Mitch Man
12-11-2001, 11:49 PM
Was just wondering what other bands do to
recruit young students.
Is it word of mouth or maybe we depend too much
on our own internal networking system.
It would be nice to get a fresh group of 6 to 10 students every year.
What kind of recruitment drive works and what
is the normal number of new students that
sign on every year?
John
Kevin J. Auld
12-15-2001, 04:01 AM
Hi,
Interesting topic, as we are in the process of starting a new youth pipe band here in the Seattle area. It's not actually a "new" youth pipe band, we are merging two or three small learning groups into one.
Recruiting can be tough, but there are some "easy" and effective ways to go about it.
First we made up some flyers with a nice photo of some kids playing pipes at the top. Below that it had a little bit about our project, who is going to be running it, what nights of the week they will be meeting, and when the first meeting would be. Contact info was included, of course. We distributed these flyers to every school in the local school district. Every music director got one or two. We blanketed local churches, homeschool networks, libraries, youth groups, neighborhood newspapers, etc. Give a stack to each of your students and band members and tell them to stick one up or hand one out wherever they can.
Give it about two weeks turn-around time and you will start to be flooded with calls and emails. Make up a website, it doesnt have to be fancy, with basically the same info that is on the flyer. Send out a blanket email to everyone on your piping address list that is in your area telling them about the new group. You can take a look at the little site I built for our new group. www.shorelineyouthpipeband.org (http://www.shorelineyouthpipeband.org)
If you have a "signature" on your outgoing email, add the URL of your new info webpage and a little blurb about the new learning group to your email signature.
Get a few people together and come up with some more ideas. You will be surprised at how easy it is to find kids. There is no shortage of bored kids out there, believe me. They are all itching to do something fun, different, noisy, and creative. Go get em!
Good luck,