SCamp Life: The Programming Side

L.E. Dubois guest hosts with the guys this week for an interesting episode about making day camp awesome with limited resources - really limited. Curt used to work at a camp on an island and they could only bring 2 carts full of supplies, so he challenges Chris and L.E. with coming up with ideas on what to put on those carts! If you have limited space or rent a location where you can only bring so...

Kelie Cook joins Curt and Chris again this week for this super fun episode! They play a game of Would You Rather! This isn’t the disgusting, gross choices you normally see in this game, these are all things that you would like at your camp. Would You Rather have a lake or pool? Would You Rather have go-carts or horses? Would You Rather have a zipline or high ropes? Would You Rather listen to this...

Roz Buck guest hosts this week as Chris and Curt talk about how to keep your staff engaged pre-camp. Do you have a hard time finding staff each year? Is the number of returning staff pretty small? Do your staff complain that they don’t feel engaged? Well then, this is the episode for you!

The guys are green with envy this week as they chat with Danny Sudman about sustainability at camp. Danny talks about great ideas that any camp can start doing now. Whether it be as big as solar panels or as small as turning off lights, Danny’s got some excellent ideas. Each person at camp can do their part to help out our world just a little bit more. Check out some fun ideas on what you can do a...

Curt and Chris give some great ideas for keeping your families and campers engaged with your camp all year long! This isn’t your grandma’s boring Birthday card ideas, these ideas are contemporary and awesome! From Weird Holidays to Virtual Escape Rooms, check out this episode for unique stuff!

Lindsey Sigler joins the guys to talk about things she has learned from her theater background that can be applied to summer camp, from stage binders to drama programs and more.

Our guest host this week is Samantha Townsend from Kennolyn Camps . Samantha helps the guys come up with fun ideas around using a book to come up with fun programming or a theme. Samantha and Curt share some great tried and true ideas that they did at their camps! If you run a day-camp or need some fun programming ideas for your overnight camp, check out this week’s episode!

Jason Levasseur is an award-winning performer, songwriter and speaker. He joins the guys this week as they talk about the Rock Star Project and how it can benefit your camp! Find out what Jason can do for your organization. Bonus: He shares 5 rock star tips that will help your staff out today! Listen to this week’s episode and then check out the Rock Star Project!

It’s hard to believe that Chris and Curt have been doing this for 100 years…uh, episodes! The guys have a blast this week discussing fun and crazy memories from the past 99 podcasts. Hear about their favorite episodes, funny moments, dumb things they’ve done, and even some things they didn’t like! This week’s episode will be a fun walk down memory lane as well as some behind-the-scenes shenanigans...

Curt and Chris had Kelie Cook on this week to guest host. The three of them talk about Chris’ favorite thing: Stealing Ideas from other Camps!!!  Give this show a listen for some super sweet ideas from programming to staffing to misc that our hosts have stolen! If you have a great idea that you would love to share with them, send Curt or Chris an email and they may just have you on to talk about i...

Mara from Camp Arowhon joins the guys this week to discuss ideas to help with the biggest camper complaints. Having an extra host definitely helps when it comes to discussing some great ideas to fix some of the issues that campers have with camp! Check out this episode to get some extra helpful ideas.

This special Friday Podcast has a great interview with Elliott Sprecher from JotForm! Curt and Chris learn how JotForm can be very beneficial for Camps! Everything from registration to payments, to forms to surveys! They also talk about some of the many widgets JotForm has available, too!

In this episode Curt and Chris welcome Christina Gibbs as a guest host. Christina is the program Director at Mount Shepherd Retreat Center in North Carolina. The three of them discuss different things that parents have complained about at camp. Most camp directors have heard these same complaints. They also dive into solutions and tips on handling these complaints.

It’s that time of year where Camp Directors start going crazy trying to find summer staff. This week, the guys have some interesting ideas to try out as you go out hunting. Be sure to listen to this week’s episode ahead of any of your college staff fairs and test out some of these to see if you can fill your staff positions fast!

Kelie Cook joins Curt and Chris on this week's episode. Kelie ran an in-person camp last year and has now switched to the director role at a different camp. Give this weeks episode a listen to hear about some of the craziness of running the various camps, being a part of the Camp Admin program at Touro,  and even get some fun ideas for a couple games (the name Mortal Poodle should entice you enoug...

The new SCamp Life Podcast name change is now official!!!!  This is one of those episodes that you need to have your summer camp counselors listen to! It’s fun and silly, but also very thought provoking and will help those counselors remember some tips on being great counselors.  Be sure to download this one and make it required listening during your training week!

This week, the guys chat with Michelle Cummings of Training Wheels. Chris might have been fan-boying it a bit, but it was definitely an awesome episode with some really cool team building ideas! Michelle talks about a great staff training activity, how team building is going in a virtual world, as well as her new podcast, Ask Michelle and Chris.

This is part 2 of a 2 part series. Curt and Chris talk about incorporating Gaming into your Camp with a whole theme! Get great ideas of what you can do as well as where to find some very helpful sites.  Since Chris is planning on adding this theme this summer, he, as always, has gone way overboard on out-there ideas! With everything from coding, to diy escape rooms, to giant board games, these 2 e...

This is part 1 of a 2 part series. Curt and Chris talk about incorporating Gaming into your Camp with a whole theme! Get great ideas of what you can do as well as where to find some very helpful sites.  Since Chris is planning on adding this theme this summer, he, as always, has gone way overboard on out-there ideas! With everything from coding, to diy escape rooms, to giant board games, these 2 e...

Curt and Chris interview Michael Garcia this week. Michael is the Camp Director of Camp Centerland as well as the host of the Youth Development Professionals Guidebook Podcast. Michael talks about what it was like to run in-person camp during a Covid Summer.  He also has Chris’s new favorite rules for camp: 1. Campers leave with same number of fingers and toes they came with. 2. They’re dirty (gli...

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!!! The time when Summer Camp Conference, better known as SCampCon, comes around! Never heard of it before? It’s only the greatest (online) camping conference ever!!! Hear how SCampCon got started and what it’s all about on today’s episode.

Maybe you have a CIT or LIT program or Jr Counselors or whatever you call it at camp, but it is essentially a teen leadership program. It seems that each camp does it differently, and Curt and Chris have definitely seen and run them very differently. Listen to the episode if you want some ideas on how they run them as well as great ideas to make your Teen Leadership Program even better.

If you’ve ever considered doing a podcast for your campers this episode has lots of tips that need to be considered before starting that fun idea! From mics to tech tips to show format ideas, Curt and Chris go through it all.

On this episode, the guys discuss something that probably has affected most camps this year: Revenue! Chris and Curt have a ton of great ideas, some that worked and some that didn’t work for them but may work for you! During a pandemic season, these are some great ideas to try, but even after we’re back to normal, this is a great episode for some extra revenue at your camp!

Keeping with the theme of 2020, Virtual, the guys discuss the where, how and what of Virtual Escape Rooms! There’s lots out there and lots of different varieties of rooms available and the guys talk all the good and bad of them. Even more exciting is Curt and Chris are building their own Virtual Rom that you can check out as part of the ACA Southeastern Conference!