Did you know that "Baby Shark" has had over 10,000 views?
Did you know that combined, my videos have been seen over 100,000 times on Google Video?
Unbelievable (and wonderful)!
I think that perhaps Bryan and I could plan some sort of East Coast tour about making better decisions... Something like "Pete and Bryan: brought to you by Good Decisions" and do a mock television show with multimedia interactive goodness. Of course we'd sing a ton and do some really goofy bits throughout the day...
In brief we'd arrive at the school around 9 AM and visit some class rooms for some team building activities. The afternoon would be highlighted with an all-school assembly to promote better decision making, although the kids won't know that... they'll be too busy laughing and singing and participating.
The follow-through would be activity sheets for the following weeks as well as an up-to-date web presence that's safe for kids (and adults)! Then we'd do the whole thing at another school the next day... 100 schools in 100 days... or more? That would be pretty exciting!
Bryan thinks that we could get a company to sponsor this venture... I think that it would have to be a combination of sponsorship and a small fee from the school's programming budget. Of course, I'm not an expert when it comes to these types of numbers :-/
Do you think this is possible? Is there a call for it? Would a company sponsor us?
100,000 hits and growing... someone is taking notice...
8.26.2007
8.24.2007
Numbers.
What is your optimal camp size?
Honestly, I think the bigger the better. Space, of course, is a huge consideration when fielding this question, but many camps misuse or abuse space all over the place!
So how exactly do you know? Well, there are the legal / ACA guidelines. They are a good starting block, but should not be a stumbling block. If you need 4 more toilets, then install 4 more toilets! If you need another set of bunks, then put them in. The advantages of more campers far outweigh the hassle / cost of accommodating them.
In a worst-case-scenario, how many kids can you fit into thunderstorm safe areas for an entire day? Keep in mind that they need to be busy and your staff sane! This is a good starting place to figure the perfect number. I think most camps hover around the 200 mark when they could be hitting 400 a session. That's twice as much for you English majors!
But Pete, it's not that simple. We need food, bunks and staff for each of these extra campers, not to mention programming.
Yes, this is all true. First of all, food is always scalable. A kitchen that supports 200 can, in many cases, be reorganized to support 4 shifts of 100 each. Oversimplifying the situation would suggest that the more food bought, the better price per camper per meal... meaning that your bottom line is increased.
Every year you should be adding or redoing bunks. That should be built into the budget. Face it, every camp has that building that time forgot - and it's time to forget it! ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE AN OLDER TRADITIONAL CAMP, you should be rewiring your bunks for the future. If you're not prepared to offer the benefits of the information age to kids who already take it for granted, you'll miss out in the long run.
Staff is the greatest challenge when expanding beyond your imagination. There are millions of potentially good staff members out there, but finding them and recruiting them has always been the tough part. To scale up, you'll want to revisit your staff hierarchy. Is there a way to redistribute power? More staff means there needs to be more eyes watching those staff... I would suggest beefing up some of the lesser director positions to include some managerial responsibilities to ensure that everyone is getting the support and supervision that they need.
Programming is a part of this puzzle that I find the most fun. First, figure out places that cannot be scaled. For instance, if you only have one pool, a larger number may take away from the total average pool time. The same goes for a ropes course or a shooting range. The good thing about these activities, though, is that some campers have a love/hate relationship with them. Is it possible to allow for custom scheduling? In fact, when was the last time you rehauled the way that campers spend their day? I found that at several areas we weren't giving the kids enough time - such as Arts and Crafts. I would rather they finished a bigger project one day instead of having 3 small rushed projects over the week. In addition, the teens never enjoyed Nature. I understand the importance of a well-rounded program, but I'm not going to consistently fight the majority opinion if I can't prove it wrong. Instead, there should be Environmentalism or Tribal Construction (a type of in-house improvement).
One of the major program changes I made was taking teens away from all program activities. This meant that I freed up a lot of space for the other groups to pass through while limiting the *traditional* activities that the teens only really needed to do once during the week. The afternoons were spent on service projects and large activities - both of which were more preferred by all. Of course, this requires a great deal of additional work by your teen staff, but you've been overpaying them for years anyway...
