FARMHOUSE
QUESTIONS OF THE WEEK
(From recent Inside FH newsletters)
Recruitment
- "What can we do to recruit more ag majors? We are really good at recruiting except when it comes to the college of agriculture. It seems like we should dominate in this. I feel like we are overlooking a large pool of people. I was wondering if you had any great ideas or ideas on how to make a better start."
- "We will be having booths at various activities this summer (i.e. new student orientation, State FFA convention, State 4-H conference, etc.) What things should we keep in mind when we are working the booth?"
- "Our chapter has never done summer recruitment before. How do we go about it?"
QUESTION OF THE WEEK? --- What can we do to recruit more ag majors? We are really good at recruiting except when it comes to the college of agriculture. It seems like we should dominate in this. I feel like we are overlooking a large pool of people. I was wondering if you had any great ideas or ideas on how to make a better start."
We'd guess that even though you might not currently have many agriculture majors, the majority of your chapters' members come from rural or small town communities. They probably come from the same type of area as many of the ag students, but they have chosen different majors. Even if they have different majors, they still understand the environment that the ag students come from, which can be a plus for the chapter.
Here are some ideas for recruiting students majoring in agriculture:
- Figure out how you can obtain a list of incoming Ag students
- Obtain a list of the incoming Ag Scholarship winners
- Spend some time on the Ag school website. Learn about the different majors, honoraries, clubs and activities.
- Make plans to set up a booth at the state FFA and/or FH conventions. Maybe share the cost and workload with another chapter in your state or region (WKY and KY, IL and ILL State, WA and ID, TX Tech and TX A&M, etc.).
- Use the state FFA homepage to get a list of the top students along with which are the top chapters. Once you get a list of the top FFA chapters, you can contact their advisor for names.
- Set up a $500 scholarship through the State FFA program for students coming to your school.
- Talk to the different Ag clubs during the first few weeks of the semester.
(Send guys with rural backgrounds to the Ag Econ club, Redo club, NAMA, Ag Communication, etc.)
- Identify which classes have a large majority of freshman Ag students. Ask the professor if he would be willing to put an overhead up before class that has information about FarmHouse or ask if you can speak for 2-3 minutes at the end of the first class to talk about FH.
- Use our Recruitment posters, which are similar to our brochures, and put them up around the Ag School which information about the chapter and recruitment information.
- Talk to the academic advisors in the Ag school about who are the top incoming students
- If your campus has an Ag student council, talk to their president about any specific events that FarmHouse could set up a booth at, help with or even help sponsor a part of.
- Many Ag schools have Ag Ambassadors, which are the top students in each Ag major, who give tours to incoming students. Find out who their advisors are and schedule a time to meet with them and find out more about the top incoming students.
- E-mail your alumni, who were Ag majors, and asks them for ideas or names or people who you could talk to and/or solicit your alumni either via a letter about recruitment or phone calling over the summer.--- JG
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QUESTION OF THE WEEK? --- We will be having booths at various activities this summer (i.e. new student orientation, State FFA convention, State 4-H conference, etc.) What things should we keep in mind when we are working the booth?"
When working a booth at any orientation, open house, conference or convention you should have four goals:
1st - Promote FarmHouse
2nd - Collect names of prospects
3rd - Meet with individuals you have already had contact with (via mailings, phone calls, e-mail, etc.)
4th - Smile & Have Fun!
Since you are representing FarmHouse, make sure you are promoting the Fraternity in a positive light. Regardless of how many people you talk to or the number of names of prospects you collect, your attitude, behavior and appearance might be the only things some people see. Therefore, make the most of the opportunity.
If you have selected a specific event to have a booth at there must be the opportunity to meet prospects. One of the easiest ways to do this is to develop an information sheet that prospects who are interested in FarmHouse or you think would be a good fit, could fill out. This information sheet should ask for contact information (phone number, e-mail, address) along with high school GPA, activities, interests, awards, hobbies, etc. This will allow you to follow up with the prospect after the event.
Arrange a time to meet with prospects, who you have had previous contact with, at your booth. Creating "Face to Face Contact" is the fourth key to Randy Rodgers' (IL '66) "Keys to Success in Recruiting" and this is the perfect time. This opportunity will allow you to meet their parents or friends along with answering any additional questions they might have.
Finally, Smile & Have Fun! The best way to promote FarmHouse is to have a positive attitude and show people that you are enjoying your FarmHouse Experience. - JH
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QUESTION OF THE WEEK? --- "Our chapter has never done summer recruitment before. How do we go about it?"
RESPONSE --- Summer recruitment is very important for every FarmHouse chapter.
1. Gather names and information you have found as well as names alumni and parents have submitted.
· Break down the names into different criteria, location, GPA, age, etc…
· Look up the names on the internet to determine if the person was involved in sports or other organizations or whether the person was a valedictorian or in the National Honor Society.
· Search everything from Google to high school web sites.
· After researching the names, you may then be able to eliminate some of the names from the lists, creating a better targeted list.
2. Get alumni involved with recruitment
· Make sure to know the location of your alumni, actives and recruits; most of you already have a map depicting the location of your alumni, put the location of the actives and those you wish to recruit (once you know their locations).
· Ask alumni who may live near a recruit to visit the recruit and his parents.
· Have the alum talk about FarmHouse and what it can do for the recruit. There are some advantages to that approach.
1. First, the alum may know the recruit and his family, making communication easy.
2. Also, the alum may live very close, saving the chapter members from having to travel to that area thus cutting costs.
· If alumni are going to be asked to be involved, send them information that you want them to pass on to the recruits they will be talking to.
3. Take advantage of the strong connection the chapter has within the state FFA and 4-H
· Have a FarmHouse display at the conventions in the summer.
· While at the conventions, have fun and show enthusiasm to be there. If people see that you don’t want to be there, then why would they? Incorporate the FiSH Philosophy into your presence.
· Hand out information about FarmHouse and specific information about your chapter.
· At your display, have a drawing for a couple of FarmHouse sweatshirts. In order for the person to sign up they must fill out a slip that includes: name, address, phone number, e-mail, what university they plan to attend in the fall (if a senior) and any other information that the chapter feels fit to ask. At the end of the convention, give away the sweatshirts, but the pay off comes when the names are sorted through and the chapter has just found more names to add to the recruitment list.
4. Next, make contact with the recruits:
· Send the people on the list letters or a brochure to inform them of FarmHouse
· Arrange face-to-face visits with the recruit and a couple of chapter members.
· Make phone calls to the recruits, talk to them about college and FarmHouse.
· Also, make sure to contact the recruit’s parents; parents are a great way to recruit.
5. Invite the recruits to summer recruitment events.
· Make the events regional, giving the chapter the best opportunity to reach as many people as possible.
· Make sure to utilize the resources that chapter members and alumni may have, swimming pools, fishing, hiking, camping, boating, the list goes on.
· Utilizing the resources will often help, making the events relatively cheap in the end.
6. Everyone in the chapter must attend the summer event(s).
· Create stiff fines for those who do not attend.
· Design a system that would allow an active to attend two out of three events.
· If there is a low turnout of recruits, the actives can still have fun and enjoy the opportunity to see each other over the summer.
A successful summer recruitment is going to take planning, organization and the efforts of everyone in the chapter. If those things are put together, you can promise yourselves that there will be a bunch of young men that want to be part of FarmHouse next fall. Just remember to not get frustrated if events don’t produce like you hope. This will be your first try at a lot of recruitment methods, learn from the successes and failure. -TMN
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