Well this post seems way overdue but it is just another example of how all encompassing camp is. The idea of committing the kind of time it takes me to write these posts is daunting. It's not that I never have free time. Just that I have so little that it is hard to do anything that actually requires effort, which these posts do. Mostly I read with my free time or go out for a drink or some food. I had planned on doing a post during my recent day off as I didn't have much else to do. Instead I got sick (I'll come to that) and spent my entire day off sleeping trying to get better. So I don't know how long this will take me but I'll try to get the last month of camp out there.
When we last spoke in earnest it was before our staff training period. So I'll start with that. We call our staff traing OSD or "Orientation and Staff Development". OSD is a mix of a number of different things. Lots of different types of educational sessions for one. These can be so many different things: lectures, discussions, role playing, activities, and other things. Part of it is just doing camp things and living the experience. We live close together in a few of the cabins sleeping where the campers sleep. We eat meals in the dining hall with all the same procedures as we do once the campers are here: we sing grace outside, sing songs, do the "beats" on the tables. The staff get a chance to do some of the activities and learn about them. We follow all the normal policies even though the campers aren't here, we try to act like they are.
Blake asked me right before the start of OSD what I though the goals of OSD were. I responded by asking if he meant what I thought they really were from our point of view or what I would tell the staff. He had meant what I would tell the staff but now said both. Here's what I said were our goals (not in order):
1. Teach the staff the things we think they have to know before day one. This is some procedural stuff, policies, some things about the way we want them to do their jobs.
2. Build relationships among staff
3. Try to impart some skills that they may use when the session starts
4. Making them feel prepared. The fact is staff are usually not prepared for the job, you just just don't know what it is going to be like until you do it. It is important thought that they feel confident and feel ready to do their job, it will make them better.
5. The biggest one: get them to buy in.
"Getting them to buy in" or as it is also known "getting it". Many staff (especially internationals) come to camp thinking that it will be easy, fun, they'll hang out with some kids, and party a bunch. Other staff may have better intentions but still don't really know at all what camp is about and just needed a summer job. Most have never sung songs in big groups or played silly games or made their bed in years. Almost none came ready to absolutely give all of themselves to this place, work themselves blind, and all the while have the best summer of their lives. That is what we expect of them and we have ten days to do it. The summer hinges on whether they buy in, whether they get it. We have to get them to see this place the way that we do or at least going down that road. We have to get them to believe that this is an amazing place and that if they give themselves to it that they will get even more in return.
That isn't what we told the staff though. Instead I came up with an acronym, it's also true and pretty similar but with some things ommited or reworded. It was TREE. Tools Relationships Expectations Energy. Blake used this in his opening address to OSD. His wasn't the first to speak to the staff, Sam Cote did a more general welcome to camp thing but Blake did the OSD introduction. We then played a game that Blake and I had talked about months earlier in which everyone had a piece of paper with two facts about a person on them. One was about a person 'in front' of you and one about a person 'behind' you so to speak. From this you found a 'circle' of people which became your mentor group for the first half of OSD.
OSD was a good time for me. It was a also a very tiring time. I had a fairly significant role and had to plan and run a number of sessions. Also during this time we have to work on cabin placements. We have about 5 days to try to get to know the staff, get a feel for what type of staff members they will make, where they might be succesful and who they might work well with. We discuss these things at the only time we can; late at night. This makes for long days and short nights. Cabin placements gets a lot of attention and sometimes a lot of drama from the admin and staff for a few reasons. For the staff it determines to a great extent what their experience will be like for the next 4 weeks; who you will work with and what the nature of that work will be. 2-week camp is a lot different than 4-weeks and 8 year olds are a lot different then 15 year olds. For the division directors (like myself) it determines who your staff will be for the next four weeks. In, addition for the entire leaderships it is believed that putting people in the right place will have a large effect on how the camp runs.