(lol)
I can be completely guilty of oversimplifying this, but I do believe that bigger is better. There's nothing like an all camp event that roars loud enough to aggravate the neighbors... who live on the other side of the mountain... :-)
Honestly, I think the bigger the better. Space, of course, is a huge consideration when fielding this question, but many camps misuse or abuse space all over the place!
So how exactly do you know? Well, there are the legal / ACA guidelines. They are a good starting block, but should not be a stumbling block. If you need 4 more toilets, then install 4 more toilets! If you need another set of bunks, then put them in. The advantages of more campers far outweigh the hassle / cost of accommodating them.
In a worst-case-scenario, how many kids can you fit into thunderstorm safe areas for an entire day? Keep in mind that they need to be busy and your staff sane! This is a good starting place to figure the perfect number. I think most camps hover around the 200 mark when they could be hitting 400 a session. That's twice as much for you English majors!
But Pete, it's not that simple. We need food, bunks and staff for each of these extra campers, not to mention programming.
Yes, this is all true. First of all, food is always scalable. A kitchen that supports 200 can, in many cases, be reorganized to support 4 shifts of 100 each. Oversimplifying the situation would suggest that the more food bought, the better price per camper per meal... meaning that your bottom line is increased.
Every year you should be adding or redoing bunks. That should be built into the budget. Face it, every camp has that building that time forgot - and it's time to forget it! ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE AN OLDER TRADITIONAL CAMP, you should be rewiring your bunks for the future. If you're not prepared to offer the benefits of the information age to kids who already take it for granted, you'll miss out in the long run.
Staff is the greatest challenge when expanding beyond your imagination. There are millions of potentially good staff members out there, but finding them and recruiting them has always been the tough part. To scale up, you'll want to revisit your staff hierarchy. Is there a way to redistribute power? More staff means there needs to be more eyes watching those staff... I would suggest beefing up some of the lesser director positions to include some managerial responsibilities to ensure that everyone is getting the support and supervision that they need.
Programming is a part of this puzzle that I find the most fun. First, figure out places that cannot be scaled. For instance, if you only have one pool, a larger number may take away from the total average pool time. The same goes for a ropes course or a shooting range. The good thing about these activities, though, is that some campers have a love/hate relationship with them. Is it possible to allow for custom scheduling? In fact, when was the last time you rehauled the way that campers spend their day? I found that at several areas we weren't giving the kids enough time - such as Arts and Crafts. I would rather they finished a bigger project one day instead of having 3 small rushed projects over the week. In addition, the teens never enjoyed Nature. I understand the importance of a well-rounded program, but I'm not going to consistently fight the majority opinion if I can't prove it wrong. Instead, there should be Environmentalism or Tribal Construction (a type of in-house improvement).
One of the major program changes I made was taking teens away from all program activities. This meant that I freed up a lot of space for the other groups to pass through while limiting the *traditional* activities that the teens only really needed to do once during the week. The afternoons were spent on service projects and large activities - both of which were more preferred by all. Of course, this requires a great deal of additional work by your teen staff, but you've been overpaying them for years anyway...
(lol)
I can be completely guilty of oversimplifying this, but I do believe that bigger is better. There's nothing like an all camp event that roars loud enough to aggravate the neighbors... who live on the other side of the mountain... :-)
8.20.2007
New Site! [ex-SITE-ing!!!]
It may not seem like a huge task, but I completely rewrote the Ghoulie Games website. As always, there is more to add and more to do, but for this exact second I'm fairly satisfied with my update. Let me know what you think!
8.14.2007
A conundrum.
Video games and camp generally do not mix... BUT...
Here's a shot from one of my all-time favorite camp movies, "Wet Hot American Summer" (which is completely inappropriate for campers or people who are easily offended). The joke is that the kids are taking a hike, although they are preoccupied with state of the art (ha!) gaming machines.
