New Year – New Site!

I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions, they’re usually negative and vague (stop eating junk food, watch less tv, etc.), and most people fail before the end of February (because of the negativity and vagueness I’d assume).

What I DO love is goal setting!!! It’s totally different from stinky ol’ resolutions, and the best part is, you can set goals, make changes, and shake things up any ol’ time! You don’t have to wait for a specific day of the year.

SO that’s why I’m so excited to announce that I’ve moved my website!!

(Thanks to Curt Jackson for actually doing all of the work of moving my website.. haha)

It’s been a goal of mine for a while and I’m so happy that it’s finally time!

I’m changing it up a bit, I’m still going to focus on things I wish I had known when I started and things I’m learning along the way (because I’m always learning!) but I’m going to try some other things as well, and I’m excited to have some more guest posts in the New Year.

So that’s the game plan! I’d love to hear suggestions of the type of things you’d like to see from me (or specific topics).

Everything is over at my new site http://www.thecampnerd.com already and I’ll be posting over there from now on. As of January 1st this page will no longer be available and will automatically redirect you to the new one – so update your bookmarks!

I’m so excited to see what 2018 brings!

Hit me up on social media and let me know what you’re excited about in 2018 and what you’d like to see from this little ol’ blog in its next phase. 🙂

 

Do Things that Scare You

Hey guys,

Happy September!!

I hope you’re all maxin’ and relaxin’ and starting to wind down from your busy summer season.

And if you’re still going strong with rentals, or outdoor-ed – YOU CAN DO IT! YOU’VE GOT THIS! YOU’RE ALMOST THERE! *CLAP, CLAP, CLAP*

(I just did a race… that sort of motivation helped me… lol)

Annnnnyway…

Speaking of my race. Let’s talk about things that scare us, and why we should do them.

Camp Sick

Ok, I’ve totally been feeling camp sick.

As you may or may not know, I resigned from my full time camp job in February (actually I resigned in Nov or Dec, but I finished working in February) and while I’m happy with my decision and SO excited about the new adventures I’m embarking on, I can’t help but miss camp at this time of year.

 

I was fine, I was looking forward, excited, not thinking about my former camp a whole lot… then they posted a photo during staff training.

Rules for Behaviour Modification

You guys, I know you know this, but it’s worth saying again… there are some seriously wonderful, brilliant, and generous camp folks out there.

One of them happens to be my “internet friend” Dave Hennessy.
Dave and I were chatting the other day, checking in with each other on how our goals and future plans are going and he mentioned one of his “DaveRules” during that conversation. I, of course, asked for more information and when he shared his set of rules with me I LOVED the concept and asked him to write something that I could share with you good folks in my little corner of the internet.

So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to my friend Dave, and offer him a huge thank you for sharing his rules for behaviour modification with us.

 

Women in Camping

When I first started as a counsellor I knew right away this was something I wanted to do forever. I couldn’t imagine a better gig and I was determined to figure out how to keep working in camping as a real life, grown up job.

This was my first summer at camp. This my friend Ashley and I dressed up in “fancy clothes” drinking Mocktails that we made with our adult campers for a patio party.

One of the first things I did was to begin actively paying attention to the people around me and the structure that was holding us all together.

Patchwork Marketplace

Hi camp friends,

If you follow me on social media you would have seen me post about this already, but I thought I’d share a little more info about it here. I am just so proud and excited about this project. And if you don’t follow me on social media, this will be brand new information! Exciting! Also, let’s be friends, all of my social media links are on the sidebar. –>

How Patchwork Marketplace Came To Be

Ok, so if you’ve been around these parts before you may have seen this post by Curt Jackson in my “Path” series. And also this post about how exciting it is to work with new people in blog land and in camping. Well, once Curt and I chatted a bit, wrote for each other’s blogs we decided that we wanted to work on another project together. We brainstormed a little bit, designed some (awesome) t-shirts, wrote a few fun quizzes and other posts but we were still looking for a bigger project to work on.

Then he mentioned that he always thought it would be neat to have a site similar to the ones available for teachers but for camp and recreation professionals.

Cue record scratch.

Hold the presses.

That’s freakin’ brilliant!

I said, “umm, YEAH!” so we put all of our resources into creating Patchwork Marketplace.

And I’m super excited about it.