I personally don't care that much about cabin placements. I think they do matter, just not near as much as they seems to get credit for. I think this for a few reasons. First of all, after five days you just don't really know people that well. Even for the staff that have been around longer you can't really know what they are going to be like before you see them preform. I often hear people make pronouncements about the quality of the staff or the type of staff member that they will be with an absurd level of certainty. The longer I do this the more I realize that you never know how people will turn out until the season starts. Predictions are fine but it is important to cling to your ignorance, it is the only thing that will keep you from looking like a fool later.
I don't try to get the "best staff", I mostly try to get staff I think have potential and I will work well with. Sometimes people are surprised by the people I want. The person I most strongly campaigned to work with me was someone that many people thought had a bad a attitude and I didn't get a lot of argument. I saw someone that was a hard worker who I had a good relationship with and just had to be put in the right situation to succeed. It was a great decision and ended up being the best thing I did for myself and probobly camp during placements.
We also had a speaker named Micheal Brandwein come and speak to both camps. He has been coming to Lincoln and Lake Hubert for a couple decades now. He is an interesting guy, very well known in the camping world. He did a full day session with us. He spoke about dealing with undesired behavior in campers. I had heard it before but it was still good and I learned some new stuff. He has a bit of a silly delivery which turns some people off but he is quite good. He has some good ideas and techniques and I have learned a lot from his book on being a camp supervisor entitled "Super Staff Supervision". His views of positive specific feedback have changed the way I look at leading people. I ate lunch with him and Sam Cote and engaged him in a conversation about a camper I had last summer. This camper was the most difficult I had ever worked with and I ended up having to send him home 2 days early. It was one of the two hardest things I have had to do in this position. This adorable 8 year old was begging me to let him stay, telling me that he had promised his mom he would be a good boy and she wouldn't love him anymore it he had to go home. That was tough, it was all I could do to not start crying with him. Anyway I talked to Micheal not about that but about things I did prior to that and some of the challenges with the camper. He had some interesting insights and I enjoyed the conversation. I sometimes feel like that is how I learn best in this world; having conversations with smart people about stuff they are interested in and know about. As I get older I have made more intentional attempts to do this more.
Halfway through OSD we had a day off. I didn't really do much. Blake and I had a quiet dinner and then a drink. Much of the staff went to a rented cabin for a day off. Some of my colleagues went as well. I won't go into detail about it, I think I will write a post about days off in general later. Sufficed to say though I am glad I just stayed on camp and slept for 11 hours, it was quite nice.
When the day off was over we announced cabin placements. I was super pumped about my staff. Although I was withholding total judgements I was feeling really good about the staff group in general and felt spoiled with who I got. We had announced staff placements to the staff in a very uncreative way the last few years and I wanted to do something different. I came up with an idea and came back early from my day off to set it up. I found a large box and cut a hole in the top and drew a number of question marks on it. I then filled envelopes with the names of all the staff in each cabin but the head counselor and wrote the cabin name on it. I put them in a specific order which I had written down and then gave the envelopes to Wig and had him get in the box. When we called the staff over I "explained" that the cabin placements we had worked so hard on had been eaten by Ruggs' dog, Maggie. Due to this we were just going to do it randomly. I 'randomly' called up the head counselors and had them reach in to pick out a 'random' envelope which of course was the one Wig was holding up. It was pretty funny, the staff liked it. Apparently some people actually thought I was serious and didnt' realize there was someone in the box. It was great. The only thing better then tricking children is tricking adults.
Moving is always an exciting time. The staff finally get to get settled in after moving around for sometimes weeks and get to know their coworkers. I also got to move into my cabin, Willlow, which I share with Eric. That was really nice. After two years on the leadership team I've become spoiled and living in camper cabins with other staff instead of having my own place and own bathroom feels tiresome. It was nice to move into my own room with a bathroom I only share with one other person.
After that point it always seems like the end of OSD comes fast. We had a division meeting where Eric and I laid out some expectations and goals for Prep camp as well as getting some from the staff. For me though the biggest goal of this meeting is to get people pumped about where they were. Not always but sometimes prep is not seen as being as desirable at first ast four weeks. That often changes once camp starts but because of that I try to focus on all the great things about prep.
