Tri-State 2012 - Steve Maguire Interview

Enthusiastic Summer Camp Training

It was a pleasure to meet Steve Maguire in person after having seen his presentations at conferences.   We talked about what camps should look for in a speaker/trainer from outside of their organization.

We were excited to have Steve Maguire sit down with Travis at the 2012 Tri-State Camp Conference. Steve talked about his own camp experiences (one summer his brother was his counsellor!) and what he can bring to a staff training event.

To find out more about Steve check out:

Turnstone - his website

Director's Camp.

Tri-State 2012 - Peg Smith Interview

American Camps Association Executive Director Peg Smith sits down with Travis Allison at the 2012 Tri-State Camp Conference. Peg shares her story of how summer camp has affected her family and brought her son out of his anxiety brought on by 9/11.

The Future of Summer Camp

ACA Executive Director Peg Smith sat down with me at this year's Tri-State Camp Conference.    We had a great chat about how camp has affected Peg's family,  about the future of the summer camp industry and about the value of being an accredited summer camp.

Thanks, Peg!

Gary Forster - CampHackerTV Interview

Gary Forster was the Camp Consultant for the national YMCA of the USA. In this CampHackerTV interview he shares with us some of the lessons that he learned from his years of research on the summer camp industry. Another great thing about a conversation with Gary is what he has seen at summer camps across the US.

Gary Forster was the Camp Consultant for the national YMCA of the USA.  In this CampHackerTV interview he shares with us some of the lessons that he learned from his years of research on the summer camp industry.

Another great thing about a conversation with Gary is what he has seen at summer camps across the US.  He collects all of those great ideas (what I would call Camp Hacks) and shares them.   If you join his newsletter you will get lots of great ideas!

Find Gary Forster online: http://garyforster.com

Chris Thurber (ExpertOnlineTraining.com) - CampHackerTV.mov

Dr. Chris Thurber - clinical psychologist and waterfront director - joins Travis Allison for this week's CampHacker TV. Chris is one of the founders of Expert Online Training and he spoke with Travis about his own summer camp experiences.

Summer Camp Staff Training Videos

On tonight’s CampHacker TV we welcome Dr. Chris Thurber from Expert Online Training.  Chris talked about his camp story and how he came to create Expert Online Training.

If you haven’t check out EOT you can request a Lite account to see a few of the videos and figure out how it will work for your summer camp staff.

Camp Video: Camp Simcha - Lighting Up The Night

Camp Simcha is a camp for children with cancer.  They recorded this awesome video at camp and at the Statue of Liberty.

http://campsimcha.org | http://chailifeline.org On August 23, 2011 Camp Simcha, an overnight camp for children battling cancer and other hematological illnesses, visited the Statue of Liberty to help light up the world. We created this video to empower others to brighten the world for children battling cancer.

To check out other great summer camp videos and helpful YouTube ideas click here.

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Marketing To Mom's - CampHacker Interviews Michael Staires

I interviewed Michael Staires, Director at Taconic Retreat & Conference Centre and reformed marketer ;-),  after his presentation at the Tri-State Camp Conference.  Michael's session was called Marketing to Moms.

Michael had some great ideas about how camp directors can focus their efforts on the women who make most of the purchasing decisions in a family.  Thinking about communicating to mom's means focussing your website in such a way that they will know and trust your camp.

This video is a great how-to for planning this year's summer camp marketing.

Marketing to Mom's - CampHacker Interview with Michael Staires from Travis Jon Allison on Vimeo.

Travis Allison interviews Michael Staires after his presentation at the Tri-State Camp Conference called Marketing to Moms. Michael had some great ideas about how camp directors can focus their efforts on the women who make most of the purchasing decisions in a family. This video is a great how-to for planning this year's summer camp marketing. http://camphacker.org http://www.michaelstaires.com/ http://www.tristatecampconference.com/

[Apologies to Michael for taking so long to post this - it's been a long few months of technical difficulties in the CampHacker office. Also, we'll work on a better location for this year's conferences so that the sounds a lot better.]

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Blue Couch Portraits

Family Camp at CAIRN, Baysville.

Blue Couch Portraits from Travis Jon Allison on Vimeo.

Family Camp at CAIRN, Baysville. For more information about all of the Family Camping opportunities in all of CAIRN's Programmes (Music Camp Muskoka, Dorothy Lake Family Camp, Glen Mhor Family Camp) please contact them at http://www.ilovecamp.org

For more information about all of the Family Camping opportunities in all of CAIRN’s Programmes (Music Camp Muskoka, Dorothy Lake Family Camp, Glen Mhor Family Camp) please contact them at ilovecamp.org.

