Camp Champions Blog

I have shared this story with parents and with counselors for years.  Last year, a former camper asked that I write it out for a leadership class he was working on.  When a parent also asked me about it, I decided to share it here,

Since my other blogs today are long, please allow just a short one to share two fun snippets.

Warning - this blog is a little serious and not particularly amusing.  It is a short piece I wrote for counselor orientation.  Each summer, we have one of the longest and most elaborate counselor training and orienation programs in the country.  We spend roughly two full weeks (of 16 hour days) to help our counselors learn about running programs that are safe (physically and emotionally), fun, and "educational."  To be clear, I do NOT use the "E" word (education) around campers or counselors.  I love education, but most young people do not associate it with fun.  We instead talk about growth, skill acquisition, and adventure in the context of outdoor education and creative play at summer camp.

(This is the third in 4 articles on the “Four R’s” that we stress at Camp Champions)

As you might have seen in a previous article, we focus on the “Four R”s:

Long before anyone took summer camps seriously as a growth opportunity for children, my grandmother told one of her friends, “The two best things I ever did for my child were summer camp and orthodontia”.  The years have proven her a wise woman.

(This is the second in 4 articles on the “Four R’s” that we stress at Camp Champions)

Each year, I am amused by a simple fact: our counselors crave trips to Wal-Mart and Sonic.  On their nights off, these trips become almost treasured experiences.  In their hometowns, they rarely frequent a Wal-Mart, but here, it is a thing.

Our Inner Battle

(This is the first in 4 articles on the “Four R’s” that we stress at Camp Champions)

We sent some of our campers home yesterday and we are ready for the final (and we hope absolute best) week of the summer.