I met with my eight staff one on one. We had more sessions and some other stuff but it all seems a blur now. I mostly focused on getting my work down fast so I could spend as much time as possible trying to build relationships with staff. I also wrote a lot of 'pump up' notes to staff. None that I was directly over but rather staff that I had gotten to know over the last week and wouldn't be working with as much. Mostly just trying to make them feel confident and good about themselves, adding one small piece of advice that I thought could help them be successfuly, and letting them know even though I wasn't their supervisor I was still there for them. I would usually leave these on their bed when they weren't there.
We had our 'data' meetings. This is where each staff member gets a folder with whatever information we have about their campers. If they have been here before it conatains all the information for years past: old applications, surverys, incidident reports, anything. If they are new it just has their data sheet which the parents fill out with info about their child and health info. Staff look over and have a form they have to make notes based on it. They write all the info they need. We also make posters, calenders, nametags and other stuff during the meetings. These are actually pretty fun. I enjoy looking at all the campers information in my cabins. For that session that was 32 campers. I tried something new that time, I memorized one fact about every camper I didn't already know that I could talk to them about on arrival day.
Eventually OSD ended the same way it always does. First with the handing out of the staff shirts. It's a kinda ceremony but not serious. It is symbolic of them 'becoming' staff at that point though. After that we do the opening staff circle. This is a chance for everyone to say anything they wanted to the group. We also do it again at the end of the summer, that one is much more emotional though the first one is good and you can get a good sense of where the staff is at by what they say. In the past I've usually been the guy to break the awkwardness and say the first thing. This was actually the first time I haven't said anything. One staff member a nineteen year old first time staff member who I had really gotten to know during OSD actually thanked me personally in front of the group for making him feel so welcome and supporting him. I thought that was really nice. It was the first time that I had been thanked personally in the circle since joining the leadership team. It felt really good.
Then it was over, we went to sleep and prepared for arrival the next day. All and all it was succesful I think. Blake did a good job with the planning, my team did a good job of being present at all the sessions and such. Most importantly we made a lot of good changes to avoid the staff just being lectured at, particually it big groups. That is always the biggest complaint. Hopefully I will get a post out about the first two week session soon.
I miss you all, seriously I do.
Joey
Finished: Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
Currently reading: A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
Next: Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Monday, June 9, 2008
What makes it all worth it
So I've been under-rested since I got here. Tonight's dinner was corn dogs, which I don't eat (I'm still hungry). Tomorrow I have to wake up at 645am. Today I worked virtually without break except to eat from 800am to 930pm. I made about 40 dollars. By all logic I should be miserable but instead I think I'm the happiest I've been since I left Denver. Here's why:
Early on my own accord I spoke with a staff member. He was a nice guy and I genuinely like him but I was worried that he was at camp for the wrong reasons and wasn't really getting into it, particularly some of the songs and other silliness. I as I always am, was blunt about what I thought. I told him that if he wanted to be a great staff member which I thought he could be I would help him and if he was hear just to have fun, get drunk, and get laid, that I wanted to know that too so that at least I wouldn't waste our time. He said how he didn't realize that he had been putting off a bad vibe and said that he did want to be a good staff member and role model. We talked about some things that he didn't neccesarly love about camp and I was frank with him and told I felt the same way about some of those things, but it is a package, and the package is worth it. It was a great conversation and he seemed genuinely happy we had it with a desire to work on his attitude. Still, it could have just been lipservice, I've had many staff that will say one thing to your face and another behind your back.
Later that night we had 'songfest' where we learn a number of songs all at once. I noticed that the staff member was noticably more into and seemed to be having fun, a big change. He wasn't the craziest or most energetic but he was participating and having fun. Then just 20 minutes ago as I was walking to my office to work on a different topic for my blog he came up to me. He said I was just the man he was looking for. He wanted to thank me the conversation we had earlier. He said it couldn't have come at a better time. He had fun tonight and credited it to me. He then said the nicest thing that any staff member has said to me since I joined the leadership team two years ago, "I think my summer is going to better because of you". And it was all worth it.