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CampHack: Ouareau's Frisbee Golf Course

Beth and I lead a 2-day summer camp senior staff training for the leadership team at Camp Ouareau last week.  Ouareau is a bi-lingual girls camp north of Montreal.

It was a great program that introduced our new staff supervision model: T.I.M.E and S.P.A.C.E. with Grace.

While we were there I filmed a CampHacks video featuring their inexpensive disk golf course.

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Ouareau summer camp built an inexpensive frisbee golf course using material from their local hardware store. Ouareau (http://www.Ouareau.com) is an all-girls bi-lingual camp north of Montreal. If you like their cool way of Camphacking. You can listen to their director, Gabrielle Raill, on the podcast at http://CampHacker.org/camphacker-shows-listen-here

Packing For Summer Camp - CampHacker Video #4

I would love to see a camp take this idea and run with it: make a video summer camp packing list.   For extra bonus CampHacker points - set it to music and have jump-in verses (a la the Bad Horse Chorus).

Mentioned in this episode: http://campnation.ca - our podcast for professional summer camp leaders. For more episodes of CampHacker and more information to make the most of your summer camp life got to http://camphacker.org

Global Arts To Go - Tri-State Vendor Profile

CampHacker was excited to get to speak to so many of the great vendors at the Tri-State Camp Conference in March.   We will be posting videos from them over the next month.

In this video:  Global Arts To Go - Leadership Training, Music Programs, Dance Programs

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Forest Music With Palais

Having great music at summer camp is something that I think it is VERY important.   Teaching that music is a skill that I don't really have.

Thankfully, former CampHacker host Rebecca "Palais" Jess, does have that skill.    Listen and learn from the Cairn Co-Director.

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This is a song that I learned while at a talk given by a group called The Art of Mentoring. I think it would be a great song to bring to camp (or anywhere else you can find an audience that likes to sing).

Linchpins at Summer Camp (video) - Seth Godin

Seth Godin's summer camp interview from Tri-State 2011

We need our summer camp staff to be willing and able to be indispensable in their jobs - creative, energetic and steadfast.    At the Tri-State Camp Conference Travis had a chance to talk with best selling author Seth Godin about how we can inspire the Linchpin mentality.

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Seth Godin talks about Linchpins and Poking the Box at summer camp with CampHacker Travis Allison. Interview: Tri-State Camp Conference 2011 For more information and to listen to our podcast or subscribe to our newsletter (great interviews to help camp leaders, free audio shows, etc) click through to http://camphacker.org

Being a CampHacker Podcast Co-Host

Many people have asked us about joining the conversation as a CampHacker Summer Camp Podcast co-host.   We are always eager to have a new voice or two on the show.     Watch our "Being a Co-Host" video and let us know if you are interested.  We record every other Tuesday, usually at 2:00 p.m. Eastern Time.

We look forward to hearing from you!

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Thank you for being a part of the CampHacker podcast for summer camp directors and leaders! It's quite simple to set up for your conversation with us. We just wanted to take a minute to talk through the process with you. You will need: - a quiet space - a computer with a Skype account (or not...

Kids and Online Privacy (video) by Cory Doctorow

When parents monitor their children's online activity they are doing nothing to teach them to guard their own privacy.

Cory Doctorow, my favourite author and blogger, gave a great talk at the TEDxObserver conference this past month.    He believes that Facebook teaches our children to be less and less private by rewarding them for giving away information about themselves.

I am, by no means, a Facebook hater but I think Cory gives us some points to ponder about what kids are learning from the experience.   I do LOVE his idea about teaching them to not accept being spied on by anyone (parents, schools, local businesses, etc.) and to value privacy as a diminishing commodity.

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A Skinner box that trains you to under-value your privacy: how do we make kids care about online privacy? In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

Marketing Your Camp To Parents (video) - Nancy Shenker

Focus your summer camp marketing

Camps can reach out the the right prospective parents if they are conscientious about their marketing.

When we were at the Tri-State Camp Conference I had the honour of interviewing Nancy Shenker, CEO of theONswitch about her presentation "How to WOW Parents".

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How can summer camps help parents looking to make a decision about camp? With a little research camps can understand how to reach the right parents. Nancy explains some simple techniques to better communicate your "WOW factor". CampHacker Travis Allison interviews Nancy Shenker, marketing specialist, from http://www.theONswitch.com http://camphacker.org

The Lock Trick - CampHacker Video

CampHackers are the kind of people who look at everything about summer camp and think "How can we do this better?".   CampHackers see an everyday problem and think outside of the box.  CampHackers are our kind of people.

