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