Joey
Early on my own accord I spoke with a staff member. He was a nice guy and I genuinely like him but I was worried that he was at camp for the wrong reasons and wasn't really getting into it, particularly some of the songs and other silliness. I as I always am, was blunt about what I thought. I told him that if he wanted to be a great staff member which I thought he could be I would help him and if he was hear just to have fun, get drunk, and get laid, that I wanted to know that too so that at least I wouldn't waste our time. He said how he didn't realize that he had been putting off a bad vibe and said that he did want to be a good staff member and role model. We talked about some things that he didn't neccesarly love about camp and I was frank with him and told I felt the same way about some of those things, but it is a package, and the package is worth it. It was a great conversation and he seemed genuinely happy we had it with a desire to work on his attitude. Still, it could have just been lipservice, I've had many staff that will say one thing to your face and another behind your back.
Later that night we had 'songfest' where we learn a number of songs all at once. I noticed that the staff member was noticably more into and seemed to be having fun, a big change. He wasn't the craziest or most energetic but he was participating and having fun. Then just 20 minutes ago as I was walking to my office to work on a different topic for my blog he came up to me. He said I was just the man he was looking for. He wanted to thank me the conversation we had earlier. He said it couldn't have come at a better time. He had fun tonight and credited it to me. He then said the nicest thing that any staff member has said to me since I joined the leadership team two years ago, "I think my summer is going to better because of you". And it was all worth it.
Joey
Sunday, June 1, 2008
Camp and the retreat part 1
So I am officially at camp, actually I have been for a number of days now but this is literally the first time since I've been here that I have the time to sit down and start a post. It has been a hectic 5 days and I haven't gotten more than 5 hours of sleep in a night since two nights before I arrived (the night before I was too excited to sleep). So lets start on the day I arrived.
Coming back to camp for me is like coming home, it feels like I never left. It's weird to think that a I am about 6 weeks away from having spent a year of my life at this place. When I arrived I saw some familiar faces, people I've known for anywhere from 1 to 4 summers. We arrived right at lunch and as soon as I arrived I was on. I was downright giddy. It is amazing how quickly though I got into work mode. I started to look around and activiley get to know people right away. It is weird to think that meeting new people and getting a a good rapport with them as work. I enjoy it and like it but it also my responsibility as a member of our leadership team.
Currently what is called "work camp" is going. This is the time where some of the staff come early and physically prepare camp. This can be a laundry list of things from raking to cleaning, to setting up the archery range. It is also the only time until co-ed camp starts that a substantive number of women are on camp as all the staff that are at work camp originally stay at Lincoln. It is amazing how different the dynamic is when there are women around. I enjoy it but it makes me realize how much less effective our staff would be if this was a co-ed camp. I couldn't really get settled in the first night, I was staying in Gopher cabin with a number of the staff that are doing work camp, but would only be sleeping there one night.
The next day we had breakfast and then started to prepare for our admin "retreat". The admin retreat is not really that much of a retreat in that we don't really go anywhere. We just go to the other side of camp where no is at that time. It is effectively a 3 day meeting where we separate ourselves from the staff to focus on our issues. To prepare Andre one of our two directors and my direct supervisor this summer gave us different tasks. Mine was to get materials from around camp that we would need, i.e. office supplies, sleeping bags, and other items. Like many things at camp this is a little more tricky then it sounds for reasons of office politics that I will not go into, Andre asked me to do it because I would know when discretion is the better part of valor.
