A brand new (to me!) take on evaluations - 360 degree feedback

Hey all! It's James Davis here, from Summer Camp Revolution. I wanted to share what I thought was an exciting take on (for me!) a pretty tedious aspect of being a camp director: evaluations.

Confession: throughout my camping career, I've hated basically everything about evaluations.

I have resented being evaluated by people above me (who in many cases "observed me" a small fraction of the time I actually spent working at camp. I felt awkward giving others formal evaluations, stiffly offering them insight into their own "strengths and weaknesses." I felt awkward seeking evaluation from others. This past summer, I actually experimented with forgoing formal evaluations for my staff in lieu of evaluating them casually on a single particular thing every day (or every other day, cough). 

Then, I had the pleasure of learning about 360 degree evaluations and feedback from new friends Penny and Bill James. For the first time, I heard a case for evaluations that made sense.

The premise is simple. Instead of a top-down evaluation from on high, each person on staff (including the boss-man or boss-woman) is evaluated by... wait for it... everyone else. That's right. A counselor will be evaluated by her director, and her campers, and her co-counselors, and herself. The evaluation meeting that follows is a cross referencing of one evaluation to another.

Patterns will quickly emerge, and real insights are possible. A counselor can easily reject feedback from her boss as "picking on her," but when her campers and co-counselors agree, it has to be taken a lot more seriously. Likewise, counselors who constantly beat themselves up can see that there are areas of strength that they never knew about.

According to Bill, who has implemented this at the University level, self-evaluations transition from being totally unlike those offered by others to closely mirroring them. Staff members learn to see themselves more clearly by seeing how everyone else sees them.

So, what do you think? I might be late to the party on this one, but I know I'm going to try this evaluation system the next  time I get a chance.

And I'm curious. Have any of you tried the 360 degree feedback model? And if so, how'd it go? 

Thanks, and here's to being lifelong learners!

Camp Recipes for In-Season Vegetables – Corn Pancakes

#170094780 / gettyimages.com

As bright yellow cobs of corn weigh down their sturdy stalks in Ontario, I write this blog from a place of near-hallucinating exhaustion. I am longing for the days when I had time to make delicious hearty breakfasts before I decided I was woman enough for two jobs. Which I totally still am, by the way. 

The recipe below, for Corn Pancakes, is a great use of in-season fresh corn on the cob (or leftovers), but can be made from canned corn if no fresh corn is available. By the way, as the partner of a former corn-farmer, I am obligated to insert here that “there is no such thing as peaches and cream corn” and something about brainwashing, and that the all-yellow stuff is way better than ‘bi-color’. (Happy?) 

As a Dutch girl, I’m supposed to dine on chocolate sprinkle sandwiches and thin crepe-like pancakes filled with all things sugary and sweet for breakfast. I know this, yet I yearn for savoury. Don’t get me wrong – I make a mean pumpkin Chai pancake, but given the choice, most mornings I’ll pick bacon ‘n eggs over waffles.

This recipe soothes my savoury cravings, my corn-farming prince charming, and the grumblings of my ancestors (“Be still, you gorgeous blonde giants! It says pancakes!”). With the perfect amount of sweetness from the corn, these little beauties are great topped with sweet-chilli sauce, as a substitute for hashbrowns with bacon and eggs, or even as a ‘bun’ for egg sandwiches. 

Corn Pancakes – Serves 60 (as a side)

Ingredients:

30 eggs

4 2/3 C milk

1 3/4 C butter, melted

10 C flour

5 tbsp baking powder

5 tbsp onion powder (option to use green onions)

Corn from 2 dozen cobs of corn

 Directions:

1.     Combine eggs, milk, and butter.

2.     Whisk in flour, baking powder, and onion powder.

3.     Stir in corn

4.     Drop by large spoonfuls onto medium-heat flat top grill.

5.     Flip once until golden on both sides

 If you like what you see, and want to see more, check out our 3-Week Summer Camp Menu!

Summer Camp Favourites: Hearty & Simple Black Bean Casserole

A Camp Recipe to Please the Masses

photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/greg_myers/14385614051/  CC NC SA http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/

Here’s a recipe to feed 100 people, so you’ll need to find 99 friends or campers if you want to experience this flavor fiesta. It freezes well, so if you can’t muster up a crowd there’s no need to miss out on the party. Unless you have almost no freezer space because you sometimes hoard over-ripe bananas (...guilty); in that case, you should stick with the crowd option and consider some muffin recipes.

