#oneforallBB blog – Welcoming new leaders
Wednesday 19th October 2016The One for All campaign is about welcome new young people to BB, highlighting how BB supports its members, but also how we can attract more adult leaders. In this latest blog, Jamie McIntosh offers an insight into how the sections of 2nd Linlithgow went about recruiting.
“In May, 2nd Linlithgow had 12 leaders. By August, we’d recruited 15 new leaders. In three months, we’d more than doubled to 27 leaders! It’s difficult to recruit leaders, so I thought it would be good to share how we went about it…
1. Recognise a need. To satisfy adult: child safeguarding ratios, allow for emergencies, and to improve our programme, we needed more leaders.
2. Identify where you need help. We needed help in every Section!
3. Decide what you want from a volunteer. We wanted working age Christian helpers (some with the potential to become officers).
4. Decide where to look. You can recruit cold e.g. Freshers Fairs or advertise locally, but we felt we knew people who could help. Our new leaders are old Boys, parents of existing Boys and Church members.
5. Make the approach I made up a ‘hit list’ and e-mailed people individually! We said people would help for a year, with regular reviews. After 12 months, we would decide whether to continue.
6. Offer support: The volunteer recruitment area on the B.B. website (http://leaders.boys-brigade.org.uk/volunteerrecruitment.htm) is a good start.
Each new volunteer received
– an induction,
– a welcome pack,
– paired with a ‘buddy’ (experienced leader)
– check every couple of months to see how things were going
So, what’s happened? In just one month:
Stronger relationship with our Church. More people know what B.B. is all about. They see us as part of their programme of Christian education and as part of their community outreach.
We offer different activities. A new leader is a rugby coach.
Boys like the progression. Previously, we had to do group activities covering multiple years. With more leaders, we can divide up and do different activities depending on Boys’ ages.”
Learn more about the 2nd Linlithgow via the facebook page.
Get in touch with Jamie by emailing jamiemci@talk21.com