That afternoon we had lunch with the rest of the staff and I used that time to learn a few more names and hometowns of people before we temporarily departed. To make sense of the situation a brief description of the hierarchy of camp is in order. At the top is the executive director of both camps, Sam Cote (the camps are privately owned by the Cote family). Sam is not as active in the day to day runnings of the camps as he used to be (he is in his 60's) but there is no question that the final decision making power rests with him and he still does a great deal. Below Sam is Andre and Ruggs Cote, Sam's son and the only one of Sam's children that has chosen to work with the camps full time. Andre and Ruggs have the same title, director, but somewhat different responsibilities. Ruggs deals with more of the business end of things and deals with issues at both camps, he would seem to be the heir-apparent to Sam's position when he retires. Ruggs also oversees the program or activities at camp and those who are in charge of them, he was my supervisor the past two years. Andre deals more with people and oversees all the people that do my job, division director, and is very camper focused dealing with camper recruitment during the winter. Below them is my best camp friend and the only one whom I put on the same level as my close Tucson friends, Blake Holman. Blake was a camper for many years and started on staff the same year I did, 2004. Over the past year he has been working full time for camp as their staff coordinator, a new position for him. This summer his job revolves around working with the staff and supporting them, it is basically camp human resources. Working in the winter office puts him above me and my colleagues though he is not anyones supervisor. Next is the Camp Lincoln leadership team which consists of 7 people, 5 division directors and 2 program directors. There are three divisions: Prep (our two week campers), intermediate (most of our 4-week campers), and Senior/LT (our oldest 4-week campers). Prep and intermediate both have two division directors and senior/lt has one. The program directors don't have a group of campers but oversee the activities at camp. Two years ago I was program director, and last year I was one of the Prep camp division directors, this year I will doing the same. Within the group of seven there is no established hierarchy, however because of experience there is an effective one. Myself and one of the program directors, Anthony have been on the leadership team 3 years now (Anthony has been at camp one more year then me as he was a regular staff member for 3 years to my 2). All the other members are new to the team this year so are stepping into new jobs, so we inevetably seen as the leaders of the group.
The retreat was held in the house where the camp doctor will live, we pretty much just hang out in the living room. It started off with some goals from Andre and Ruggs for the retreat as well as us making goals for the retreat itself for each one of us. Alas the retreat is a lot of listening which is fine. For me, the retreat had a few purposes; a refresher on things I've heard, a place for me to teach new staff and learn myself through that teaching, and most importantly fit into my new role as a leader on the team and learn how best to work with my new colleagues. With the departure of Blake, Red, and Kevin (three members from last year's team) my role on the team has changed significantly and I now need to focus on not only how to support the staff under me but the staff at my level, a unique challenge.
Over the next few days we talked about a long list of topics. We talked about what a well known writer/speaker in the camping named Micheal Brandwein industry calls the six pathways. It is six paths towards being a succesful camp administrator. They are:
1. Add creative twist to Program
2. Praise Positive Staff Behavior
3. Support Staff & Help them grow
4. Manage undesired behavior in positive ways
5. Help campers who need extra support
6. Keep Camp Safe
I like his writing a lot and I presented two of the pathways to the group, 1 and 5. Andre did the most speaking but Anthony, myself and Blake had a number of speaking portions. We discussed the nuts and bolts of job and talked about a lot of specific expectations. A huge expectation is loyalty. As you will hopefully come to understand as the summer goes on there will inevitably be people that don't like people on the admin team or the team in general. There are a lot of reasons for this but because of that loyalty is paramount. We cannot have one member being the "good guy" claiming that he doesn't agree with a particular policy making everyone else look bad. We talked a lot about our role as mentors and how to best fit that role. We made some decisions about some things most importantly evalulations. We had what has become an annual debate on whether to have scored or non-scored evals from the staff. In these conversations I mostly stayed quiet. I knew where I stood but I didn't really feel like influencing anyone, plus I didn't particularly care. In the end the quality of an evaluation isn't about the format it is about the content and the knowledge of the supervisor. A quality eval is predicated on credibility which you gain by truly knowing the staff member and giving them consistant feedback about their performance so that they aren't surprised when the evaluation comes.
