How to host a Raingutter Regatta (and how to make it a recruiting event)
Our two inflatable Raingutter Regatta tracks set up before the start of our event.
We hosted our first Raingutter Regatta as a Pack recently, and I wanted to share some notes and resources on planning and hosting the event.
We also decided that we needed a Spring recruiting and bring-a-friend event, and decided to use Raingutter Regatta as that event. So in addition to hosting our normal Pack families, we also put together some basic marketing materials for the event and made some effort to share that on social media and through our existing list of interested families. Since not all Packs will be using this as a recruiting event, I'll cover that separately in the Marketing & Recruiting sections below.
Table of Contents
Prep & Decisions
We were able to put together our event in about 45 days after deciding we wanted to host it as a recruiting event in January.
Prepping materials took a couple hours. Setup with 10 scouts and leaders was done in about 60-90 minutes, and the same with cleanup.
Since we hosted this as a recruiting event open to the public and couldn't easily guess turnout in advance compared to normal Pack events, we chose to host it from 10am to Noon. This time slot fits between breakfast and lunch hours well enough that we could serve breakfasty snack and drink options, but not have a bunch of leftover lunch or 10 boxes of pizza that we were stuck with afterwards. 2-4pm on a weekend or an evening weeknight event could both work well, too.
In the end most kids were engaged for 60-90 minutes, so we did not need a full 2 hour event. 90 minutes would be fine for future events, we were starting cleanup at that point.
Another large decision was what type of boats to do (kits, recycled materials, or foam noodles), which I'll talk more about in the next section.
Materials
Here are the materials we assembled for the event:
Boat Hulls: Pool Noodles
While these are not the most environmentally-friendly option, pool noodles are cheap and float well. We knew all kids would get similar experiences in the races with them, so they also worked well for the event we wanted to host that was open to the public.
I cut up 4 pool noodles into 6" lengths, then cut those in half. We ended up with 64 total noodle chunks. We have 20-30 active Pack members and siblings and expected 8-15 kids from the public so I thought that would be plenty, however the kids quickly started building catamarans and mega-multi-hulled boats and we ended up using almost every hull. I would recommend cutting up more hulls than you think you will need and setting them aside. You can save them for future years or pull them out if needed.
We ended up with the 2" wide pool noodles with hollow center. If you can find 3" thick hollow or solid core pool noodles, I would recommend paying a little extra for them. Or get both types, since one of the most common customizations our kids started doing was chopping and dicing and combining hulls with straws.
2" hollow, 3" hollow, and 2.75" solid noodles shown on Amazon. Notes below on prices.
The 2" hollow noodles: 40-pack regular tube noodles for $80. At 50β that makes 16x 6β hulls per noodle, so the box is 640 boat hulls, at cost of 11 cents per hull. While way more cost efficient, these are just really tippy and prevent the kids from making the bigger boats that they want. If you instructed all kids to build a catamaran style setup with 2 hulls that could make these way better.
π The 3" hollow noodles: 20-pack regular tube noodles for $68. At 50β that makes 16x 6β hulls per noodle, so the box is 320 boat hulls, at cost of 21 cents per hull. I think the wider base is worth it here for the stability and for the cost, you can still let kids use as many hulls as they like, and you'll probably have enough leftover to do next year's event, too.
The big noodles: 6-pack 2.75β solid core pool noodles for $48. At 60β that makes 20x 6β hulls per noodle, so the box is 120 boat hulls, at cost of 40 cents per hull. If you can find a better deal on these, or if you give every kid one main hull and then let them use the cheaper hulls for their βextrasβ or catamarans, then that might be more feasible. Given that the middle option is half the price and slightly wider at 3", I'd probably only do the wide solid-core ones if I found better prices than this example.
Alternative Boat Hulls: Kits & Recycled Materials
The wooden boat kits are similar to pinewood derby kits and look really cool, but require work outside of the event, so they wouldn't be a good fit for the type of recruiting event we wanted to host. Plus we already do those type of kits for pinewood derby in March, so we weren't looking to have families have to deal with two woodworking projects every year.
Recycled materials are also a popular option here and in retrospect, I would love to try them next year. We planning our Regatta event this year on roughly 45 days notice, so we elected not to try and gather all of these materials this time around, but I think it would be fairly easy to do so, especially if we asked everyone in the pack to bring 3-5 washed and dried types of materials from a list we give them to a meeting before the main regatta event.
Boat Masts & Connectors: Straws
I bought 100 compostable straws at our local grocery. Then I ended up ordering 100 more online and the second batch were significantly cooler looking, sturdier, and a much better choice for regatta purposes.
These are the straws we used that I recommend: Stripes Paper Straws, 7.75 Inch Bright Stripes Straw Paper 100. They come in red, navy, green, and black, and they cost $4-6 per box.