Then we came up with the name Patchwork because it sort of encompassed all of the things we were trying to accomplish with the marketplace. There’s an explanation on the site, click here to read it.
(If you join our beta test, you can have access now. More about that at the bottom)

Collaboration friends, it’s where it’s at!

Sooo… What Is It We’re Doing?

Starting a New Camp

 

 

Raise your hand if you’ve ever daydreamed about starting your own camp…

MEEE TOO!!!!

(High five!)

 

So, since I’m a such big proponent of doing things that scare you, I resigned at my current camp and am setting out on a new adventure! (A new “path”, if you will…)

 

I’m going to start my own camp. I’m still in the early stages now, but I’ll be sure to post updates about where the journey takes me.

I’m terrified, I feel like I’ve jumped without a parachute… but I’m also exhilarated and excited. (And did I mention terrified?)

 

 

Are any of you camp owners? I’d love to hear from you, I’ve been connecting with people who’ve been down this road before and asking for advice – so reach out to me if you have some wisdom you’d like to impart.

 

AND

International Camp Director Course

 

From November 8th – 12th, 2016 I participated in the International Camp Director Course run by the International Camping Fellowship and It. Was. AWESOME!

The information we covered was pretty standard stuff you’d expect at a course like this, and I had at least one “ah-ha” moment in each workshop.

By far the best part was learning from the AMAZING facilitators and the sharing and discussion that happened organically around the room.

 

The Facilitators

The course was facilitated by Connie Coutellier, who is from the USA and is the ICDC coordinator, Jen Dundas, and Donna Wilkinson who are both Canadian camp professionals and all three of these women are an AMAZING wealth of knowledge!!!

I absolutely loved learning from them during our workshops, but I also really loved just chatting with them and “picking their brains” when we weren’t in workshops.

I’m gushing, I know. But they were just really wonderful, and I’m just so grateful that I got to know them.

 

The Facility

30 Themed Meeting Ideas

Ok, so a while ago I mentioned having theme meetings at camp in this post and another camp pro Dan Laubach pointed out to me that I’m a big weiner who never followed up with the list of themes I promised (ahem, ok maybe I’m paraphrasing *a little*, Dan was actually much more polite and kind in his request for a list of themes.)

Thanks Dan, for putting this back on my radar, it’s something I wanted to share.

Most of these are pretty ridiculous and came about out of weird things my staff were doing that summer or just sort of happened organically.

Before we get into the list, here are some tips.

1. If you’re going to do a silly or stupid theme meeting, make sure you don’t have to discuss anything too serious.

2. Be aware that if you do a theme, it might take a little longer to get through the meeting, because people are likely to burst into giggles every so often.

3. Most of my meetings used to be in the evening, so a lot of these themes make a lot more sense to do at night.

Masks

This one came about because a staff member really wanted to see someone wearing a funny mask, so we demanded that everyone put on a mask as they came in for meeting. No one asked any questions, they just went with it, it was silly and hilarious.

Things TKD would like

Sometimes we like to make it all about us… (TKD is the nickname for the assistant camp director and I) We left it open-ended, staff showed up dressed in a lot of plaid, toques, tie dye, and drinking coffee. All of these things were accurate.

Let’s be honest, there’s nothing funnier than impersonating your boss so the staff got a kick out of it. (Ok, if I’m being reaaaally honest, we were hoping they’d bring us food we liked… maybe next time we need to be more specific hahaha)

We Went Glamping!

We wanted to try something a little different this summer, so we invited friends & supporters of our camp to a “Glamping” weekend.

In case you’re not familiar with Glamping, here’s a definition:

Glamorous Camping; getting to experience the outdoors without giving up any of the amenities or comforts of home. In other words, fancy camping.

 

If you look up Glamping on Pinterest, you’ll likely just find a bunch of fancy yurts and fairy lights.
Well that wasn’t an option for us, and we also don’t have a resort style camp… and we weren’t about to go into major construction for this thing, so we worked with what we had and created an event that could be described as “slightly less campy camping”. Or “mildly fancy camping”. FUN!

 

We promoted it as a weekend for ladies 19+ (because we’re in Canada, and we were allowing alcohol) and we ended up with a small but great group of gals. It was a great first shot out of the gate.

Here’s a loose schedule of what we did.