Making Friends in Blog Land

Hi guys,

Do you know what’s nice about blogging? It’s a lot like camp.

People are supportive of each other, and there’s no feeling of competition (at least not in this little niche of camp blogging) we’re all working towards a common goal of inspiring, educating, and informing current and future camp folk. Because after all, it’s still all about the campers, right? And the more we share and collaborate, the better our individual programs will be.

So, on that topic (ok, all this was really just to get to that segue.. haha) I wanted to tell you that I wrote a guest blog post over at Summer Camp Programming about the Top 5 Reasons To Work At A Camp For People With Disabilities. 

Check it out! 🙂

And while you’re there,

Supporting your staff – Part 2 – Warm Fuzzies

Every camp has different ways of making their staff feel appreciated and of celebrating success. One of my favourite ways to do this is by giving Warm Fuzzies. Warm Fuzzies are encouraging little notes that you give each other as a pick me up or to say ‘job well done’.

Here are some ways to run a warm fuzzie program for your staff:

1. Write each staff person’s name on an envelope with the open end facing up. It can be any size envelope just as long as it has an open top.

I like: To use a manila envelope, make sure both ends are closed, then cut it down the middle – voila two warm fuzzie envelopes for the price of one!

2. Either decorate the envelopes for the staff as a ‘gift’ or have them decorate it themselves to personalize it.

I like: To decorate them for my staff, my ACD and I usually get together toward the end of training session and try to personalize the envelopes based on what we’ve learned about each person, music notes, polka dots, sports stuff, etc. (although I must admit, the photo below is all my ACD’s handiwork! I missed out this year)

Supporting your staff – Part 1- Take a break

Being a camp counsellor is an awesome job. It can be a hard, exhausting, emotionally and physically draining job – but man, it’s awesome! Camp counsellors are on duty 24 hours a day everyday while their campers are on site. They are expected to be patient, kind, understanding, fun, silly, full of energy, responsible, leaders, teachers, authority figures, role models, friends, confidants, and so much more – all at the same time. It’s a big job, and there are thousands of counsellors every summer who accomplish this and go above and beyond to give their campers an amazing summer. They are rock stars.

It’s up to the camp director and the leadership staff to make sure that camp counsellors are able to be rock stars for their campers.