I would recommend that you buy one box of each color. This sounds like way too many straws, but our kids were coming up with crazy ways to integrate 3 pool noodles using 5 connector straws, AND the straws make it way easier to blow air to propel the boats, so you could easily end up going through 10 straws per kid.
Boat Sails: Index Cards
We used multicolored index cards as sails. With a regular sized hole punch, the cards fit perfectly on the straws above.
The upside to index cards is that they are cheap and plentiful and kids can easily decorate them with markers & colored pencils. The downside to them is that the second they get wet, they soak up a little water. However, most kids did not seem to mind.
Again, I was expecting our kids to use 1 or 2 index cards, but we found them building crazy structures with 3-6 index cards coming out in all directions. I think we had 200 cards on hand and used them all. This pack of 272 multi-color for $8 is basically what we had.
You could also have good luck with blank playing cards (eg 180 for $10) or another waxed paper which would hold up to the water better.
Tools: Safety Scissors, Screwdrivers, Hole Punches
With these materials the kids don't need a ton of tools. Kid safety scissors were enough for them to cut straws and index cards, some old Philips screwdrivers come in handy for poking holes in the foam when straws aren't strong enough, and a hole puncher helped them cut extra holes in the index cards for inserting the straws.
Art Supplies: Markers, Colored Pencils, Stickers
I found a bulk set of washable markers for ~$30 on Amazon that I was really happy with. There were tons of colors, kids weren't fighting over them since there were ~8 markers of each color, and they came in a nice box.
We also had colored pencils out on the tables along with some pre-printed boat coloring pages that ended up being popular both with parents as well as with younger and older siblings who either weren't building boats or who got tired of the main boats.
Race Supplies
Aside from the actual boat materials, the regatta track choice is the main supply needed.
Regatta track
Our council purchased the inflatable 10' regatta tracks, so we were lucky to have 2 of these available. Of the 2, one had been used once, and the other was new. The new one already had a slow leak in it, so heads up that the year you buy one of these is probably the year you start repairing one of these. I'm not sure what leak patches are out there but I can't imagine these will last 10 years for the Pack.
Classic plastic gutters are the alternative and frankly I think those would be fine. However the inflatable tracks do end up having maybe an 8" wide track and don't require you to build a base or add end caps.
Our Pack actually has these stored away deep in our Pack closet even though nobody remembers the last time they were used, but since we had the inflatable tracks, we elected not to pull them our for this first event.
Track & material tables
You might need two tables per track - the tracks are 8 or 10ft in length and can be squeezed onto a single table, but having two matching tables makes it easier to have a towel at the beginning and end.
Having 3 more of these tables for the materials station for building boats was necessary as well, aside from all of the normal seating space for families.
Tarp
If you host this indoors, you really have to have a tarp. We had a 5-gallon spill from one track, and the kids just end up dripping and occasionally splashing throughout the event.
In the church fellowship hall we used, it also had to be a clean tarp, not something with dead spiders and leaves on it, so we bought a 20x25 silver tarp from Amazon for ~$50 that was slightly big for our space but worked great. Next year we might also try getting some gaffer tape so that we can tape it down to the carpet but not leave residue.
Towels
I brought 6 large 'dog towels' that our family uses for our wet dog and spills and things. Another leader bought 3 large beach towels. We ended up using every one of them, as well as the mop and bucket from the church closet. You will absolutely need a bunch of towels.
Put them at the start and end of the track as well, and tell the kids to set their boat down on it to dry it off before they go running off with a boat that is dripping water.
The kids also take their wet boats back to the material station to keep building, so put some more towels over there to keep those tables dry.
Event Setup & Hosting
We started setup at 8am and were lucky to have a help from ~10 troop scouts and parents. Set up was done in about an hour so we had some extra time to mill about.
Once the regatta tracks were pumped up, they stay inflated well unless they have a leak. One of ours had a leak, and right as the event was about to start and I was starting to pump it up again, my younger son grabbed the edge of the track that was partially deflated and we had a ~5 gallon spill. So you'll definitely use all of the towels you bring, as well as the tarp underneath your track if you host the event indoors. This would be a great outdoor event if you can make it work, but indoors was fine with the tarp in place.
The materials station where the boats are built will create lots of little paper clips and things, so plan on vacuuming before you leave.
Marketing
Since this was a recruiting event, we put much more work into flyers, social media posts, and contacting prospective families that we would for the average pack event.
Interested Families
Probably our best list of people to invite is a spreadsheet of names we collected in the fall from a back-to-school event. This list had 20-30 names who expressed interest in Scouting, minus the 5 families who did sign up at our fall event.
Phone calls are certainly the best way to talk to these folks, but I am better at mass messaging, and so this time around we sent 1 email to every family on the list, and then 3 days prior to the event, I sent a text message to every family on the list.
This was the email template:
Hey there!
Cub Scout Pack XXXX is hosting a free Raingutter Regatta on Saturday, Jan 11th, and we wanted to invite you.