When we aren't working we eat a bunch of junk food, go out to eat, and sometimes play some quick games to wake us up. It is really tough to stay awake and focused through 12 hours a day of meetings. Caffiene helps. I never was into caffiene until I joined the admin team, now it is part of my summer. At some point we did some personal goal setting for the summer and I'll let you know what my major one was I suppose:
1. Go overboard with organization. My biggest difficulty working at camp, and in many things is my absent mindedness. I have very poor short term memory. I just need to do a better job of reminding myself what I need to do each day so I am planning it out with all the things I will know I have to do. I am keeping to a strict timeline of doing everything so that way I can plan now. For example if the staff are planning an activity I have on my calender when I am going to give them their first written reminder, then their 1st verbal reminder, then when we have to have a 5 conversation about it, then their next written reminder, then when they have to have their plan drafted up, then when I have to give it back with comments, then when the final draft is due or I take over planning, and then finally the event itself. Ridiculous I know but camp is crazy and you don't have a lot of time to think about things once it gets going and you want to give yourself every chance to succeed.
There was one eventfull evening though. The staff had a day off during the retreat that goes from 530pm one day until 1230am the next (30 hours). To make sense of the following story let me tell you two of our policies. One is that if you are staying on camp on a day off you have to be back by 1230 am. Another is that "cohabitation" or men sleeping with women one camp is against camp policy (that doesn't have to mean sex). At 1230am we do a round to lock up the gates and basically close down camp. Myself and Anthony did it because we were the only ones with experience doing it yet and we thought it could be an eventul night. This early in the summer some staff believe that as they say the rules are made to be broken, usually someone tests that theory and they soon find out the rules are very much made to be followed.
So Anthony and I finish rounds and for confidentialities sake (one never knows who might read this) I won't say how, but we came to believe that two of our staff who were openly in a relationship might be breaking the cohabitation policy. Anthony and I searched around for a while and unfortunatly found them. I say unfortunatly because although I was looking for them and would have looked pretty much everywhere as it is my job and I was hoping we were wrong. I don't like to see anyone get in trouble, I don't get any jollies from it. Still it is a commitment I make and part of my job. So we found them and then got in touch with the directors and they handled it from there. We have a few policies that are zero tolerance and this is one of them so they were asked to leave. Luckily we were able to give them a good reference and helped get them placed at another camp in Massachusettes. I was really happy about that, I would have hated to see them have to go home (England). So in the end it was alright. Still it is the worst part of my job. I come here to help people. Still, I understand why the policies are there and I support them completely and have a very strong sense of loyalty to both camp and my supervisors.
So we did all that and much more. When it was over everyone was very ready for it to be over. Its fun, useful, and interesting often. It can also be boring, grueling, tiring, and frustrating sometimes. In the end though I met my goals. Most significantly I gained a lot of confidence in my interaction with my colleagues and am finding my place well I think, though that will continue to remain a challenge.
That was a lot. If you read that, wow you must be bored or I must be interesting. In a little bit I'll come out with another post about how the post-retreat pre-staff training period is for me. Hope you are well and I miss you all.
Joey
Coming back to camp for me is like coming home, it feels like I never left. It's weird to think that a I am about 6 weeks away from having spent a year of my life at this place. When I arrived I saw some familiar faces, people I've known for anywhere from 1 to 4 summers. We arrived right at lunch and as soon as I arrived I was on. I was downright giddy. It is amazing how quickly though I got into work mode. I started to look around and activiley get to know people right away. It is weird to think that meeting new people and getting a a good rapport with them as work. I enjoy it and like it but it also my responsibility as a member of our leadership team.
Currently what is called "work camp" is going. This is the time where some of the staff come early and physically prepare camp. This can be a laundry list of things from raking to cleaning, to setting up the archery range. It is also the only time until co-ed camp starts that a substantive number of women are on camp as all the staff that are at work camp originally stay at Lincoln. It is amazing how different the dynamic is when there are women around. I enjoy it but it makes me realize how much less effective our staff would be if this was a co-ed camp. I couldn't really get settled in the first night, I was staying in Gopher cabin with a number of the staff that are doing work camp, but would only be sleeping there one night.