This vegetarian casserole is a favorite of mine for a few reasons. First – it's delicious. I hear this is an important factor in good recipes. Second – it’s outrageously quick and easy to put together. It's also flavorful, crispy around the edges, and a great use of cornmeal. I like to think cornmeal is an indicator that whatever you're making will be delicious. Oh, and it's cheesy – that’s a good sign, too. 

The downside is that I hate the word 'casserole'. It makes me think of gloopy, grey fat-free mushroom soup mix and dishes that are way too hard to scrub clean. Don't get me wrong - I don't actually hate casserole, not even mushroom-soup filled casseroles. I just hate the idea of a casserole. The only reason I ever ventured to make this myself was because it doesn't include mushroom soup, frozen peas, or cornflakes. (It does contain frozen corn though...)

Anyway, now that you know about my banana problem and word association issues, I present the finest black bean casserole recipe I have ever made. Which is one.

Black Bean Casserole

Ingredients:

1 C olive oil

16C onions, diced

14C yellow cornmeal

20C skim Milk

15C black beans, rinsed and drained

15C canned or frozen corn, drained

15C stewed tomatoes

16C shredded cheddar cheese

Directions:

1. Don sombrero and spray sixteen 8’’x8’’ baking pans.
2. In several large bowls, combine all ingredients except cheese. Mix well and pour into prepared pans.
3. Top with cheddar cheese, and bake uncovered at 350F for 45 - 60 minutes, until firm and crisp around the edges.

This recipe is from the 3 Week Summer Camp Menu put together by CamphackerTV, which you can find here.

Winner! Our #TwitPitch2014 Contest Has a Winner

Congratulations Camp Wightman!

This spring we announced a contest for the best #TwitPitch. We were looking for camps who could give parents enough information in 120 characters that they would take the next step: reach out for more info, click to see the website, request a brochure, etc.

The winning pitch was: We're not all bugs and dirt. Camp Wightman: where faith, friends, and fun collide. Building disciples since 1956.

Judging the Contest

I found a panel of experts (parents with kids that are the right age for summer camp) and asked them to rank the anonymized submissions.  These rankings were tabulated and Camp Wightman (in Connecticut) came out on top.

The judges came from lots of interesting professions (PR professional, insurance broker, banker, camp director who didn't submit for the contest) and life experiences.

What's this?

I must say #1 and #2 were very close! 

So close that we're going to offer a $750 CampHacker Playbook to the second place pitch: Your kid needs to be a kid. With role models, outdoors, growth, friends, and memories. Camp can help. This entry came from Camp Kitaki in Nebraska.

The next 3 pitches in ranking's were

• S'mores, canoeing, swimming, and archery anyone?  Come on down to Camp Kateri, where memories are made one week at a time! 
• Want the best for your child? So do we. Ask how Camp Takodah can set your child on a course for happiness and success.
• Every boy is entitled to an experience that is magic. Camp Nebagamon.

It's interesting to me (a lesson that we'll be applying to CampHacker clients this winter!) that all of the top picks were about "kids being kids".  The middle picks seem to be ones that had a play on words and the ones that were ranked lowest seem to talk about a future state of the campers - what they will grow up to become.

This ranking is hardly statistically significant but it's fun to look for patterns. 

We had a lot of great entries - thank you to all the camps that submitted!   We look forward to seeing what you can come up with for #twitpitch2015

What do you think of the way things ranked?  Leave us your opinion in the comments!

Asking for 100%

Hey all! James Davis here! Hope summer is going terrifically for you. We're in the throes of summer camp ourselves, but there's been something exciting going on here that I just had to share! 

It's an approach we've adopted from the magical Camp Augusta - so hopefully someone there will chime in if we are using it in a way that's drastically different from them :)

As a staff living in close community, figuring out what everyone needs can be hard. Really hard. And frequently, in our effort to be considerate of others, many of us have the tendency to not ask for the things we really want from others. 

