If your club hosts a show, shine a spotlight on your youth program. Here’s how!

• Kids’ Booth with Fun Activities. Have a vibrant kids’ booth prominently situated near the entrance to your show, not buried in a dark corner, with lots of fun activities like those outlined in the Menu of Kids' Show Activities by the California Federation of Mineralogical Societies (CFMS). (link at the bottom of this webpage)

• Youth Volunteers. When kids see other kids having fun, it’s infectious! Have kids from the club help in your Kids’ Booth so kids engage with kids. Encourage club kids to bring a friend and see if local schools sponsor community volunteer opportunities for students.

• Program Flyer. Have handouts highlighting your Youth Program readily available at your show and at any public event your club sponsors or participates in. It can be as simple as a black-and-white postcard or as fancy as a professionally printed 3-page fold-out, like the sample at the bottom of this webpage. In addition, there’s a sample handout for families to promote your club’s activities for kids.

• Log Sheet. Have a log sheet for interested parents to be contacted with further info. Capture names, email addresses, and phone numbers, and be sure someone follows up within a week of the show.

To let kids, their parents and teachers know about your program, go to where the kids are! One prime place? School! Whether public, private, or home-schooled, it’s where most kids spend a good chunk of each weekday.

• Classroom visits. If schools in your district allow it, provide a one-page flyer for distribution to teachers outlining talks your club can provide. Keep it brief, with bullets rather than dense paragraphs, and make sure talks are aligned with earth science curriculum requirements illustrating, for instance, the three rock types, uses of minerals, fossils and the geologic time scale, plate tectonics, etc.

• Club Show Teacher Station. Within the Welcome Booth at your club show, have a corner where you give certified teachers things like free packets of educational materials and/or rock and fossil specimens. Have a log asking for email addresses. A sample log you can print and use can be found below. This is the perfect opportunity to engage in one-on-one conversation.

• Science nights. Who are the primary science educators or coordinators in your school district/s? Connect with them to volunteer a club booth at any Science or STEM Nights with hands-on activities like mineral ID, magnetism, fluorescent minerals, fossil sifting or making fossil imprints in clay, etc.

• School festivals. Do schools in your district have things like Spring Festivals, Fall Carnivals, or Earth Day celebrations? See if they’ll welcome a booth from a nonprofit family- and kid-friendly community organization. If you attend once, you’ll find you’re usually invited back.

• Montessori schools have multi-age classes stocked with enrichment opportunities. Rather than stay at desks, children move around to build upon individual student choice. Teachers serve as guides, not lecturers or taskmasters.

• Home-Schooling Groups emphasize educational choice guided by basic curricular standards set by individual states. Parents often seek activity-based support from knowledgeable volunteers. Check with your school district for contacts and details of home-schooling within your community.

Parents who enroll kids in one youth program often enroll them in other programs offering enrichment opportunities.  To raise your visibility and to open the door to your club, provide services to other youth programs in your community.  Be sure any presentations or activities you provide are relevant and benefit their goals, for instance, helping a Scouting leader complete requirements for a geology merit badge.

• Scouting America (formerly Boy Scouts of America) offers merit badges that overlap with the AFMS/FRA Badge Program, e.g., Geology, Mining in Society, Geocaching, Metalwork, Collections, etc.

• Girl Scouts activities include badges that directly overlap with gem and mineral societies, for instance, girls can earn badges on topics like Geology Rocks, Geocacher, Fossil Hunter, or Jeweler.

• 4H isn’t just about livestock.  In most states youth choose from 30 projects:  art to wildlife; aerospace to wind power.  More than 20 states have 4-H Geology or Earth Science Projects. For more inforamtion contact your local USDA County Extension Office.

•  YMCA includes after-school and day-care programs and summer camps, which seek hands-on educational activities.

• Big Brothers Big Sisters of America is a mentoring network matching adult volunteers (“Bigs”) with children (“Littles”) for a relatively long term of at least 1.5 years to affect well-being via caring adult volunteer role models.

• Boys & Girls Clubs of America provide a safe place for at-risk children during after-school hours when parents aren’t yet home.  They welcome speakers who can provide engaging learning experiences and activities.