The next day we had breakfast and then started to prepare for our admin "retreat". The admin retreat is not really that much of a retreat in that we don't really go anywhere. We just go to the other side of camp where no is at that time. It is effectively a 3 day meeting where we separate ourselves from the staff to focus on our issues. To prepare Andre one of our two directors and my direct supervisor this summer gave us different tasks. Mine was to get materials from around camp that we would need, i.e. office supplies, sleeping bags, and other items. Like many things at camp this is a little more tricky then it sounds for reasons of office politics that I will not go into, Andre asked me to do it because I would know when discretion is the better part of valor.
That afternoon we had lunch with the rest of the staff and I used that time to learn a few more names and hometowns of people before we temporarily departed. To make sense of the situation a brief description of the hierarchy of camp is in order. At the top is the executive director of both camps, Sam Cote (the camps are privately owned by the Cote family). Sam is not as active in the day to day runnings of the camps as he used to be (he is in his 60's) but there is no question that the final decision making power rests with him and he still does a great deal. Below Sam is Andre and Ruggs Cote, Sam's son and the only one of Sam's children that has chosen to work with the camps full time. Andre and Ruggs have the same title, director, but somewhat different responsibilities. Ruggs deals with more of the business end of things and deals with issues at both camps, he would seem to be the heir-apparent to Sam's position when he retires. Ruggs also oversees the program or activities at camp and those who are in charge of them, he was my supervisor the past two years. Andre deals more with people and oversees all the people that do my job, division director, and is very camper focused dealing with camper recruitment during the winter. Below them is my best camp friend and the only one whom I put on the same level as my close Tucson friends, Blake Holman. Blake was a camper for many years and started on staff the same year I did, 2004. Over the past year he has been working full time for camp as their staff coordinator, a new position for him. This summer his job revolves around working with the staff and supporting them, it is basically camp human resources. Working in the winter office puts him above me and my colleagues though he is not anyones supervisor. Next is the Camp Lincoln leadership team which consists of 7 people, 5 division directors and 2 program directors. There are three divisions: Prep (our two week campers), intermediate (most of our 4-week campers), and Senior/LT (our oldest 4-week campers). Prep and intermediate both have two division directors and senior/lt has one. The program directors don't have a group of campers but oversee the activities at camp. Two years ago I was program director, and last year I was one of the Prep camp division directors, this year I will doing the same. Within the group of seven there is no established hierarchy, however because of experience there is an effective one. Myself and one of the program directors, Anthony have been on the leadership team 3 years now (Anthony has been at camp one more year then me as he was a regular staff member for 3 years to my 2). All the other members are new to the team this year so are stepping into new jobs, so we inevetably seen as the leaders of the group.
The retreat was held in the house where the camp doctor will live, we pretty much just hang out in the living room. It started off with some goals from Andre and Ruggs for the retreat as well as us making goals for the retreat itself for each one of us. Alas the retreat is a lot of listening which is fine. For me, the retreat had a few purposes; a refresher on things I've heard, a place for me to teach new staff and learn myself through that teaching, and most importantly fit into my new role as a leader on the team and learn how best to work with my new colleagues. With the departure of Blake, Red, and Kevin (three members from last year's team) my role on the team has changed significantly and I now need to focus on not only how to support the staff under me but the staff at my level, a unique challenge.