"I really wish Sasha would help clean the lodge, but I know she's busy. I guess I'll just do it again this time."

We all know how the story ends: a staff member in our office 3 weeks later who is unhappy with how the situation is resolving itself. Perhaps Sasha finds out and is self conscious that people have been talking about how she won't clean for 3 weeks. Or maybe the counselor who was annoyed finally bubbles over and storms in saying how Sasha hasn't done any cleaning all summer. What a mess.

The idea is simple. When we are living in close community, we absolutely need to communicate to others what our needs are. ALL of our needs. But everyone sort of knows this, so how do we get staff to buy in?

It's actually an easier sell than you might think. 

We have agreed as a community that we will always ask for 100% of what we want from others, and have agreed that while living in a community that asks for 100%, we'll be totally honest with others when we can't meet 100% of what they are asking for. When we ask for 100%, we'll prepare to hear "no," and be ready to find a way to do our best to meet everyone's needs as best we can.

This arrangement makes it so no one has to guess what anyone else is thinking, or has to wonder if Sasha is ever going to pick up a darn vacuum. If someone decides to clean the lodge instead of bother Sasha, she does so because she really wants Sasha to focus on her other work, not because she secretly hopes Sasha will read her mind and change her behavior as a result.

It's been really interesting to watch summer staff start using this kind of language with each other ("I'm going to ask you for 100% here - I could really use a break during the 3rd activity period, do you think you could cover Sports for me?"), and watching the resulting honesty and clean communication. We've been working for a long time at untying this specific knot, and the language around asking for 100% appears to have been a significant break through for us.

What's something new that's working for you this summer? We'd love it if you'd take a moment to share!

The Referral Engine by John Jantsch - Camp Leaders MBA

The next book in our curriculum is The Referral Engine by John Jantsch.  Some may have heard of Jantsch before because of his previous book, Duct Tape Marketing and he is a frequent contributor to television news and business shows.  He is a great writer with an easy-to-read style that keeps the reader engaged.

Well, engaged might be too simple.  I was DRIVEN to read this book.  I made the mistake of reading this book one night before bed and I was up an extra two hours absorbing the ideas and scribbling notes in the margins. 

This book connects so strongly to camp because we are a business that relies heavily on word-of-mouth referrals.  

Would you send your child away to a place that you hadn't heard great things about?   Exactly.  

What John does in this book is help us create a system that will make it easier and better for our families to recommend us to their friends.

Important Lessons from Referral Engine

• Camps must be able to define & tell their "core talkable difference" - your Why Statement.  Why you do what you do and why that is different than any other camp.
• A business needs to define their ideal customer.  Not just "people willing to give us money".  Look to find your best camp family.  Do they: already recommend you to others?  Donate time & money?  Bring kids to camp that don't even belong to them?  That is your ideal client.  From now on... only talk to them with your marketing.   That way you'll be sure to get more of them.
• Focus your marketing efforts on your existing customers.  Set up a system that makes it easy for them to recommend you.
• Look for businesses that also sell to your clients and partner with them.  Think of ways that you both can market together (children's clothing stores, outdoor retailers, etc.).

What comes out of John's book is a system of marketing - a way of setting out strategies that everyone involved can understand the process.   He makes it easy for us to get things started and keep them going from year to year.

One of the best things about The Referral Engine is the examples section at the back.  He has solicited real-word examples of people using great word-of-mouth marketing.  You'd be hard pressed to read this and not find things that would work for your camp.

5 Things to Add to Your Camp Marketing To Do List

1.    Define your "Why".  Make sure everyone that ever answers the phone or talks to parents at a camp fair believes it and can articulate it.
2.    Create turnkey tools.  Put something in the hands of every family that will help them talk to others about your camp.
3.    Create separate website landing pages for every marketing venue (links from OCA, other online listings, links you hand out to referring families) so you can measure how effect is each source.
4.    Commit to video.   Teaching is an incredibly powerful marketing tool (way better than shouting into open space) and we are very good at that.   Use YouTube and Facebook to show off your skills.
5.    Create a survey to send out to last summer's families.  Ask for some feedback on a few specific elements of the camp experience but focus on positives.  Send this out one month before your due date to remind families of the great things that they get from your camp.

What is on your Camp Marketing To Do List this year?