Recruitment and Retention of Officials

[Nakht]

I was nominated to be on a committee in my state about the recruitment and retention of sports officials for HS across all sports and levels. I am trying to connect with as many resources as I can to get ideas on how we can recruit new officials, and how we can keep them around. What I am hoping to get from the forum are ideas that you guys (and ladies) do in your area.

Some ideas I've had already:
1. Call the local college coaches to see who they cut this year. This gives the players a chance to stick around the game and make some money on the side.

2. I am a teacher at a high school and I have made an announcement in my classes about getting people to sign up. I got 4 juniors/seniors to sign up so far for my local HS association.

4. One group in our area buys ads on TV and the local radio. Said that actually got people to the first meeting.

3. I saw on Facebook that one state waives the signup fee for 1-3 year officials who are retired or active military.

I'm hoping there are some awesome ideas out there that our state hasn't tried that could help us with our dilemma. I know we aren't the only state going through it. Any help would be very much appreciated.

PS if you officiate another sport you may see a similar thread on another forum. I am trying to reach as many people as possible. I officiate basketball but I am trying to reach as many officials as possible through this site to maximize the number of officials who can offer ideas. I apologize If you have already read and replied.

[CMHCoachNRef]

We are working on a number of things in the State of Ohio including:
1. Recruiting players from the CPSL (the local amateur soccer league) -- many of the players are former college players and semi-professional players.
2. Recruiting current USSF referees to join the NFHS ranks (in soccer, most referees start by reffing club or recreational soccer with a different license from HS). We offer a "bridge" class (a shorter version of the normal NFHS class to allow the USSF referee to also referee HS.
3. We are reaching out to all HS soccer coaches as HS players can become NFHS referees (in Ohio, they can do sub-varsity games).
4. We are also attempting to work with current HS coaches to encourage them (and their players) to treat referees better (particularly the younger ones who are either dropping out or moving to college exclusively (college pays at least 2 to 6 times high school pay)).
5. We are also doing all of the items you mentioned in your post.