10 Quick Tips to Improve your Camp Staff Training - CampHacker #54

Make the most of your training this summer.

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes / Stitcher App (search for CampHacker)

BURPS. SQRT. Ignite. Pocket Counsellors.  Review Crew.

Pardon? 

I don't know about you, but sometimes thinking about staff training makes my back hurt. The long sessions on the lodge floor can sometimes seem like a daunting thing to not only sit through, but for directors, to plan out. You have 7, (sometimes even less) days to set your staff up for success and a lot of information to get across. However, no matter how daunting it can be, we know that pre-camp training has the potential to be a time of incredible growth for our staff. 

In this episode of the CampHacker Podcast, Travis and Gab talk about their best staff training ideas that you can easily implement into your training this summer!

What ways do you make your staff training extraordinary? Please feel free to comment below and keep the conversation going!

Your Hosts:

• Travis Allison, Summer Camp Consultant - CampHacker.org
  
• Gabrielle Raill, Camp Director - Camp Ouareau

Thanks for the evening, friends.

Great Nature Programs at Summer Camp - CampHacker #53

Curing Nature Deficit Disorder with Summer Camp

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes / Stitcher App (search for CampHacker)

What are your strongest memories of nature when you were a child?   For me it’s building forts and playing in the woods with my best friend (and now business partner) Trefor and his brother Chris.   

Some of my favourite moments growing up at Camp Kintail are also of playing in the woods but it wasn’t until I was a counsellor and we had a woman named Sue leading the nature program that I was blown away by what nature had to teach me.

In this week’s show Ruby (welcome back, Ruby!), Joe and I talk about our magical moments in nature at camp, what activities and programs we believe to be most effective and even how to incorporate nature as the setting for you summer camp staff training.

Resources for Nature Programs

Ruby was kind enough to send us that list of book resources that she loves. Please check them out!

• National Audubon Society Field Guide to Southeastern States - Great overview of all things natural in the southeast.

• Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide (broken down by season for when plants produce edible components)

• Fandex Family Field Guides: Trees (Really easy for the kids to compare the leaves, much of the information comes straight from the Audubon Field Guide for Trees.

• National Audubon Society Pocket Guide: Familiar Mushrooms (hands down, best mushroom field guide I have encountered as far as quality of pictures of info. not super extensive but packs a lot of punch for a pocket guide)

• National Audubon Society Pocket Guide Familiar Reptiles and Amphibians North America - (great info at the beginning about the parts of reptiles and amphibians, telling the difference between venomous and non-venomous snakes, great pictures).

• National Audubon Society Pocket Guide: Insects and Spiders (again not super extensive, but great photos and a condensed version of the larger Audubon Guide to Insects and Spiders--which is also awesome).

• Little Guides: Bugs ( I have written a whole bug class curriculum based on this book. Phenomenal!)

• The Backyard Birdsong Guide: Eastern and Central North America (includes an audio playback system so you can hear the calls--also has great interesting tidbits about the various birds listed).

• USA Today: The Weather Book (lots of great visuals and explanations of how weather works).

• The Cloudspotter's Guide (Just an overall fun read about clouds. This would be more for a nature instructor, less of a book that kids may be interested in).

• Wildflowers of Tennessee, the Ohio Valley and the Southern Appalachians (this is my all time favorite flower field guide. It is WONDERFUL. Great photos, incredible info. It's my first consult when I encounter a flower I don't know or want to know more about one I do know).

• Stokes Nature Guides: A Guide to Animal Tracking and Behavior (This field guide is a great one to read straight through. awesome info about animal behavior with some from tidbits you might not otherwise know).

• The Night Sky Revealed (Ratcliffe & Nix) (this has glow in the dark star charts. Great for those who don't have the fancy skywatch app but who want to learn constellations to old fashioned way).

• Glow in the Dark Constellations (Thompson & Chewning) (I carried this book on every night hike I ever took in case it was cloudy or I wasn't in a good position to see the stars, I could still show various constellations. I have also made my own glow in the dark constellation representations with construction paper and glow in the dark paint, which you can get at most craft stores).

• Coyote's Guide to Connecting with Nature (the bible of mentoring in nature).

Tool of the Week – Make yourself a better Camp Director

Travis: Net Promotor Score survey.   Need to include a “ask you child these questions about his/her camp experience” page BEFORE you send the survey

Joe: Ultra Light guitar case Fort

Ruby: Coyote’s Guide to Connecting with Nature

Harold:  Nature Oriented Activities - A Leader’s Guide

Your Hosts: 

• Travis Allison, Summer Camp Consultant - CampHacker.TV

• Joe Richards, Executive Director - Pearce Williams Christian Centre

• Ruby Compton, Summer Camp Program Director at Green River Preserve

Thanks for the evening, friends.

Changing Culture at Camp - CampHacker #52

Making culture changes with your staff and campers

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes| Stitcher App(search for CampHacker)

As a camp director one of the big career challenges in our job is changing the culture of our camps.     I know, as a first year director, there were more things that I wanted to change than I could ever do effectively in 2 months.  I had to prioritize.   For my first summer I just needed our staff to focus on keeping the campers safe.

Every year after that we worked to make our camp the best possible program we could.   The big change was when we first implemented Beth’s 4 S Test 

Paul and Joe have some great ideas from their many years of camp.  Each has their own stories of making change as big as the whole camp culture.

Have you made big culture changes at your camp? Please let us know how you made it work in the comments

Tool of the Week – Make yourself a better Camp Director

Travis: Swift Player for iOS
Joe: - Magic Plan - Floor Plan Creator
Paul: EDC (Every Day Carry) Blog

Your Hosts:

• Travis Allison, Summer Camp Consultant - CampHacker.org
• Joe Richards, Executive Director - Pearce Williams Christian Centre
• Paul Sheridan, Director - Four Winds, Westward Ho 

Thanks for the evening, friends.

Retaining Campers - CampHacker #51

Keeping campers is much easier than finding new ones

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Stitcher App  (search for CampHacker)

One of the great tricks of being a good camp director is finding ways to keep campers coming back year after year.

I have heard a number of directors, when I talked to them at conferences, who have said that they feel like they need to add something new and exciting to their program every year.   I know from my own experience that it was never the programs that I remembered each winter when I was at school but it was my counsellors and the other kids that I went to school with - many of whom are still friends today.

Dan, Joe, and Gab share great, easy to implement ideas from their very successful camps.

How to you make sure that as many campers as possible will return year after year?  Please leave us a comment!

Tool of the Week – Make yourself a better Camp Director

Travis: Strobist Ducktape Keyfob
Joe: Google Ad Words Grant
(US - http://www.google.com/grants/)  (Canada - http://www.google.ca/intl/en/grants/)
Dan: ACA’s 2013 Emerging Issues Results
Gab: Wireless speaker Bluetooth speaker - Philips Sound Shooter
 

Your Hosts:

• Travis Allison, Summer Camp Consultant - CampHacker.org
• Joe Richards, Executive Director - Pearce Williams Christian Centre
  
• Dan Weir, Director of Camping Services - Frost Valley YMCA
  
• Gabrielle Raill, Camp Director - Camp Ouareau

Thanks for the evening, friends.