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
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment