NOTE: What works for us may not work for you, but it can serve as a guide that you can modify as ncessary.  Open house events are location & unit specific, so you have to tailor your event to your unit. We're not saying that this is the only way to do it, just one of the ways to do it.

Contact the mall for information on the next charity expo so we have a better idea of when in October to schedule our open house. The mall is still up in the air as to what weekend they will hold their charity expo and they claim they won't know for awhile.  Time to make our best guess and stick with it.  As mentioned in the Scheduling section above, we already know most of our constraints.  4 October is out, 11 October is out, 18 October is looking more and more like the date, placing us after the IG inspection and the mall recruiting.  At this point, we have over 80 days to plan and prepare for this event, and planning is the key. (A later check of the calendar reveals that starting the CBT cycle the week after the Open House on 25 October, and accounting for the holidays, will put the the CBT graduation right on same day as the January Open House.  Plans will start in October for the January Open House, since it is not dependent upon external events like the October event is.  We'll  plan for the January Open House and the Fall CBT cycle graduation on the same night and make a big deal out of it..)

Order recruiting materials from NHQ via the online ordering tool.  Emphasis is heavy on cadet materials since we already have a ton of senior materials.  Print a couple pages of Avery 5160 address labels with Open House-specific information for the brochures when they arrive.

Assign areas of responsibility to squadron staff members so they may begin working their assigned areas. 

• The PAO is responsible for media contacts.

• The Personnel Officer begins work on the new member packets. 

• The Deputy for Cadets and the Aerospace Officer are each responsible for the cadet programs and aerospace displays, respectively.

• The Commander is handling the main PowerPoint presentation (which, he remembers, needs a little tightening).

• The Cadet Commander is tasked with a small drill demo, along with a brief spiel in the middle of the presentation (something the the Explorers call a "call to join" in their open house membership events. Usually delivered by a ranking cadet.  Its a good selling point!)

• One of the squadron pilots gets handed the pilot display. He also is computer and simulator savvy, so he volunteers to setup a yoke & pedals to plug into the projector after the presentation.

• One of the Cadet Sponsor Members volunteers to bring some baked goods in, while the mother of two cadets offers to handle the liquid refreshments (punch and coffee).

PAO revises boiler-plate open house press release (this baby has been in use for 3-4 years now) to fit the dates.  Review and update the media contact listing.  We have an Excel spreadsheet listing each newspaper, radio station, TV station and other media contacts in the area with name, address, phone, fax, e-mail and web addresses.  E-mailed and faxed open house press release to all media outlets.

We begin compiling list of local government officials that we'd like to invite to our open house.  Starting with our town, we visit the city website and get all the information about the city councilors and the mayor.  The we expand our search to the surrounding towns and villages, as well as all the state senators and representatives from all of these areas.  When finished, we have a list of almost 50 people that we're going  to invite by letter.  These go into an Excel spreadsheet that contains first name, last name, title, district, address, city, state, zip, phone number and e-mail address for a later mail merge in MS Word. (We use Excel just because its a quick and dirty way to get the job done.  A full-featured database app like Access might be handy, but that takes time and effort. Anybody with Word & Excel can do this in a few minutes with almost no training.)

Finish the invitation letter (click here to download the letter) to the local government officials and perform a Word mail-merge to produce the letters and mailing labels.  Print, sign, fold, stuff and seal 48 envelopes. Whew. (in reality, that only takes about 20 minutes)

Fixed up the dates on the black & white 8.5 x 11 flyers and posters for cadets to hand out. Printed the first batch on golden rod paper.

Mail all 48 letters to the local government officials. Cross fingers and hope a few show up.

Gentleman from the local newspaper calls. He's doing a new TV show for the local cable-access channel on community events.  Wants to know if we'd like to be on it prior to our Open House.  Heck yes! :)  We hammer out a date the first week of October for a taping.

After a brief flap over domain names, the squadron website returns at a different URL. Fix all the flyers and posters to reflect new URL. Growl repeatedly. Reprint Avery 5160 labels for brochures reflecting new URL.

Met a newbie teacher from the local middle school who is teaching 6th grade. We get to talking about Civil Air Patrol (he knows a couple of our cadets).  He offers to take flyers and get them into the hands of the 7th graders at the middle school.  Dance a little jig after that one.

After talking to the teacher the day before, we suddenly realized that we were forgetting about the local school administrators, principals and guidance counselors who could be our greatest allies in getting recruits out of the schools.  Start by creating another Excel spreadsheet of all the principals, assistant principals, deans of students,  guidance counselors and superintendents of schools in the immediate area.  The list grows to over 70 names.  Begin writing a letter for this mail merge which touts the educational benefits of CAP.

Reprinted another batch of flyers for the cadets to distribute.  500 in all.  Passed out flyers at Commander's Call that evening to invite other units to our open house. (Not only are we interested in showing other CAP squadrons how we run our membership recruiting, but we also like to have as many people in uniform as possible to show some strength!)

Finish writing the letter to the school principals & administrators (click here to download the letter). Continue compiling names and addresses of school administrators.

The terrorist attacks of 11 September send a shockwave through the unit.  The battalion XO at the National Guard armory we meet at informs that we're going to be unable to access the armory due to the security considerations in the aftermath of the 11 September terrorist attacks.  Uh oh. The scramble begins to find a new meeting location.

Assembled a packet for each of the school administrators (some 35 or more!). Each packet gets the letter, the CAP Story pamphlet, the Plane & Pilot Magazine article, a couple cadet recruiting brochures, a couple teacher recruiting brochures, and one each of our three flyers for the upcoming open house.

