Joe Richards – Camp Professional

Ontario Camps Association – Director’s Conference 2011 – Joe’s Thoughts & Notes

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by

yoyojoe
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Last week I spent time at the Ontario Camps Association Director's Conference.

Due to an incident with a Galaga machine I hadn't been back to the conference since January of 2008.

I brought my new iPad with me this year and took notes right onto the PDF of the conference schedule.  This allows me to have a digital copy of my notes – which I thought I would share here.

Please note – these are my thoughts and ideas that camp from listening to the various keynotes and speakers – I do not want to put any words into people's mouths.

So here we go:

Michael Chettleburgh – Opening Keynote Address:
Author of "Young Thugs: Inside the Dangerous World of Canadian Street Gangs"

Joe's Thoughts:
Overall Impression – Good talk – not great, interesting information but hard to find the connection to summer camp.  The ideas that came forward might be helpful if we do encounter these types of kids at our summer camp.

Peggy Moss – Expert on Bullying, Author of Say Something
  • Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible. Dali lama
  • Symptoms that could be caused by bullying: headache, lethargy, stomach/bowel trouble, depression, change in performance levels in activities. 
  • netlingo.com – there are words that we need to be aware of and short forms to help know what our campers and staff are talking about.
  • List of words that we need to know are not acceptable at camp. Words that are a failure to communicate your thoughts vs words which are hate based or taught to children through the day to day interaction with parents. 
  • Modeling, speak up intervene 
Overall Impression – Great speaker with lots of ideas and information. Things I will certainly use for camp.

Tom Leahy – Professional Facilitator
Elements of Choice Workshop (condensed from 20 hours to 2 hours)

  • Workshop on choice: Base idea -challenge by choice doesn't work…
  • Change to – i teach choice…
  • The law of choice : I can only volunteer myself
  • The law of safety. 
  • Game played: have you ever…
  • 4 Levels of practice for facilitators:
  • 1. Energizer
  • 2. Discovery
  • 3. Skill development ( we become a teacher at this level)
  • 4. Intervention
  • Adventure is not safe
  • Book on failing forward – failure is a great learning tool.  
  • Self esteem vs. Self efficacy 
  • Locus of control
  • Observe vs. Assess: we project our assessment onto others – I know why you did that, I know how you feel. 
  • Rethink Participation as a concept. 
  • Choice. Compliance. Coercion. 
  • Implied goal. Imposed goal. 
    • Overall Impression: I like this concept very much and I'm looking into travelling to Colorado for a workshop, great speaker, great energy.

    Future of Camping – Issues & Trends – Panel Members
    • 40% of camps not surviving in 10 years
    • Only 30% of parents open the email sent. 
    • MW just seems to be adding graphics capacity. 
    • Creativity. Friendship. Confidence. 
    • Consolidation of camps to more professionalism.
    • Real touch – keeping communications personal
    • Discover retreats.com cooperative marketing schemes. 
    • Talk to young kids about being staff – build it into the thoughts of campers from an early age. 
    Overall Impression: The panel seemed to talk about how to deal with today's issues (cell phones, parents, declining populations) and didn't really get into the Future of Camping.  Panel size was too large to be effective.

    60 ideas in 60 minutes! 
    Sol Birenbaum, Camp Walden
    • session on Technology at camp.
    • Slides on Sol's website. 
    • Photos on google maps – Panoramio – by adding photos they will show up when someone views your location on Google
    Overall Impression: Great session – would have been even better if the projector had worked from the beginning…  The slide show on SlideShare is a must to download and look at – hours of research available.

    Creating a Unique Learning Garden
    Liz Hood, Toronto Botanical Garden
    • Nature is there to be touched. Get dirty. 
    • Importance of growing food. 
    • Kids will eat food they pick when they would not eat it if their parents put it on their plate.
    • Could she be an advisor for the farm camp project. (we are starting a farm camp program at Pearce Williams)
    • "To learn to love a worm is a big hurdle"
    • Do not Disneyfiy 
    • It needs to have obvious signs of mistakes. If kids are not playing in the garden then something is not right. 
    • Let them have free time in the garden. 
    • Kinds of garden:
    • display garden – not interactive. Possibilities – math and nature garden. 
    • Interactivity garden – "earth art program" use hands not tools no gloves.  Plant early so that participants have full experience of planting weeding and harvesting. Plant lettuce grow new crops in summer and fall. Small groups. "mistakes are evidence of learning" 
    • Pollinator garden – bee boxes. 1000 species of bees in Canada. Good seasonal cycle of bloom – April to October. Night blooming for moths. 
    • Local food garden – bake, grow, eat. Grow grains in garden
    • Habitat gardens – Berries seed attract migrating song birds. Should be using native plants. Source your native plants locally from local sources. Douglas tallamy – bringing nature home book. 
  • Site considerations: how long is season, location?
  • How to build – lasagna gardening. Raised beds is the end goal – mulch every year. 
  • Plant on straw bails. Soak with compost tea two or three times let them sit for three weeks. Not good for root vegetables. 
  • Take age into consideration with programming. 
  • Incredible edibles program
    • Overall Impression: Great session, great PowerPoint, great presenter.  I know that when I attend sessions which fit into the plans that I have I am more interested and engaged and this was definitely the most applicable session to the future vision at Pearce Williams.

    Quick Tips for Social Media Marketing Your Summer Camp
    Travis Allison, Walking Maverick Consulting
    • Video tour of buildings for rental groups
    • Interview camp counsellors/staff for YouTube 
    • Interview previous staff /campers for YouTube. 
    • Remember when photos once a week
    • Facebook. Post at 2:30pm
    • Focus on people trying to make decision. 

    Overall Impression: I'm bias here, I'm a podcast host on CampHacker which is organized by Travis.  These type of sessions always allow me to come away with more info.  It was a great session that seemed to fly by.

    The Benefits of Unstructured Play

    Jude Hirsch, Georgia College & State University

    • Great discussion for the entire afternoon sessions.  Notes were not taken into my ipad so are not here…visit her website to learn more.

    Overall Impressions of Conference

    This was my first time back to the Ontario Camps Association conference since the 2008 conference.  I find that if you come to a conference after taking a break – it helps make it more interesting.  The other thing that helped me this year is that we have a new Vision at Pearce Williams – so with that vision it makes it easier for me to pick the sessions that I wanted to attend – ones that apply directly to the vision and the plan.

    I enjoyed it- it was great to connect again.  Glad that the Galaga Incident was not forgotten…  I liked not being woken up by the police this year at the conference.

    ***I have found that the biggest help to understanding what I got from the conference was to type in the notes and make this post…

    Comments

    One response to “Ontario Camps Association – Director’s Conference 2011 – Joe’s Thoughts & Notes”

    1. Travis Allison Avatar
      Travis Allison

      Hey Joe,

      Thanks for posting these! And for your kind review – I’m glad I got my biggest points across.

      This is such a great idea – I wish we could figure out a way to get everyone to do this.

      If all conference attendees posted these kinds of notes it would be an awesome way to demonstrate what a great conference it is.