Up until the last couple of years, hand held gaming was not a huge issue at camps. This had to do with both the devices and the nature of camp. Every place that I visited had a fairly strict policy against all electronics - Gameboys being no exception. Of course, the Gameboy was not a social device (no matter what way you cut it). From Tetris to Pokemon, the Gameboy and it's younger brother, the GBA, were single service and therefore incredibly easy to ban. In addition, there were at least half a dozen of them somewhere in the bottom of the pond...
Times are changing. The Nintendo DS and the PSP are both wireless. This equates to camp gold - a large gathering of like kids outside of the school setting who I can play against. The logic is not just "camp is boring so I'm going to plug in"... instead campers are thinking about networking, sharing and essentially socializing.
Of course, the responsible adults that run camps (me included), still enforce the archaic ban without hesitation. YOU DON'T COME TO CAMP TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES!!!
BUT...
...you do come to camp to interact with new people... to break the ice and participate... to do things that you've never done before.
What are positive camp memories? I learned a ton of great card games at camp... and I remember them all because it was as much a social phenomenon as a programming one. In fact, at my camp card-playing was outlawed... perhaps that's why it stuck so long?
Sometimes *banning* something that is popular is not the best solution. If kids are going to bring their iPods and DS's and PSPs to camp despite our best wishes, we need to find a solution that's fair to everyone. Instead of just assuming that technology is negative, we should evaluate the potential of using technology in specialty areas.
The Seatle Mariners (half owned by Nintendo) have downloadable content (such as stats and replays) as well as the ability to order from your seat using the DS. That's incredible! Can we repurpose the same program for problem solving initiatives? Perhaps the days schedule will automatically upload to your DS every morning. Maybe we can include some slideshows for parents?
The possibilities are endless. REALLY.
Welcome to Camp 2.0 - it's a new world; about time we caught up.
Here's a shot from one of my all-time favorite camp movies, "Wet Hot American Summer" (which is completely inappropriate for campers or people who are easily offended). The joke is that the kids are taking a hike, although they are preoccupied with state of the art (ha!) gaming machines.
Up until the last couple of years, hand held gaming was not a huge issue at camps. This had to do with both the devices and the nature of camp. Every place that I visited had a fairly strict policy against all electronics - Gameboys being no exception. Of course, the Gameboy was not a social device (no matter what way you cut it). From Tetris to Pokemon, the Gameboy and it's younger brother, the GBA, were single service and therefore incredibly easy to ban. In addition, there were at least half a dozen of them somewhere in the bottom of the pond...
Times are changing. The Nintendo DS and the PSP are both wireless. This equates to camp gold - a large gathering of like kids outside of the school setting who I can play against. The logic is not just "camp is boring so I'm going to plug in"... instead campers are thinking about networking, sharing and essentially socializing.
Of course, the responsible adults that run camps (me included), still enforce the archaic ban without hesitation. YOU DON'T COME TO CAMP TO PLAY VIDEO GAMES!!!
BUT...
...you do come to camp to interact with new people... to break the ice and participate... to do things that you've never done before.
What are positive camp memories? I learned a ton of great card games at camp... and I remember them all because it was as much a social phenomenon as a programming one. In fact, at my camp card-playing was outlawed... perhaps that's why it stuck so long?
Sometimes *banning* something that is popular is not the best solution. If kids are going to bring their iPods and DS's and PSPs to camp despite our best wishes, we need to find a solution that's fair to everyone. Instead of just assuming that technology is negative, we should evaluate the potential of using technology in specialty areas.
The Seatle Mariners (half owned by Nintendo) have downloadable content (such as stats and replays) as well as the ability to order from your seat using the DS. That's incredible! Can we repurpose the same program for problem solving initiatives? Perhaps the days schedule will automatically upload to your DS every morning. Maybe we can include some slideshows for parents?
The possibilities are endless. REALLY.
Welcome to Camp 2.0 - it's a new world; about time we caught up.
What I've been working on...
Hey all! I've been off for a couple days because I've been revamping the main site...
Here's a sneak peak of what will be out shortly:
Here's a sneak peak of what will be out shortly:
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