A New Member Coordinator is a recent addition to the set of adult positions to help units onboard new members into their units. Find out about this new position and how it can help grow your unit.
Show Notes:
- New Member Coordinator on Scouting Wire (Link)
- New Member Coordinator Q&A (PDF)
- New Member Coordinator Hats (ScoutShop)
Transcript:
A new member coordinator is a newly created BSA position to help cub and ScoutsBSA units onboard new members into their units.
There are lots of positions for volunteers to do, you might be asking yourself why you need a New Member Coordinator.
As someone who has done this job in the cub pack as Cubmaster, and continued to do it as a Scoutmaster, and now as an assistant Scoutmaster, I can tell you there are great benefits that you reap from having someone doing this task.
Nationally there is a great attrition to new people joining one the scouting programs, and while I was able to do this job successfully as the Cub and Scoutmaster, there are lots of things pulling for attention, and it’s easy to let the new folks get lost into the woodwork.
Looking from their perspective, it’s all-new. We wear different clothes, we has an air of a para-military group, we go outside and play in the dirt, and it looks like all the kids are huddled together in unintelligible groups.
Someone to walk through the scout and parent through this important time helps keep them engaged in the program, and let them understand the program and the expectations of everyone involved.
The role of the new member coordinator at the unit level is pretty straightforward, they share the benefits of scouting, coordinate unit recruitment, and guide the joining and welcoming processes.
It’s also suggested that Coordinators work as part of a team that collaborates to work with new members, develop get to know you guides, events, and materials to engage new members.
The position is a great introductory position to future leadership opportunities. It can make someone who is relatively new to your unit part of the team, getting someone who did not attend committee meeting, or even meetings, to come down and participate in an important way.
Being that the New Member Coordinator position comes with it’s own built in authority, as new people want to hear what they have to say, and will ask questions and be engaged, it’s an attractive position, without a lot of the downsides you see in other positions that need to deal with discipline, money, management.
This is why it’s a perfect position to recruit for, as and as you know, as people age out and move on, you look down your bench to have people fill vacant positions.
New Member Coordinators are encouraged to wear the newly designed Welcome as a pin, nametag, hat, vest, or shirt.
The position does not require a uniform, as the thinking is that families new to Scouting feel more comfortable when they are greeted by someone dressed more like them.
The materials available at the scout shop and scoutshop.org are admittedly kind of goofy.
My opinion as someone to integrate into the unit in the position would be to wear your pack or troop’s class b uniform, that a scouting t-shirt, with the welcome pin.
The only real requirement for a New Member Coordinator is enthusiasm, and a belief in the program. The coordinator needs to be able to answer some questions, but if your unit is in any sort of shape they have some of those answers written down.
Things like costs for the unit, costs for trips, what to buy and where to buy it are all questions every parent asks, so its not something totally unknown to all people in a unit.
The easy part is that you are not alone, if you have a team, you can pool your info, and you always have the adult leadership to answer any questions you may get asked.
But this is what works for us.
Take what you like and leave the rest, and as we say in Woodbadge, feedback is a gift, leave yours below in the comments, with the hope we can all learn together.
I’m Scoutmaster Dave, and this was a little on New Leader Coordinators.
