to anyone clicking on the website link:
Please let me know if you have any questions or need more info.
Thank you,
Wendy
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