Kids will get to build their own pool noodle boats and race them, too (here's a great 10-sec video showing a race). All boat materials are provided, just show up and have fun.
The event is open to all kids (boys and girls) in grades K-5 in the {{city}} area. Feel free to forward this email to other families who might be interested.
We'll be in the fellowship hall at {{location name}} starting at 10am and running until noon. Breakfast-y snacks will be provided.
The attached flyer as well as our Facebook event page have more info.
Hope to see you there!
This was the SMS template:
π Hey there, this is Kane with Cub Scout Pack XXXX here in {{city}}. Iβm reaching out to invite you to our Raingutter Regatta event this Saturday Jan 11th, from 10am-Noon.
Kids will get to build their own pool noodle boats and race them. Event is open to all kids in grades K-5, and the Pack is providing all materials.
Iβm attaching a flyer here with more info, but happy to answer any questions you have. Hope to see you then!
Social Media Events
We created a single Facebook event owned by the Pack's Facebook Page. It had a paragraph of basic details, then the flyer was posted in the Discussion. I used a photo of a regatta from online in order to have something showing the actual activity kids would be doing, otherwise the name "Raingutter Regatta" was going to be too abtract to people I think.
Local Community Facebook Groups
With the Facebook event in hand, I posted once in each of the 4 major parenting and community Facebook Groups in our town. These range from 3k to 30k members. These earned 5-10 likes and some basic shares. The post looked like this, and it showed the main photo for the event page, which showed kids actively racing boats:
β΅οΈ Hi all, next weekend on Sat Jan 11th, Cub Scout Pack XXXX is hosting a free Raingutter Regatta (basically a pinewood derby but with boats).
Kids will get to build their own pool noodle boats and race them. The Pack is providing all the materials, and the event is open to all kids (girls & boys) in grades K-5.
Would love to see some new faces there!
{event link}
Our council also supported us with a few bucks in Facebook ads. We can reach every parent in our town for $10 so it's not a huge ask to do some basic post promotion here. It has to be restricted to your core area and you should usually filter to parents of kids in the 3-10 range depending on Facebook's filtering options. Grandparents and other grownups can also be good audiences to share the event, however, so it's OK to just run it to all adults in your area if that isn't hundreds of thousands of people.
Newspaper / Press
I reached out to our local paper and told them we'd be hosting a fun and photogenic event, and lo and behold, they came!
They asked if they could speak with a leader so I offered myself and our Cubmaster, and they also spoke with 1 or 2 scouts while their parents were there.
They also asked in advance for us to confirm photo & video were OK. A committee member in our Pack spoke with our Council rep who confirmed that press at events was fine without things like photo releases.
The paper in our town is fairly active and getting photos in there is a great way for us to remind everyone the Pack is active and fun. They confirmed they're always happy to come out to events, particularly when there is something interesting they can photograph. Pinewood derby, flag retirements, raingutter regatta, model rockets, etc would all make great events to invite them to.
Recruiting
Of course, once the marketing work is done, you're only halfway there. You actually have to talk to all of the families that visit, ask them about their interest in scouting, tell them more about the Pack and registration, invite them to the next meeting, etc.
Greeter / Welcomer / New Member role
This recruiting stuff is all much easier if you have a new member coordinator or another leader whose job is to walk around the event saying hi to families and directly asking them these questions. I'm going to call that person the Welcomer. If the cubmaster is busy MCing the event and races and the other leaders are busy helping scouts build boats, then this person has to be designated if they don't already know to do this.
For the first 20-30 minutes of the event, this same person can also act as an actual greeter at the door to welcome families, tell them where to put their stuff, and where the station to get started is. It's also a good role if you have troop level scouts volunteering.
Cubmaster / MC Callouts
Your Cubmaster can do a good job of welcoming everyone all at once, and later in the event, telling them a few things about scouts and what types of events we do and inviting them again to the next meeting. Everyone should leave with an idea of when the next meeting is if they want to get involved.
Our Cubmaster also did a good job of all of the normal stuff you'd expect at a Pack meeting like using the scout sign to quiet down the Pack before doing announcements and things like that. This event should run similar to a normal Pack event so all of your guests get 'the full experience'.
Join Scouting Booth & Handouts
We set up our normal Join Scouting booth that we would use at local events, which is easy as a thing to point to while the Welcomer is talking to families, and it's also one more display for grown-ups to look at while the kids are doing the activity. We had some paper applications there as well but were not expecting them to be filled out at the event, it's more of a reminder for people that we are a group they can sign up to be a part of, and a reference if your Welcomer needs it.
We also printed color copies of our Pack brochure and put one or two in the center of every table. It's an easy take home item for families, and for your Welcomer who is walking around from table to table, it's an easy thing to grab and show off when they're talking up the Pack and Scouting concepts.