Archives For Summer Camp

My Summer Camp Secrets

July 12, 2011 — 1 Comment

I’ve spoken about our experiences at Dry Gulch USA earlier this week, and I hope you’ll take the time to visit that post and see my thoughts on what is really a stellar Summer Camp.  In this post I would like to share many of my Summer Camp secrets from many  years of leading kids and volunteers to Summer Camp.

  • Google Voice -> This is a great tool for Summer Camp.  You can setup one local number that will ring through to as many numbers as you want.  It’s a cool way to avoid giving out 10 emergency numbers, and at the same time have 10 different people on your emergency contact list.
  • Directions -> I always give parents the physical location of where we will be.  Even though I know that parents will most likely not be making the 9 hour drive to our Summer Camp destination, it comforts them when I show them on a map where we will be with their children all week.
  • Online Updates -> I’m not sure how I ever avoided doing this in the past, but for the past few years I’ve posted nightly updates of our days activities and photos.  I avoid video’s because they take too long, and when I talk to parents they dont’ want the videos; they want to see their kids!  So I update about 100-150 pictures each night, with minimal editing, and then throw them into a Picasa slideshow that I embed on our Parents Blog.
  • Facebook -> I also make all our camp adult sponsors administrators on our Facebook Page, and ask that they periodically update the page with pictures and updates.
  • Make it Personal -> I send occasional individual image text of kids to their parents, thanking them for allowing us to spend a week with their kids.  This year, I posted a ton of individual images on parents Facebook pages thanking them for sending their kids, and bragging on what great kids they have.
  • Parents Blog -> I put all these updates on our normal church Parent’s Blog, so that after camp I still have 50+ families familiar with the online presence.  I encourage email subscriptions to the blog, and this helps us add to our list for the rest of the  year.
  • Do What I Say I’ll Do -> The policies on our camp packet are things we actually enforce.  If you register for camp with us, you will have paid 100% of your money and turned in 100% of your paperwork weeks prior to us leaving.  If I have a parent that will not return phone calls, won’t pay in full, or refuses to take ownership of meeting our deadlines; then I drop that kid from our camp roster.
  • Leave When I Say I’ll Leave -> If the bus pulls out at 8:00am, and I’ve told parents for weeks that it leaves at 8:00am…then we leave at 8:00am.  This year we actually left two kids that didn’t wake up in time.  Their mother drove them the 9 hours and met us within an hour of arriving at camp.  Amazingly, the mother wasn’t upset me.  She knew I’d keep my word, and I did.
  • Much, Much, Much More -> I have many more little things I do each year, but for the sake of time and words…I’ll end here!  For more then take me to lunch sometime, and buy me a hamburger and I’ll share more!
Calling all Summer Camp Professionals…what are your secrets?  Any travel tips for making it in a bus with 100 kids to Summer Camp?  Let’s here it in the comment section!
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Summer Camp Experiences 2011

July 11, 2011 — 2 Comments

I’m a big believer in creating experiences outside of our weekend environments for kids (and teenagers) to connect with God, and for those of us in children’s (and student) ministry there is not greater connection place to do this than Summer Camp.  Think about it, you’re away from the normal; and kids are thrust into a new unique environment where they are encouraged daily to be introspective about their own faith.  At Summer Camp you can spend 4 and 5 days talking about variations of the same thing, and do it in a safe, fun, friendly environment.

I have many friends that love to plan every detail of their Summer Camp Experience, from the location, to volunteers, to food menus, to chapel services, to swim schedules…but I am not one of those people.  At Trinity Lubbock I did not inherit a system where planning summer camp was built-in, and instead the Summer Camp Experience has been delegated out to more capable leaders.  I’m sure I could be the person that plans 100% of Summer Camp some day, but for now we’ve chosen a different way to do Summer Camp at Trinity Lubbock.

Enter the greatest Christian Summer Camp destination in the entire world: Dry Gulch U.S.A.

I’ve spent the past 5 summers in Adair, OK at Dry Gulch; and it has continued and continued to get better and better every year.  The team at COTM has taken over all chapel services and programming, and they really bring a level of excellence that exceeds any Summer Camp I’ve ever been a part of.  It’s traditional in that there are lake activities, swimming pools, and horse riding; and it’s untraditional in that it has large arcade rooms, really good camp food, excellent playground equipment, state-of-the art theaters, a steam engine locomotive train, and overall the place looks like a DisneyLand vacation spot.

If you’ve not taken the time to see what the team at Dry Gulch U.S.A. is creating for Summer Camp, then go visit their website today.  I’m going to include a video here from the 2010 chapel services that was filmed in it’s entirety to show you a small sample of what makes Dry Gulch so great.

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Things I Learned at Summer Camp

July 6, 2010 — 4 Comments

I returned last week from an awesome week at Dry Gulch U.S.A. with about 50 kids from our church.  The camp is stellar, albeit super-expensive; which is the main reason that we will be researching some new desitnations in 2011.  The week really was fantastic, from the camp activities like horseback riding, swimming, and tubing on the lake  The services were fantastic, and the kids (and adults) that attended had a blast.

Here is a list of the not so important things I learned at summer camp:

  1. The restrooms adjacent to the pool areas is always the least used bathroom at camp.
  2. Girls will always give you a hug upon your arrival, while boys prefer a fist bump.
  3. I have a theory that 90% of hired bus drivers are devoid of all personality.  My bus driver was from that 90% pool.
  4. When telling a boy to take a shower, be sure to emphasize the need for them to use soap.
  5. When 20+ girls are together in any one space, there will always be a ton of hair braiding happening.
  6. When 20+ boys are together in any one space, there will always be a ton of farting happening.
  7. The kid that cries when leaving his mother for a week, is almost always the same kid that cries when leaving camp after that same week.
  8. Girls are more photogenic than boys.  Every year the parents of my boys complain that we didn’t get enough pictures of the boys, but the boys hide from the camera and only pick their noses on camera.  However, the girls see a camera and immediately form into picture taking groups.  It’s amazing!
  9. I really love having fun with kids.
  10. I really love seeing kids “get it” in chapel services.

You can see all of our camp travels and view pictures at http://www.trinitytoday.com/index.cfm/PageID/1441/tag/camp2010

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