Recruitment Rocks

This is the latest in a long line of recruitment attempts - my husband and I wandered around the local park at the weekend hiding them in time for the half term holiday, and followed up with a village FB post asking the finders to post a photo. The unit is not financially viable, and despite running the new programme with lots of girl led guiding choice, a Mamma Mia themed sleep-over (the girls choice, not ours) and outdoor Adventure planned for this term, numbers are not increasing. 

Write up of our Adventures, Brownies own stories as part of the old Writers badge, and fun photos in the village magazine & website have been received positively by villagers and brownies alike; who enjoy reading about their exploits in class they tell me!

We've tried Bring a Friend Parties (the 2nd one we stipulated the friend couldn't already be a brownie from another unit), we held a Royal Street Party, and have added the new programme flyer and welcome letter for every girls book bag in 2 local schools. We had a press release in the local newspaper, taken Splat the Rat to the Annual local Duck Race 2 years running. We have run a Guess the brownie bear's birthday competition. Toured round all the local pubs, butchers, hairdresser, shops, Post Office and even Local Show Homes with the official recruitment posters. We've challenged the brownies to each tell a friend about something they have done at brownies, and bribed them with the reward of a SW Region Recruitment Badge if they can bring a new brownie. 

What ever we try we are in a village location and no matter what we do we have 15 brownie units within a 3 mile radius and at least 2 locally flourishing dance schools. The model of Girl Guiding has to change if we are to survive. I have proposed joining units locally, but I sense a reticence to change! In Munich we ran 1 Saturday a month, and it was amazing what you could achieve in 4 hours on a Saturday morning as long as there was a snack of some sort, but I sense this would be a step too far locally!

I've been using my recent enforced time at home to do some scrap-booking, being careful not to break any GDPR rules of course, as I can't remember many of the girls names from 34 years ago! I was struck by the number of photos with a full unit of 24 brownies (and some of those girls will now be in their 40's) but also a few, whose names I can remember have gone on to do amazing things with wonderful careers. I'm wondering how I can harness that for a local recruitment drive!