CT Promo opportunity: Cabela's "Scout Family Fun Fair" Sunday, 26 June

[The Log]

Attention CT crew!!

Cabela's is putting on a Boy Scout event this weekend, and CT Appleseed is using our open invitation to set up the booth and do some high-quality Seventh Stepping with the shooters (and voters) of tomorrow. From the Cabela's web site:

Please join Cabela's and the Hockanum River District of the Boy Scouts for a Scout Family Fun Fair Day. Cost: $5 for the whole day. There will be activities such as:

  •   Portable Climbing Wall
  •   Jaws of Life Demonstration
  •   Fire Department Rescue Demonstration
  •   Police Department Dog Demonstration
  •   Outfitter Equipment Demonstrations
  •   Racing Motorcycle Picture Opportunity
  •   Leave No Trace Demonstration
  •   Monkey Bridge Building Demonstration
  •   Fly Tying Demonstration
  •   Animal Track Identification
  •   Boat Safety Class
  •   Order of the Arrow Ceremonial Dance Team
  •   Lego™ Building Block Area
  •   Youth Games: Football Toss, Baseball Toss & More
  •   Face Painting Booth
  •   Temporary Tattoo Booth
  •   Fishing Derby
  •   Fly Rod Casting Training
  •   Moon Bounce
  •   BB Gun Shooting Demonstration
  •   Archery Shooting Demonstration
  •   Sling Shot Shooting Demonstration
  •   Food Vendors

FOOD, SNACKS, PRIZES AND MUCH MORE...

All that, plus your friendly CT Appleseed crew demonstrating how to build a steady prone position. It should be a good time, so be sure to come by and help out at the booth. Wear an Appleseed shirt, your Red or Orange (or Blue) Hat, and come prepared to sell Appleseed to the Scouts and their families.

The event is scheduled from 11 to 4. Not sure where we'll be, but the last time we were doing a promo there, we were upstairs near the elevator. Vernic82 will be bringing the booth banner and materials - and perhaps an M1? I'll try to bring my laptop and monitor for videos, plus an ammo can for collecting email addresses for a raffle.

As an extra incentive to drop by and work the booth, official vendors get Cabela's employee discount for the day. Can't pass that action up! And, as if that's not enough, we may get lucky and get a visit from the donut guy - fresh, hot cinnamon and sugar donuts. 

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[The Log]

That worked out pretty well, at least for the time I was there. V82 and Levi got the tent set up in the parking lot, and by the time I got there, V-man was gone and TOMINCT was manning the booth with Levi. I saw a lot of enthusiasm from passersby, we put a lot of trifolds in a lot of hands, we collected a lot of email addresses, and I had a lot of my contacts wanting to see the schedule and commenting on when they might be able to attend. I think we'll see a uptick in registrations from this, and I was only there until 1PM.

I had one "face-palm" moment - one of my contacts asked if we had put a stack of trifolds in the Waterbury Boy Scout shop. D'OH! I never thought of that!! I filled a plastic brochure holder with trifolds, stuck it in her hand, and gave her a stack of my business cards to boot. She works in the BS office, so she'll stock that location for us. I'll have to make a point to swing by and check it from time to time.

One do-better for next time - we need some sort of take-away schedules. We only had the one copy of the CT flyer, and people were copying down event dates on my cards. One guy even came back to the booth to snap a picture with his phone - we'll see him on the line for sure. But we should have to make our contacts go through calisthenics like that - just a stack of schedules, or inserts for all the trifolds. Even if we just print the schedule side of the insert.

Other than that, what I saw was a really successful Seventh Stepping venue. We made a lot of good quality contacts right before a busy (and under-registered (and under-staffed)) part of our schedule. Nicely done!

</log>

[CortJestir]

Well done, Dan, Tom, Levi and Fred!

How about a quick IAAR (for posterity's sake) in the new IAAR subforum specifically for these events:
http://appleseedinfo.org/smf/index.php?board=409.0

[TOMINCT]

 Things ran well at the BSA/Cabela's event. As stated by TL there was a lot of inquiries and interest. Mostly by the adults. By early afternoon things stared to wind down quickly, maybe due to heat and humidity.

Met up with a BSA honcho and we talked about what was required on their end to have a shoot. BSA standards. I have his info and will pass it to CortJestir soon.

For those of you that have a Cabela's store nearby, or other sporting goods/outdoors shop it could be worth checking into. This is the 3rd event we've been invited to this year by Diane, the events coordinator. It helps us and them.

When we canvas the attendees at forthcoming shoots we should see how many were at the BSA event.