Month: April 2011

Making a Difference: Camp and Community Service

April 15th, 2011

Everybody knows camp is a great experience for the kids who get to go — they learn new things, make new friends, and have great adventures. But we think camp can be more than a fantastic place for campers. It can also be a place where they learn how to give back and make the world a little bit better for other people.

Community service is an experience more and more camps are incorporating into their programming. The parents we’ve talked to say they like knowing that they’re sending their children to a place where not only are they going to get a great personal experience, but they’re going to learn that giving back can feel just as good as getting. Dan (along with many of his fellow campers and, later, counselors) learned this lesson as a young man from his own camp director, Morry Stein of Camp Echo Lake. When Morry died unexpectedly in a 1994 plane crash, Project Morry (formerly Morry’s Camp) was founded to honor his vision of providing a quality summer camp experience to all children. Since 2003, Bryn Mawr campers have been swimming sponsored laps to raise money to support Morry’s Camp. Over the years our campers have raised more than $110,000, and all of our Bunk 1 campers have had the opportunity to visit Morry’s Camp, get to know the campers and see firsthand the good work that is done there for young people who don’t have the same advantages afforded many of our Bryn Mawr Campers.

This year, for the first time, the American Camp Association is organizing a coordinated volunteer effort among member camps through an initiative called Making a Difference: Celebrating 150 Years of the Camp Experience through Community Service. This summer is the 150th anniversary of the first summer camp opening in the United States, and to mark the occasion, many ACA camps will be participating in a week dedicated to community service, July 17-23. Camps across the country — even as far away as Alaska! — will be sharing the positive impact of summer camp by taking part in projects to benefit their communities (local, regional, national and international). The ACA says:

“By participating in this week of community service, camps will honor and celebrate 150 years of ‘paying it forward.’ When we teach children and youth to contribute to the world around them, we are fostering personal growth and development. And with over 60 percent of parents reporting that their child continues to participate in activities learned at camp, you can plant the seeds that grow into a lifetime of service to communities… one child at a time.”

Camps are planning projects that include assisting with Habitat for Humanity home construction, assisting at events in communities near their camps, visiting retirement homes, restoring local trails, inviting underprivileged children to participate in camp special events, and fundraising for causes like Morry’s Camp.  More on our specific projects in the Spring Poplar Post newsletter.

We’re excited to be part of a project that will not only get campers out into their local communities and serve as an example of the positive impact of summer camp, but will give all our campers the opportunity to feel like part of something bigger than themselves and show them how great it can feel to help others — at camp, at home, and throughout their lives!

Developing our Leadership Staff

April 6th, 2011

Not Pictured: Audrey Fendell, Alicia Fidelman & Peter Lai

Recently on the blog, we’ve talked about how we help campers develop leadership skills. Being a leader isn’t a task that’s ever complete — leadership is an ongoing process of growth and development. Early spring is the time of year at camp when our senior staff — the leaders of the leaders at camp — focus on continuing to develop their own leadership skills. Here are a few of the things we do to keep growing:

Tri-State Camp Conference

One weekend each March, we gather with other camp directors and staff members for the American Camp Association’s Tri-State Camp Conference in Atlantic City. “Tri-State” is the nation’s largest conference for camping professionals, and we are amazed that no matter how many times we go, we always learn something new! This year’s Tri-State keynote speakers were Seth Godin (a bestselling author, marketing pioneer, blogger, Business Week’s “ultimate entrepreneur for the information age” and former Camp Arowhon camper) and Jean Kilbourne, recognized for her groundbreaking work in the exploration of the connection between messages in popular culture and their effects on girls and women. We also got to hear from some camp favorites (speakers like Bob Ditter, Jay Frankel and Michael Brandwein), and share some knowledge of our own. Drew volunteers on the program committee as the liaison between the professional speakers and the American Camp Association and Britton ran two roundtable discussions — one on being a head counselor, and one on the challenges of being a woman in camping. At past conferences, Bryn Mawr leadership team members have helped lead sessions on programming, facility management/safety and working with campers and staff.

Tri-State gives us a chance not only to hear from experts in child and staff development, but to reconnect with our colleagues in the camping industry to share ideas and best practices to keep making camp safer, more fun and more rewarding for campers and counselors alike.

Training with Bob Ditter

We have been fortunate enough, over the past eight years, to have developed a fantastic working relationship with the incredibly insightful Bob Ditter. Bob is a clinical social worker who dedicates part of his Boston-based practice to helping summer camps ensure positive experiences for their campers, staff and parents. Over the years Bob has visited camp many times to help train our counselors and talk with campers, and last week he sat down with Jane, Britton and our division heads to begin preparing for the summer. Bob works with our leadership team to help them work well together and provide an emotionally and physically safe environment for campers and staff. If you read this week’s blog post from Jocelyn Glantz, a Bryn Mawr parent and our new Junior Camp assistant division head, you’ve gotten an honest firsthand reaction to one of Bob’s leadership training sessions!

