How To Stop Making Assumptions

 

Here’s a fun game, here are three quick stories that have a common theme… see if you can figure out what it is. (Hint: it’s in the title of the blog post!!)

Last summer I had a conversation with my LIT (Leader In Training) Director that went a little something like this:

Me: Ok, so our numbers for the 4 week program are down, why don’t we start offering 1 or 2 week sessions as an option.

Him: Yeah, we had already talked about that being a possibility, so I went ahead and told them they could do that.

Me: Oh, well, ok.
Does some quick math (on a calculator obviously, because I can’t do much math in my head)
Me: Tell them they can pay x amount for one week, x amount for 2 weeks or the original x amount for the full 4 weeks.

Him: Well I already told them they could pay x amount for 1 & 2 weeks.

Me: Oh…why did you do that?

When will you get a “real” job?

Hey guys, before you read any further, did you know you can follow my blog with Bloglovin? Neat!

Ok, back to the topic at hand…

I recently attended a family event, which was great, it’s always nice to see extended family and catch up with them.

We ate, we laughed, we reminisced about embarrassing stories from my childhood… good times were had by all.

But then come the questions… you know, the ones about camp – the “when will you get a “real” job” questions and their variations, I’ve gotten really good at fielding these over the years but these ones were extra funny some how.

Here’s how these hilarious conversations went down…

What do you do the rest of the year?

“Well, it’s a full-time, year round job… so I do camp stuff!
Just like any small business, I create the budget, write reports, hire staff, recruit campers, etc.”

 

Can’t you get a promotion so that you don’t have to work at camp in the summer anymore? Does’t so-and-so work at your company? Can’t you get a job like his? He doesn’t have to work at camp.

Back to the Future (camp edition!)

Wednesday October 21st is “Back to the Future Day“.

If you haven’t seen the Back to the Future movies… I’m sorry. You should probably just go and watch them now. It’s ok, I’ll wait. Priorities people!!

Anyway, for anyone who’s been living under a rock or, *ahem* in the woods, for the last 30(ish) years – here’s why Back to the Future Day is important for camp folk.

In Back to the Future II, Marty McFly travels to the future from 1985 to do some stuff and some things in 2015 (and he arrives on, you guessed it, October 21st).

Now aside from the obvious AWESOME theme day potential (if anyone makes a Delorean for their theme, I’d like to see pictures please! And if you don’t know what I’m referring to, well… I told you to go watch the movie. I even waited!)

Anyway, the other really interesting thing about Back to the Future II are the “predictions” the creators made about what life would be like in 2015. (Interestingly enough, according to the movie’s Wikipedia page, Director Robert Zemeckis claims that they weren’t trying to make accurate predictions about the future, but just trying to make it funny.) Some of their predictions came true, like video chat, flat screen wall mounted tv’s, Florida now has a Major League Team (which wasn’t a thing in 1989 when the movie was released) and the Chicago Cubs are evidently doing well and could be headed to the World Series. (?) Go sports.
(There were lots of things that they unfortunately got wrong too… I’m yet to be able to purchase a hoverboard or flying car. COM’ON SCIENCE! Where are your priorities??)

So how is this relevant to camp you may ask?

Keeping Your Campers Hydrated

We hit a bit of a heat wave this summer.
Guys, it was HOT.

We’re always very aware of the need to keep our campers hydrated but this was a red alert situation, so we had to get creative. Here are two ways we made keeping our campers safe and healthy a little easier.

1. We got the campers involved.
   My camp’s brilliant assistant camp director, Donna McPherson came up with a great (and super cute) system for getting our campers involved in making sure they were getting enough H20. She created a template where each camper got to put a sticker on their glass each time they had a glass of water, and she called it a Water Log (so clever and cute!!).

   Now, I don’t know about you guys, but as soon as someone says “stickers” I’m in. (But, as we’ve already established I’m kind of a nerd, so maybe not everyone gets as excited about stickers as I do. Although I find that hard to believe.)

The Campers Come First Philosophy

“Campers Come First”
Said every camp staff ever.

Yes. Absolutely. 100%
You are correct, friend.

Except, do our staff really know what we mean when we say that?

A few years ago, I had just taken over a shiny new director job, facilitated training session, went over all of our policies, taught best practices… everything went great.

Or so I thought. (dun dun dunnn)