Fantastic Focus Groups - CampHacker #119

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Stitcher

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Stitcher

Fantastic, frank, feedback from families and staff.

There are not many industries out there like ours…for many reasons!

One of the primary ones is the focus that we all share on relationship building. Whether it’s between campers, staff and campers, staff and staff or admin and staff, building cohesive and strong relationships may as well be the theme of every day at camp.

The relationships that our camps have with their families are unique and wonderful, too. Yes, families are our clients and any business out there can say, “We treat our clients as families”, but we know that when it comes to camp, we’re not just a service provider to those families, we’re partners in raising their children.

Part of that “partnership” is showing families that we value their opinion and perspective when it comes to working with your camp.

Now, hopefully, you’ve got some sort of feedback mechanism for your parents, (if you don’t, get in touch, we can help with that!). Surveys, calling families, soliciting online reviews are all good, but those can seem very surface level or even transactional. To up the level of trust, intentionality and intimacy with your families, it may be time to think about focus groups.

A focus group is one of the best ways to get the real and emotion-driven feedback that you could never get from a digital survey. As well, spending that face-time with some of your most valued families is one of the best ways to build trust in your camp. When you show your families that you want to truly understand their perspective, you show them that you are committed to them and their child.

Focus groups can also be a valuable tool to use with your staff. If you want to introduce change, brainstorm new program ideas or just see things from their perspective, a focus group can build trust and group buy-in among your team.

What should you ask in a focus group? Where should you do it? Who should you ask to attend? All great questions! To answer them, Travis, Dan and Gab are on the case! Tune in to hear about the strategies and intentions that you should think about when planning your next focus group.

What kinds of questions would you ask in a parent focus group? Let us know in the comments!

Tool of the Week – Make Yourself a Better Camp Director

Travis: Custom inside joke stickers (check out the Youtube video of this episode to see Seth’s!)

Dan: 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace

Gab: Getting your camp dog vertified as a therapy dog or emotional support animal. Parents will love it!

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Thanks to our sponsor!

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PS: Something special, for those of you who read to the end of the show notes:

Go Camp Pro’s “Find Your Karen” exercise - An essential guide for finding (and keeping) the exact, right families for your summer camp.

Supporting LGTBQ+ Campers and Families - CampHacker #118

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Stitcher

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Stitcher

We can go beyond just acceptance.

One of the things we all know to be true about camp is how much better of the world would be if EVERY child spent at least one week at camp.

With that in mind, it’s important that we are consistently looking at how we are best serving campers and families that may be under-represented in our camp communities.

Newsflash! Even though in the last 10 years we’ve begun to really talk about inclusion, there have been campers and families who have identified as LGTBQ+ for as long as the camp industry has been around! Furthermore, we can see that the world has begun to be intentional about welcoming and celebrating inclusion, and so has the camp industry.

That being said, it would be the understatement of the year to say that the world, and even camp, has a long way to go towards being a completely welcoming, safe and celebrating place for LGTBQ+ campers and families to truly be themselves.

We, as an industry have the chance to be an example of what it looks like to bring LGTBQ+ families and campers to the table and make our communities the type of place where they feel safe and welcome to call home. This is not necessarily an easy conversation. Some camps may be new to being outspokenly inclusive or maybe have never been made aware that they have a queer camper, staff or family and it can be hard to realize when we haven’t been doing well enough. Even still it’s a worthwhile conversation.

As a start to that conversation, we welcome a fantastic panel to the CampHacker Podcast to help Camp Directors begin to think about how they can best serve their campers, staff and families who may identify as LGTBQ+. Joe, Travis and Gab are joined by Emily McGranachan from Family Equality Council, Ross Murray from The Naming Project, Chris Hudson from Camp Highlight and Nick Teich from Camp Aranu'tiq and Harbor Camps.

We hope you find this show useful and thought-provoking.

We know this is just the beginning of this kind of conversation. How would you like to see us continue it? Let us know in the comments!

Tool of the Week – Make Yourself a Better Camp Director

Gab: Desk Standing Balanceboard - FluidStance

Chris: McDonalds to thank staff for their hard work

Joe: 20v Max Cordless Tool Set + Lots of batteries for them!

Emily: Made Good Bars

Nick: Amazon Wishlist

Ross: Prayer Squares (3x3 crochet squares! - Tune into this ep. to hear about this!)

Thanks to our sponsor!

Radtagz - Be and Be Known

Creating Your Own Support Network - CampHacker #117

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Stitcher

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Stitcher

Because you’re not in this alone.

It wouldn’t be the revelation of the century if we said that being a full-time Camp Pro can be incredibly lonely.

Most of us work in small (or solo) teams, we usually are the only person in our part of the hierarchy, we manage many people (and their emotions) and we work incredibly hard.

If we don’t think about building our support networks intentionally, camp can be an incredibly exhausting industry to be a part of the long term.

This time of year (if you’re reading this in November/December), is the perfect time to start building and cultivating your support network. To give you some inspiration and insurance that you’re not in this alone, we brought the whole gang! Gab, Travis, Dan and Joe are here to share their stories and tips all surrounding the topic of building a support network.

Tune in to this episode to hear about:

  • How to intentionally cultivate a support network both in and out of the camping industry

  • Building connections at camp conferences

  • Asking for help and collaboration opportunities with people in your network

  • Practical tips and tools for being staying mentally healthy and avoiding burnout

The post about How to Host Your Own Mastermind Group.

Are there any tools or systems that you love? Please share them in the comments section!

Tool of the Week – Make Yourself a Better Camp Director

Gab: Class Dojo

Travis: Umonzi Aluminum Phone Stand

Joe: Stihl Kombi Unit

Dan: White Fragility

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What Makes You Productive? - CampHacker #116

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Stitcher

Podcast: Subscribe in iTunes | Stitcher

Not just productive, but effective.

This is an episode for the off-season. It’s an episode that you may need when camp is quiet and you’re in the sweet spot where the summer is still fading and the next one is not yet coming.

As a camp director, your brain is the most important resource you have. It would be an understatement to say that there is a LOT of stuff that fills your brain. It would also be an understatement to say that a full-brain makes for a disorganized brain and a disorganized brain makes for a disorganized camp director.

Your years as a director can sometimes feel like a constant search for clarity, but what it comes down to is that you need a system to both get things out of your brain and into action effectively.

To help you get a system in place and a clear brain, Travis, Dan and Joe share some of their philosophies, ideas and systems that they use to keep their minds free to think, learn and be the best pros they can be.

Some systems and other things we talked about on this episode:

Getting Things Done by David Allen

When by Daniel Pink

The Eisenhauer Decision Matrix

The Productivity Planner and PDF Page

NVALT - Simplenote

TextExpander Snippets

Are there any tools or systems that you love? Please share them in the comments section!

Tool of the Week – Make Yourself a Better Camp Director

Travis: Rode VideoMicro 

Joe: Tickler File - create your own:

Dan: “The Five Most Important Questions” by Peter Drucker.

Your Hosts:

Rate and Review the CampHacker Show in iTunes 

(Thank you!)