Over the next few days we talked about a long list of topics. We talked about what a well known writer/speaker in the camping named Micheal Brandwein industry calls the six pathways. It is six paths towards being a succesful camp administrator. They are:
1. Add creative twist to Program
2. Praise Positive Staff Behavior
3. Support Staff & Help them grow
4. Manage undesired behavior in positive ways
5. Help campers who need extra support
6. Keep Camp Safe
I like his writing a lot and I presented two of the pathways to the group, 1 and 5. Andre did the most speaking but Anthony, myself and Blake had a number of speaking portions. We discussed the nuts and bolts of job and talked about a lot of specific expectations. A huge expectation is loyalty. As you will hopefully come to understand as the summer goes on there will inevitably be people that don't like people on the admin team or the team in general. There are a lot of reasons for this but because of that loyalty is paramount. We cannot have one member being the "good guy" claiming that he doesn't agree with a particular policy making everyone else look bad. We talked a lot about our role as mentors and how to best fit that role. We made some decisions about some things most importantly evalulations. We had what has become an annual debate on whether to have scored or non-scored evals from the staff. In these conversations I mostly stayed quiet. I knew where I stood but I didn't really feel like influencing anyone, plus I didn't particularly care. In the end the quality of an evaluation isn't about the format it is about the content and the knowledge of the supervisor. A quality eval is predicated on credibility which you gain by truly knowing the staff member and giving them consistant feedback about their performance so that they aren't surprised when the evaluation comes.
When we aren't working we eat a bunch of junk food, go out to eat, and sometimes play some quick games to wake us up. It is really tough to stay awake and focused through 12 hours a day of meetings. Caffiene helps. I never was into caffiene until I joined the admin team, now it is part of my summer. At some point we did some personal goal setting for the summer and I'll let you know what my major one was I suppose:
1. Go overboard with organization. My biggest difficulty working at camp, and in many things is my absent mindedness. I have very poor short term memory. I just need to do a better job of reminding myself what I need to do each day so I am planning it out with all the things I will know I have to do. I am keeping to a strict timeline of doing everything so that way I can plan now. For example if the staff are planning an activity I have on my calender when I am going to give them their first written reminder, then their 1st verbal reminder, then when we have to have a 5 conversation about it, then their next written reminder, then when they have to have their plan drafted up, then when I have to give it back with comments, then when the final draft is due or I take over planning, and then finally the event itself. Ridiculous I know but camp is crazy and you don't have a lot of time to think about things once it gets going and you want to give yourself every chance to succeed.
There was one eventfull evening though. The staff had a day off during the retreat that goes from 530pm one day until 1230am the next (30 hours). To make sense of the following story let me tell you two of our policies. One is that if you are staying on camp on a day off you have to be back by 1230 am. Another is that "cohabitation" or men sleeping with women one camp is against camp policy (that doesn't have to mean sex). At 1230am we do a round to lock up the gates and basically close down camp. Myself and Anthony did it because we were the only ones with experience doing it yet and we thought it could be an eventul night. This early in the summer some staff believe that as they say the rules are made to be broken, usually someone tests that theory and they soon find out the rules are very much made to be followed.
So Anthony and I finish rounds and for confidentialities sake (one never knows who might read this) I won't say how, but we came to believe that two of our staff who were openly in a relationship might be breaking the cohabitation policy. Anthony and I searched around for a while and unfortunatly found them. I say unfortunatly because although I was looking for them and would have looked pretty much everywhere as it is my job and I was hoping we were wrong. I don't like to see anyone get in trouble, I don't get any jollies from it. Still it is a commitment I make and part of my job. So we found them and then got in touch with the directors and they handled it from there. We have a few policies that are zero tolerance and this is one of them so they were asked to leave. Luckily we were able to give them a good reference and helped get them placed at another camp in Massachusettes. I was really happy about that, I would have hated to see them have to go home (England). So in the end it was alright. Still it is the worst part of my job. I come here to help people. Still, I understand why the policies are there and I support them completely and have a very strong sense of loyalty to both camp and my supervisors.
So we did all that and much more. When it was over everyone was very ready for it to be over. Its fun, useful, and interesting often. It can also be boring, grueling, tiring, and frustrating sometimes. In the end though I met my goals. Most significantly I gained a lot of confidence in my interaction with my colleagues and am finding my place well I think, though that will continue to remain a challenge.
That was a lot. If you read that, wow you must be bored or I must be interesting. In a little bit I'll come out with another post about how the post-retreat pre-staff training period is for me. Hope you are well and I miss you all.
Joey
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