4 Things Summer Camps Should Buy By The Roll

Summer camp purchasing is a little tricky.  We’re constantly pushing the line of using our imaginations to stretch out our budgets while striving for a great, safe programme.

There are many things that it makes sense to buy in bulk (duh.) but here are a 4 things that I made sure to buy every summer by the roll. Duct tape you shouldn’t buy by the roll - buy it by the box.

1. 1/4” or 1/2” inch nylon rope. Great for creating clotheslines by cabins and tents (make sure you use eye hooks - knots around trees can damage the bark and weaken the tree, normal hooks can take out an eye during a wide game), yellow nylon rope can also help tying things down and keeping things secure.  Make sure you keep an old kitchen knife and a blow torch near the roll of rope to give you good, clean ends and prevent unravelling.   I heartly recommend mounting the rope roll inside the shop so that it doesn’t wander off and the site people can watch to know when to order more.

2. 1” webbing -  a different colour every year.  Any camp with an adventure program (everyone of us, right?) can find great uses for webbing.   We used it to create belay stations at Cairn (the Christian summer camp we used to direct) for the climbing wall and zipline, and cut it into 12’ lengths so that every cabin and unit had a introduction game bag that included araccoon circle (download a free pdf of raccoon circle games from the master - Dr. Jim Cain).  I also learned a great trick from taking my Wilderness First Responder at Outward Bound - every back should have a 3m (12’) length of webbing so that you have gear to make a stretchers and splints on trip.  Plus… more Raccoon Circle games!
3. Parachute cord (p-cord) - not white. Like both of the above p-cord can be used for many things: Creating bull-rings for adventure programming, as a lazy line for hauling belay lines up through shear-reduction devices, as a throw line for getting rope over a branch to hang your food away from bears on trip.
4. Shop Towels  - the blue paper towels that you can buy at a big box hardware store are much better for use in the shop then the brown rolls or even grocery store paper towels.   Recommending buying paper products gets my inner environmentalist screeching but with these you have a better product and that means you will use less.

What have you bought a lot of for camp that made a huge difference?

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Staff Recruiting Video - Kamp Kanukuk

An awesome summer camp staff recruiting video

Kanukuk Kamps did an amazing job of this staff recruiting video (something that they are great at consistently). It's catchy, it shows a camp where the staff is committed and it reveals how counselling at camp can be a wonderful experience.

Need a summer job that can really make a difference in the lives of America's kids and families? Look no further than Kids Across America, K-Kauai Kanakuk Family Kamp & Kanakuk Kamps in Missouri. See the fun and staff jobs available in this fun music video.

Are you using every moment of summer camp staff training?

​Fill Their Arsenals...for a successful summer camp staff training, make sure you use every moment of every day.  Here are a few examples:

#1  Time to Sing, Dance, and Play

• Plan to have a few moments between sessions to teach a new song or new game.  The change in pace will help your staff to refocus for your next session and will also allow them opportunities to learn new songs and activities they will use throughout the summer

#2  A Programme Fair

• Allow each staff member to visit each programme area you offer and have the person in charge of that area explain their expectations for the summer and share their creative ideas to make it the best summer ever
• You may want to do this in a rotation so that smaller groups can travel together and have more opportunities to ask questions or try some of the activities offered
• One of our most successful programme visitations was an evening we held inside the dining hall - each programme staff member had advance notice to prepare a display for our "Camp Fair" presenting their area, the activities and 'selling' counsellors and other staff members on their merits of their programme:

The Programme Staff members did an outstanding job creating display boards, pamphlets, and fun activities to get the other staff members excited for the summer.

We also asked the kitchen staff, maintenance and other support staff to prepare displays to talk about what they would be offering that summer.

The evening gave the senior staff a real pride in their programmes and the excitement in the air that evening in our dining hall was palpable.