• The Salvation Army includes youth groups, such as Adventure Corps and Girl Guard programs that offer badges in earth science and nature topics while observing Christian standards. Some units also offer after-school programs and summer daycamps which encourage kids to investigate and develop. Outside speakers offering STEM-type programs are often needed. Contact your local Salvation Army center to find out how you can help in your area.

To find out more about these organizations, contact your local branch or office. Most are list in the phone and have a website or Facebook page.

The media environment in every community is different. If you have club members who have long handled publicity for your club show, work with them to learn what venues seem best from the following examples.

LOCAL MEDIA

• Newspapers. Regrettably, the town newspaper is vanishing in many communities. Where they exist, staffing has often been downsized. But lack of local reporters presents an opportunity in that these papers sometimes accept submissions sent as press releases. Consider writing up a story about your club’s youth program or a coming event. Keep it short, accompany it with an eye-catching photo, and include your club’s web address and social media links.

• Free community publications. Some communities have free weekly, biweekly, or monthly publications focusing on local events and activities. These are great places to publicize monthly meetings of your club and youth group and any special events like an annual show.

• Community calendars. These are usually found online and might be posted by any number of organizations: Chambers of Commerce, Main Street associations, community centers, tourism boards, parks and recreation departments, senior centers, service organizations (Rotary, Lions, Kiwanis, etc.). Check out possibilities within your community.

• Radio and television. It’s difficult to secure airtime, but local radio and TV stations do sometimes provide public service announcements and/or post event calendars on their websites.

LOCAL EVENTS & VENUES

• Community festivals. Does your community sponsor events where your club might secure booth space? Fourth of July street festivals, St. Patrick’s Day parades, Christmas walks, and similar venues are great for letting folks know about your club. Come with club flyers and other literature and examples of jewelry and lapidary wonders crafted by club members.

• County fairs. County fairs sometimes offer space within Hobbies or Arts & Crafts buildings where your club members might demo soft stone carving, beading, wire-wrapping, faceting, knapping, silver clay work, etc. See about enlisting youth from your club to demo and perhaps offer mini-lessons on beading or wire-wrapping for kids attending the fair. Have a supply of club flyers readily at hand and/or a QR code linking to your club website and social media.

• Art fairs. See about securing booth or table space for your club at any local arts-and-crafts fairs.

• Libraries. Most libraries have bulletin boards where local event announcements may be posted, and they sometimes have display cases in the lobby or main reading room. Check into reserving that display space for a little exhibit highlighting your club’s activities for kids.

Social media is a vital part of any marketing mix. To gain maximum value from it, first ask who in your club is most savvy with social media.  Enlist them to develop a holistic strategy that would tie together your traditional website, Facebook page, etc.  Approach this strategically so that all messaging is aligned, and all has a consistent look-and-feel.

Facebook and its affiliated Instagram seem to be the most popular social media options within the rock club community.  Open networks are a popular way to craft an easy-to-use social network to connect folks with like-minded interests.  Twitter was especially popular but since becoming X, it’s become increasing problematic, so some are turning to alternatives.  One quickly gaining popularity is Bluesky, which bill itself as “social media as it should be.”

Social media requires presenting your content a bit differently.  Rather than dense text-heavy content:

•  use an informal, conversational tone.

• surround text with “rich” media (truly arresting images, photos, videos).

• break text into snippets, bulleted lists, etc. (keep it brief; keep it visual) 

• pair content with questions to encourage feedback and maximize engagement.

Have a significant spot on your club website highlighting your youth program with lots of photos showing kids having fun.  (Before posting photos, secure parental permission.  Most clubs also omit names of kids or use only first names.)  Tag your social media to this site.

Because social media involves actively sharing and commenting on information as opposed to a static one-time posting in a newspaper or on a website, it’s much more time consuming, involving an on-going conversation and process that needs daily monitoring.  Thus, you need someone experienced and dedicated who will always be on-call to respond quickly.  Some clubs enlist 2 or even 3 “moderators” to keep tabs on activity occurring on the Facebook account so one person need not feel overwhelmed, particularly during times of high activity like a club show.