When welcoming a new family to your pack or troop, nothing beats a personal phone call, email or text message from you.
But when welcoming tens of thousands of new Scouting families into our movement, a series of helpful and cheerful emails from the BSA comes in a close second.
Last year, the BSA launched its “Welcome Series” — a set of customized emails that serves as a friendly hello to Cub Scout volunteers and parents. This year, that series has been expanded to welcome families joining Scouts BSA, too.
Each thoughtfully considered email, sent automatically to new parents and volunteers, gives parents the right information and resources at the right time. It’s all designed to help families get the most out of Scouting.
The emails are sent to all newly joining families and volunteers, whether they registered online or offline.
So far, the numbers are encouraging. Nearly 60,000 people have received at least one of the welcome series emails in the past six months.
Let’s take a closer look at the Welcome Series — what it is, what it isn’t and what’s inside those emails the BSA is sending your pack or troop’s new families.
What it is — and isn’t
The email series is …
- intended to welcome new parents and volunteers once they register in the Cub Scouts or Scouts BSA program.
- a helpful source of some of the information parents will need to know to get started in a pack or troop.
- a place to build excitement about the program and reinforce a parent’s decision to sign up.
- designed to set the tone for future communication at both the national and council level.
The email series is not …
- intended to take the place of an email series sent by a local council. At a national level, the BSA can share general information about subjects like uniforms and handbooks but can’t share what makes Scouting unique in your community or information about local events, council camps or service opportunities.
- a replacement for the support you and your fellow volunteers provide to new families through personal interaction.
Welcome Series schedules
Here’s a look at the schedule of when each email gets sent to parents and volunteers.
Note: Though the schedule is current as of this writing, the BSA plans to continually monitor and improve the series to meet the needs of our parents and volunteers.
Note: The email about the Eagle Scout extension will only be a part of the series in 2019.
What if someone hasn’t received the emails?
If they’ve made sure the email wasn’t flagged as spam/junk, the next step is to have them update their email address in their My.Scouting.org account. Go to “My Dashboard” and then ‘My Profile.”
They won’t get the emails they missed, but they will stay in the know with all future emails from the BSA.
What do the emails look like?
Here’s what the templates look like. Each one gets automatically personalized with the Scout’s name and other information.
For Cub Scouts …
For Scouts BSA …
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