"Bring along a friend"

[Prochnow]

Next month, as a recruitment drive the powers that be in our unit are going to ping certain members of our illustrious ship to "bring along a friend" in the hope they'll join.

I don't know about anyone else but, after I joined I went on an on about the RNR to anyone/thing with ears to the point of boring them senseless. I can quite honestly say they KNOW I’m in the RNR and have expressed zero interest in joining.

The RAF and Army advertise – the army even advertise the TA on TV – but the Navy seem to nothing. On more than one occasion, when telling someone about the RNR, they’d never heard of Naval Reservists.

My point is; instead of “press ganging†people who know about the RNR, why don’t they spend money on attracting to people who don’t know about the RNR.

Any views…???

 

[imom1406]

The Navy has always been the poor relation as far as Ad spend is concerned....and as usual are obviously trying to adopt a bargain basement approach....sadly typical !

 

[SILVER_FOX]

A lot of it has to do with plain old geography. Anyone who lives more than 50 miles from the coast knows bugger all about the RN and even less about the RNR. It would be good to see some TV coverage to promote this side of the senior service. It all comes down to cash though as the media need us to be doing something really crunchy like disaster relief or drug busting before they take a real interest.

SF

 

[FlagWagger]

A lot of it has to do with plain old geography. Anyone who lives more than 50 miles from the coast knows bugger all about the RN and even less about the RNR. It would be good to see some TV coverage to promote this side of the senior service. It all comes down to cash though as the media need us to be doing something really crunchy like disaster relief or drug busting before they take a real interest.

SF

There used to be, many years ago, a very effective billboard ad on the Birmingham middle-ring road within a hundred yards or so of HMS Forward (the previous one, not Tilton Rd). It read "The Royal Naval Reserve sweeps 85% of all mines in UK waters - the Reserve Forces, the truth is we need them". It was punchy, it contained a strong message about what we did and it was well sited - anecdotal evidence suggested that it was also responsible for getting people through the door and leaving the rest (i.e. keeping them) down to us.

I'd imagine that billboard posters of this nature are cheaper than TV and, with the right location and message, can probably increase the public's awareness of what we do and more importantly increase the interest levels. All we've got to do is ensure that they don't find RR and all these drips!

 

[wompingwillow]

The only place I've seen adverts for the RNR is the navy news, homeport ( families mag for royal navy) and the Sunday independent ( Gus local paper)

Talk about preaching to the converted

 

[mazza_magoo]

It's true, i've just come back from bupa, having a works medical. During the medical, bit of chit chat going on about hobbies etc, and the nurse doing the medical had no idea that there was an RN equivalent for the TA.

Never going to get people to join if they don't know we exist. Until a few years ago, a lot of people in the RN didn't know about thr RNR, (not sure about these days)so if that was the case, how can we expect the general public to know about us?

Come on your lordships, if you really are serious about recruiting people to the RN/RNR, speak to TB, and get him to puit his hand in browns pocket and pay for some decent regular advertising.

 

[percey99]

Surprisingly although HMS FORWARD is in BIRMINGHAM it has the finest bunch of Sea going people you could ask for , AND I am not at this unit now >>> But this is known throughout the RNR world

 

[dunkers]

Sounds like we are in the same unit Prochnow (or by coincidence, by unit is also running a "bring a friend" night next month).

It's probably aimed at the new entries or new JRs to get them to bring along a friend, since they are relatively new themselves and a) are probably enthusing about the RNR to their friends, being quite new and b) any friends that join will have friends in the unit already.

For the rest, though, it's probably pretty pointless. But the evening itself might be a bit of light relief. :lol:

 

[FlagWagger]

Surprisingly although HMS FORWARD is in BIRMINGHAM it has the finest bunch of Sea going people you could ask for
...

Well, Brum has more canals than Venice, and there's a big lake in Sutton Park so we're not totally devoid of water on which to practice.

 

[fullasternboth]

You mean my friends can join as well? For years the've been begging me to let them join, but I have always told them we only accept complete strangers. Get real.

How many RNR WO's and Officers in Senior Staff Positions and THIS is the best they can come up with!!

Perhaps we could appear on Blue Peter, Songs of Praise, The Chris Evans Radio show, ......Oh, that Idea has been used already.

On that train of thought, maybe TB would like something to do with his forthcoming spare time..... :twisted:

 

[GCYZ]

Why is it when we are asking people to commit to primarily weekends and evenings, we ask them to take time off work and go to AFCO during the working week?

 

[Welshbird]

A lot of it has to do with plain old geography. Anyone who lives more than 50 miles from the coast knows bugger all about the RN and even less about the RNR. It would be good to see some TV coverage to promote this side of the senior service. It all comes down to cash though as the media need us to be doing something really crunchy like disaster relief or drug busting before they take a real interest.

SF

well did you know that wherever you are in the British Isles you are never more than 74 miles from the sea