#3  Reading Rainbow:

• At the beginning of each morning (after breakfast and duties and before the first session), allow 15 minutes of quiet reading time
• Have Staff assemble in the place where the 1st session will be held, sit in a circle, and read their manuals (this should be review as they would have received them ahead of time)
• At the end of Reading Rainbow, we allow questions on what they read that morning
• The peace and quiet is also a nice way to centre yourselves for the day's learning

#4  Roundtables:

• Make good use of returning staff members (no matter their role) by holding panel discussions during evening snack each night
• Ask certain members to sit on the panel each evening and allow counsellors to ask questions
• Some evenings, you can ask the questions if there are things you want to be sure are covered
• Later in the week, once the majority of your sessions have been covered, hold an Open Space:

Ask counsellors for topics that they feel they still need covered, narrow down the list and ask senior staff members to facilitate each topic. Allow the range of topics to be limitless - from backpocket games to discipline to behavioural concerns, to song harmonies - whatever the needs of your counsellors!  Counsellors may then spend the time going only to the discussions they feel they need to hear or may attend ones in which they feel they have something to contribute (we usually allow 90 minutes for this activity).

What other ways do you make sure that each camp moment is a Teachable one?

Ontario Camps Association website Redo

We got a lot accomplished today at the OCA office. Under Sol's guidance we did a bunch of Big Idea thinking about the online communication of the Association.

I have said before in this space that Sol (Camp Walden) is a great debater, he's also one of those talented facilitators that is gifted at reframing and refocusing a group.

Thanks also for all of the great conversation: Joe, Iain, Heather, Leon, Howie and Ehren.

Do It Right: Staff Training

Everything you do should be done right, right from the beginning. 

Summer camp staff training should be one of the most important things you do as a camp director.  Before you begin planning for staff training this year, take a step back and look at the bigger picture.  Take some time with other members of your leadership team and decide what your goals are for the summer.

Know Your Goals:

• Before staff training begins, sit down with your leadership team and determine your goals for camp and, specifically, for training (this is likely best done by everyone writing out their ideas on post-its and narrowing them down together to a handful of goals that cover all that's important to your camp)
• Try to clear your minds and not make assumptions about your training based on what's been done in past years
• Make sure you have a way to teach each of your goals (if not through a session (or sessions) then through an experiential activity)
• As you plan each activity (no matter how small), go back to your list of goals and make sure they jive
• Before training begins, make these goals visible (put them everywhere at camp - posters, stickers, whiteboards, on mirrors, etc.) so that all your staff members know WHY they are attending training
• If you have musical staff members, ask them to create a song about all the goals you have established (this will be a fun and effective way for staff members to remember your goals all summer long)

And remember...“Example is a language anyone can read”. So be sure that all your leadership team members are role modelling ALL your goals at ALL times.

Passing the Staff Torch at Summer Camp

One of the smartest and most meaningful traditions we ever began was that of the Alumni Letter.  Every night during Leadership Training in June, at the end of campfire, we would read a letter from a staff member who was with us the summer before (and usually for many years before that) and who was not able to work at camp with us that summer.

It looked like this...after a long day of training, the staff would sit on the floor in front of the fireplace (the mosquitoes are too vicious in June in Muskoka to have a campfire outside).  Travis and I would take our places on our story-telling bench in front of the fire.  I would pull from behind the bench a special box that always held the Alumni Letter of the evening. The staff would unconsciously move a little closer, eager to hear the words of wisdom and love.  We would read one letter each night, a letter that came from the hearts and souls of alumni we had asked to write them months before.

Some day in April, we would send out invitations to former staff members who would not be returning and ask them to write a letter to the staff of that year.  We asked them to share their favourite memories, their best advice, the words they longed to say about camp and the importance of the work we do.

We had no idea at the time just how important these letters would become not only to the current staff who would hear them but also to those who wrote them.  The authors took great care in the writing of their letters and often expressed to me how much work they put into them.  They understood the importance of the task when it became their turn to write one.

Each night, I would smile to myself as I was reading, listening to the staff members whisper, trying to guess the author before it was over (we never told them until the end of the letter).  There was laughter, there were often tears, and there was always the feeling that the alumni were with us, supporting us, helping to guide us, and passing us the torch.