Annual spring leadership retreat

Each spring, we gather together our entire leadership team — directors and assistant directors, division heads and key staff members — to begin preparing for camp in earnest. It’s important to us that our leadership staff are on the same page as Jane and Dan when it comes to camp philosophy, policies and practices, and the leadership retreat held at camp is one of the steps we take to ensure that’s the case.

At this year’s leadership retreat, held the first weekend in April, we introduced new key staff members and gave the team an update on how things are shaping up for the summer — enrollment and staffing, operations and calendar overviews, and any business we need to take care of as we head into the camp season.

The rest of the weekend is spent talking about ways we can continue to improve the camp experience for our campers and staff, and making plans for the summer. We share the new knowledge we picked up at Tri-State, talk about what worked well last summer and what needs to be updated, and brainstorm new ideas for activities, special events and other fun additions to camp. Some of this is done in small groups (the division heads might talk about some camper-specific topics while operations staff discuss the physical running of camp), but major decisions are made by the whole group. For example, one of the questions our full leadership team discussed this year: How do we continue to make the camp experience valuable to parents while creating lasting memories with their children? How do we keep things fresh and exciting? This led to a variety of suggestions: Junior Camp division head Marjori Schecter will work with campers to create end-of-summer photo collages. Ty Widman, our director of adventure, will lead small groups of campers who want to learn outdoors skills, like how to build a campfire. And don’t be surprised if your daughter tells you about taking a moonlit barefoot walk on Wembley Field (supervised, of course) or a trip to the Court of America with Senior Camp division head Max Matovic to look at the stars, or sends you a photo of herself with her Peanut Mom, explaining camp traditions.

These are just a few of the ideas we came up with for keeping parents connected to their campers and camp life. And that was just one of many fruitful conversations we had over the weekend. Our leadership staff members have hundreds of summers at camp between them, and we value the knowledge and experience they bring to the table.

If you have any questions about the ways we continue to promote leadership development year-round, we’d love to talk about it with you!

Leadership Weekend: A Parent Perspective

April 4th, 2011

So, what is it like to make the transition from parent to staff at Bryn Mawr?  This past weekend I had an insider’s view and was so impressed that I wanted to share some thoughts with you.

As a parent, I felt completely confident in my decision to send my girls to Bryn Mawr.  I knew that the philosophy represented the same values that my husband and I shared at home and it was clear that my girls were well cared for in a safe environment. But this weekend, I had the opportunity to see Bryn Mawr from a completely different perspective.

Of course, in the winter that never seems to end, last Friday was a cold, snowy day even though the calendar reminded us that it was April.   But, this was a weekend I didn’t want to miss. My first stop was Dan and Jane’s house in New Jersey for a day of professional development with Bob Ditter.  Wow…honestly, that is all I can say.  I knew that Bob served as a consultant to our camp but didn’t really know the depth of his connection.  He is a clinical social worker extraordinaire and I wish he could come live in my house.  Since that is not likely, I feel so fortunate that he comes to camp during the summer to work with our staff and children. Bob only works with a few select camps and we are extremely lucky to benefit from his expertise.

Then, after an enriching day with Bob, it was time to go to Bryn Mawr.  As I drove on the familiar roads up to camp, the trees were all bare, the sky was grey and everything looked quite different from the summer.  I pulled into the empty parking lot and I must admit I was a bit nervous.  Dan, Jane, Britton, Drew and the rest of the leadership staff were meeting at camp for Leadership Weekend.

From the moment I arrived, the atmosphere was as warm and welcoming as the environment that my daughters experience during the summer.  The leadership at Bryn Mawr is a close group of intelligent women and men.  Everybody took the time to introduce themselves and gave me an overview of their role at camp.  I was immediately struck by the genuine affection, admiration and respect they all seemed to have for each other.  What a wonderful example for my girls.

As we participated in team building activities and discussed ideas for the summer, I was overwhelmed not by the challenges that were ahead of me, but by the strengths of the team that leads our camp.  Their dedication to our children, and to the staff that takes care of them, is incredibly impressive.  Through each discussion, they tried to anticipate everybody’s needs and continuously asked, “How can we do this better?”  As a person who has always relied on her instincts, it felt so good to have all of my feelings validated.

I drove home this morning exhilarated by the weekend and excited to take on my new role within the Bryn Mawr family.