WOW Book!

Last winter I was creeping around on Pinterest and came across a staff motivation Pin by Emily Hansen over at Hanselor the Counselor. She had the brilliant idea of creating a “Wow Book” for staff to praise and motivate each other, then pass along.

I recreated her idea, and tried it out this summer with my camp team. It was a hit!
Here’s how it went and what I found out along the way.

I bought an inexpensive spiral notebook and wrote “WOW!” on the front. 

I wrote the instructions on the inside cover.

Then at a meeting I mentioned that the book might come around, told them where they could find the instructions and asked them to make sure they read them before using the book.

A quick healthy snack for busy days

Sometimes camp gets a little chaotic, am I right?

There have been times where I’ve missed more than one meal, and realize that I’ve not had nearly enough (or any) water that day.

Those days aren’t great on the ol’ Personal Care O’Meter (man, I wish that actually existed!! That would be a super fun tool to use)

Annnnyway…

On those days when I don’t have time to turn around and think let alone sit down and eat a meal, I will try to grab a smoothie that I can sip on the go.

I try to have a few ready to blend smoothie bags ready to go for my most hectic days.

Here’s how I make mine.

Step 1.

Assemble ingredients
I don’t use dairy so I have some alternatives here, but you do you, man.

Kale
Spinach
Bananas
Almond Fresh (dairy milk alternative)
So Delicious yogurt (dairy yogurt alternative)
Frozen mangos
Frozen mixed tropical fruit

When your best just isn’t good enough

Buckle up friends, I’m about to get really real…

Camp season 2015 has ended, and it was definitely one of the most challenging summers I’ve ever experienced. Pretty much everything that you can imagine could go wrong, did. From major registration system problems, to food orders not showing up, to camper issues, I had it all. Fortunately I had a really stellar team so we got through it all without the campers being any the wiser (and if I’m being honest the majority of the staff had no idea what issues I was dealing with ‘behind the scenes’.)

So I got back to the city on Saturday, and on Tuesday I popped in the office to stay hi and drop off some stuff before heading back to camp on Thursday to finish shutting down for the season.

My supervisor (the Executive Director of Programming for my organization – who manages her own program besides supporting me and my program) asked when I’d be back in the office next because we needed to chat about some stuff.
I didn’t like the sound of that, so I asked her if we could just talk now since I was already in her office.

(In hindsight, that was a really bad call, I was still so exhausted from the summer and not in a good place to be having any reflective, serious conversations)

She told me (in the nicest way possible, because she really is wonderful and one of my favourite humans) that there were some issues this summer that we needed to talk about, communication being the biggest one, and that our CEO had asked her to talk to me about it.

Cue record scratch sound.

Ulgh.