Conducted the usual squadron meeting at Wing HQ instead of the Armory. Apart from discussion of 11 Sept events, cadets want to know whether or not we'll be back in the armory by 18 October for the unit open house.  Inform the cadets that 18 Oct is a go whether we're in the armory or not.

Packets for school administrators go into the mail today.  In all, about 35 packets went out, and in retrospect, that could have been reduced to one per school with multiple addressees. That would have reduced our mailing costs. Next time.

Coordinated with Lieutenant in charge of our refreshments. Between her and several parents, we'll have punch, cookies, brownies and a cake. Yum. Bring on the chow!

National Guard armory XO calls to say that it doesn't look like we can access the armory for our meeting on the 20th, either.  The near future is not looking bright for access, either. Time to step up the hunt for a new meeting location and to inform potential attendees that we're not going to be at the armory.

The local Elks Lodge offers the use of their basement until the end of November for unit meetings.  They have an upstairs hall we can use for formations or inclement weather drill if its not being used otherwise.  A little closer coordination secures the use of the hall for the Open House. Planning and coordination can resume in earnest.

Co-project officer contacts local rental establishment to find out about renting one of those two-sided flexible letter signs.  $30 for a week. He reserves the sign for the week prior to the open house.  The sign will be placed out in front of our Wing HQ, which is across the street from the Elks Lodge, to improve our visibility and advertise the open house. Begin making arrangements for a sign to go in front of the Armory redirecting visitors to the Elks Lodge for the open house.  Submit a notice to the local newspapers and radio stations revising the location and asking that all current announcements be altered to reflect our change in venue.

The recruiting opportunity in the mall is dead after the mall informs they have changed their "charity expo" into a "night-out shopping" event without the participation of local non-profits.  

Monthly unit bulletin for October runs a reminder that the Open House is on 18 October at the Elks Club instead of the Armory, and that recruiting efforts by members should be directed toward potential members attending that night.  Also, cadets are advised that the "wear your uniform to school" day in conjunction with the Open House is 15 October, the Monday before the activity.

Meet with the gentleman from the local cable station for a "pre-interview" leading up to the taping of the cable show. Arrange for our cadet commander and cadet deputy commander to be on the show, as well. 

Tape the TV show for later broadcast this evening. We hit the open house angle hard. Very hard.  30 minute show goes by in what seems like 15 minutes. If this brings even 10 potential members in we'll be doing well.

Pass out flyers for open house at Wing Conference (no, we're not bashful..)

Created a short e-mail alert for the invited guests (state senators & representatives, school administrators and counselors) to let them know that we're not going to be at the armory and directions to the Elks' Club hall.  Several lawmakers respond that they plan to attend. Unfortunately, the 18th is also a big city council meeting, so we probably cannot expect any city councilors.

Begin assembling the new member packets (see photos below). Each packet consists of a highly-modified ANG recruiting folder obtained from the local ANG unit, several of the CAP recruiting "four color glossies," a couple locally developed Q&A sheets, a bookstore order form with instructions, and an application packet consisting of a CAPF 12 or 15 with detailed instructions.

All told we assemble 50 packets. About 40 cadet and 10 senior.

Coordinate with the participants to confirm their assignments.  The ES-rated troopers will setup an ES display.  The deputy commander for cadets and some of the cadets will make arrangements for a CP-specific display.  The pilots plan to bring a computer-based flight simulator to setup and run.  Cadets are assigned to duties like door guard and greeter, while others are run thru a short drill routine by the first sergeant for demonstration purposes.

Finalize the schedule with the staff. We'll call the event to order just after 6:30 (civilians are notoriously late, right?), and after brief welcoming remarks by the commander, there will be a short graphic presentation, a drill demonstration and an opportunity to ask questions in the group setting. Then we'll let everybody walk around and "press the flesh" while munching cookies and drinking punch.  That's where the *real* recruiting happens.

Arrive at Wing HQ for orientation flights to find the flexible letter sign on the lawn pointing to the Elk's Club across the street. The sign is visible from a half-mile away. Looks pretty good, too.  

TV show that was taped on 2 October appears on local cable access channel.  It will be shown several times over the next three days.  Same day, a newspaper article about Civil Air Patrol appears in the local paper.   Several interested people call that evening.

Put the finishing touches on the PowerPoint presentation for the event.  Make some modifications to the presentation to reflect CAP's involvement in the events following September 11th.

Phone calls continue. Since the article in the paper, we've probably gotten 10 calls!  Up to this point, we've gotten about 35 phone calls relating to the open house since we started handing out flyers.  Based on that and other indications, we estimate that we might get as many as 100 people at the event.   I leave a message for my ANG liaison to get more folders for recruiting packets. The 50 we have may not be enough.

Change the flex-letter sign in the morning from "18 OCT" to "TONIGHT!"

Arrive at the hall about 1630 hrs for setup.  A couple cadets arrive a few minutes later and start setting up chairs for the guests.  We set up a large "theater-style" area for the presentation, and the ES, AE & CP displays are setup behind and to one side of that.  The refreshments are along the back wall.  Recruiting packets are held back until after the presentations so that they only go to the folks who are *really* interested. Other materials are available at each of the displays.

1800 hrs.  Folks start trickling in.  By 1815, its a full-blown flood. Yikes.  They're packing the place. Several members from other units arrive to bolster the blue-uniform presence.  Two of our cadets arrive in BDUs.  Someone always misses the message. 

1840 hrs. "Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I'd like to welcome you to the Concord Composite Squadron's Fall Open House and Recruiting Night...."