This is how it all started: the CampHacker videos.

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Welcome to Episode 1 of Camp Hacker! We would love to hear your feedback and to see your own camp hacks. Leave us a message here or email us your video to info@walkingmaverick.com. Coming Soon: http://www.CampHacker.org Mentioned in this Episode: http://www.campcouchiching.com/ http://www.easterseals.org/services/camp/default.asp?load=facilities.woodeden.directions

Tool of the Week - Common - CampHacker #12

Last summer I was introduced to the work of Alex Bogusky by a couple of good friends. I sat and watched some of the video's on Fearless Revolution and became re-enchanted with the world of advertising and how it connects to us who choose to do summer camp for a life.

Alex Bogusky, one of the world’s most awarded creative directors, invites the TED community to help remake and rebrand capitalism in this short film, which was awarded an Honorable Mention from TED's Ads Worth Spreading. ABOUT COMMON Benefiting people, communities, society, the environment and future generations is the new advantage in business. Common is a partnership between Alex & Ana Bogusky, Rob Schuham and John Bielenberg (Project M) Our new capitalist brand is about transitioning from competitive advantage to collaborative advantage. COMMON is a brand that is community designed, community owned, and community directed. It is a single open source brand — a living network — for rapidly prototyping many progressive businesses that unleash creativity to solve social problems. http://fearlessrevolution.com/common/ http://www.ted.com/initiatives/aws/a_common_film.html video by m ss ng p eces www.mssngpeces.com music by Julio Monterrey youthfaire.com Mix by Brian Rund

A COMMON STORY from m ss ng p eces on Vimeo.

Mr. Bogusky has created - with others, a new concept - a new brand - called Common.  From the Common.is site:

COMMON is all about connecting people with good ideas to like-minded creative professionals who will help launch their socially beneficial businesses. Our community is dedicated to shifting from the tired old concept of competitive advantage to a more meaningful system of collaborative advantage. We believe that a single brand with shared values can spin off hundreds - if not thousands - of progressive businesses that spread love and prosperity to all stakeholders.

I have been searching for the "future of summer camp" not just for where I am at, but for all of summer camp - as an industry.  This is another puzzle piece that fits into my head and into my weekly reading.

It is an unconventional tool - but one we should all have in our heads.

Dreaming of Camp,

Joe Richards

http://about.me/yoyojoe

http://campisbetter.com/

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Free Range Kids at Summer Camp

I had an amazing opportunity to have a chat with Lenore Skenazy from the Free-Range Kids book and blog.  We talked about her experience being "America's Worst Mom" (not my words - Lenore has proved she's an awesome mom to me) and what that has taught her about parents.

Lenore has some great stuff to say near the end about how summer camps can better speak to parents about getting their child to have an amazing summer camp experience.

Why are parents so scared? What can summer camp directors do to help parents understand the value of the camp experience and how it will benefit their children. CampHacker Travis Allison interviews Lenore Skenazy from the Free Range Kids blog (and book!). http://camphacker.org

CAIRN: Spring Has Sprung - Questions for Topaz

CAIRN Executive Director Beth “Topaz” Allison answers some of my questions about the beginning of the new camp season.

CAIRN: Spring Has Sprung - Questions for Topaz from Travis Jon Allison on Vimeo.

CAIRN Executive Director Beth "Topaz" Allison answers some of my questions about the beginning of the new camp season. For more information about CAIRN and the new extended Early Enrollment Rate please go to http://ilovecamp.org. Produced by Walking Maverick Consulting. http://www.walkingmaverick.com

For more information about CAIRN and the new extended Early Enrollment Rate please go to ilovecamp.org.

Produced by Walking Maverick Consulting. walkingmaverick.com

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Tri-State 2008

The Directors of CAIRN and I traveled from the Toronto Area down to the TriState Camping Conference in Atlantic City.

Canadian Camp Directors at TriState '08 from Travis Jon Allison on Vimeo.

The Directors of CAIRN (http://www.ilovecamp.org) and I traveled from the Toronto Area down to the TriState Camping Conference in Atlantic City. Also in this video: Staff from the Ontario Easter Seals camps, Camp Big Canoe and Camp Menesetung.

Also in this video: Staff from the Ontario Easter Seals Camps, Camp Big Canoe and Camp Menesetung.

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