Speak Up for Yourself

In the past week I’ve had two very different experiences that turned out unexpectedly well and I was pleasantly surprised, I also learned a little something about myself. So I thought I’d share them with you.

Getting Things I Want

I finally had a meeting about my end of season report, it’s a pretty extensive report and I always make a lot of recommendations in it that I think will improve our program.

Now, as I mentioned in my wish list post I think it’s important to make sure that you’re making others aware of what you want/ need for your program just in case they’re willing to give it to you but I never expect to get everything I ask for… at least, not right away.

So I went into my meeting thinking that I would get about half of the stuff I had highlighted as a priority, and I expected one of the recommendations to be greeted with a hard “no”.

This was something that would actually improve camper and staff experience, but would cost us a few bucks, and when your program has a tight budget, you expect anything that will cost a few bucks to be shot down pretty quickly.

The Path We Take… Roxy’s Story

One of the questions I get asked most often is “how do I become a camp director?”
There are also variations, like “how do I do what you do?”, “which degree is the best choice if I want to become a camp director?”, and my personal favourite “how do I, well… how do I become you?” (we laughed, and bonded, and now we’re pals!)
But there’s no easy answer to any of those questions. I tell people all the time that there’s no “right” degree to take to become a great camp director – while recreation management is the obvious choice and is usually at the top of my list if they NEED an answer… I always tell people that one of the beautiful things about camp is the unique backgrounds that everyone has, and the amazing diversity that brings to our programs.

SO, I decided to explore that concept a little further and reach out to some of the friends and colleagues that I respect the most in the camping industry and find out how THEY got to where they are… what their path was.

For our inaugural post in this series I chose a good friend of mine, and an AMAZING camp director Roxy Peterson. I met Roxy back in 2009 when we sat on a board together. He is one of the most passionate camping professionals I’ve ever met, and just a genuinely nice person.

Enjoy reading Roxy’s story and wonderful advice. I know I did!

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