The CampHacker Podcast

For those of us lucky enough to have (or have had) a full time job in summer camp, there are a few things that are consistent about our journey from camp counsellor to camp director. We had a great discussion on this show about our own stories of making the leap.        

Sometimes, as a camp staff member, you can see the worst side of parents. When they are stressed out and they think something could go wrong with their child they can have very intense reactions. Sometimes that reaction gets aimed at their camp director or their child’s counsellor. A big part of our discussion today centred around how to build a great relationship with camp parents. Some of the idea were for before a child even got to camp (Marty and Camp Chief Ouray have an amazing idea you should steal!), for your staff training period and for during the child’s time at camp.

        

Tiered Pricing is a model where camps (usually non-profits but we did discuss how this would work at a private camp) show two or three levels of pricing for each session. N.B.: this is not the usual "early bird" prices that camps use to entice their families to pay early and therefore help with the cash flow through out the winter. As we discussed in the show, Early Bird prices can still work. Usually camps come up with a 3 tier pricing structure based on some approximation of these calculations.​ Tier 1: Current Price (adjusted for inflation every year)​ Tier 3: (We'll come back to Tier 2 - honest) The true cost of running camp as if it was a for-profit business. Some of the factors in arriving at this price include: the cost of depreciation on all buildings and vehicles; the cost of maintaining the buildings and land in such away that their value grows at the rate of the local real estate market (I have heard that this means spending as much as 4% of the current value of the property and buildings PER YEAR in maintenance and capital projects); the cost of staff salary if they were being paid by a for-profit business; and the cost of operating without any grants or donations Once you have these numbers you can split the difference to come up with Tier 2.​        

Preventing Spread of Norwalk and Other Infections at Camp

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

I have often said that camp would be an amazing place for a public health researcher to take a look at the ways that diseases are spread throughout communities.   I have watched little things like pink eye or head lice (traumatic, but not life-threatening) run through camp in less than a day.

In this episode of the CampHacker Podcast Gab and I were thrilled to bring in Marty Ferguson from YMCA Camp Chief Ouray in Colorado.  Camp Chief Ouray has developed some very smart protocols to protect their camper and staff from diseases that can spread at camp.

We also had John MacDonald, my step-dad, who is a retired Health Inspector from Ontario, Canada.   John has had a long career in the public health field and was always a great resource to Beth and I.     

Thank you to both of them for being on the show! 

Download our Camp Kitchen Compliance Record

We hope you get lots from our discussion.   

If you have any questions about communicable diseases at camp please leave them in the comments below or send us a tweet to @CampHacker using the #CampPros hashtag.

 

Tool of the Week – Make yourself a better Camp Director

Travis: FocusatWill.com
Gab: Twitter for your desktop
Marty: Season of Life by Jeffery Marx
John: HACCP training 

Your Hosts:

• Travis Allison, Summer Camp Consultant - CampHacker.org
• Gabrielle Raill, Camp Director - Camp Ouareau
• Marty Ferguson, Director - Camp Chief Ouray (YMCA of the Rockies)
• John MacDonald, Retired Health Inspector

Thanks for the evening, friends.

        

I have often said that camp would be an amazing place for a public health researcher to take a look at the ways that diseases are spread throughout communities. I have watched little things like pink eye or head lice (traumatic, but not life-threatening) run through camp in less than a day. In this episode of the CampHacker Podcast Gab and I were thrilled to bring in Marty Ferguson from YMCA Camp Chief Ouray in Colorado. Camp Chief Ouray has developed some very smart protocols to protect their camper and staff from diseases that can spread at camp. We also had John MacDonald, my step-dad, who is a retired Health Inspector from Ontario, Canada. John has had a long career in the public health field and was always a great resource to Beth and I. We hope you get lots from our discussion.         

Find better staff than just those looking for a summer job

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

Getting great staff can be a VERY long process. As we said in this episode, sometimes it take a lifetime (10 years as a camper and a CIT/LIT program).  

Our most successful methods for finding camp staff:

• recommendations from current staff

• posing information with language schools with which you have a relationship (how Ouareau gets some great international staff

• asking staff who have not applied if they would consider it

• using camp staffing services

One thing that we all agreed on: just because a person was a good camper does not mean they will be a good staff member.  This seems to be most true for people who skipped the CIT/LIT program and took a couple of summers off.   Of course like any “rule” about people, we all have had some great exceptions to the rule.

Have you ever taught your staff who to look for?  This is what a Your-Camp-Name person acts like?  

Gab was kind enough to share with us the Ouareau Staff Information Package download it with this link: Ouareau's Staff Information Package

What do you do to recognize you staff when they send you good people?

 Please feel free to share your ideas in the comment section, below.

 

Tool of the Week – Make yourself a better Camp Director

Travis: ReadQuick app Joe: Batch Picture Resize app
Dan: Planetary Design French Press Mug
Gab: Custom animated logos for video

 

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.        

In this episode of the Podcast, Travis, Dan, Gab and Joe discuss their best practices when it comes to finding the best staff for your team!        

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.

 

        

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!        

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.