The Day Camp Pod - From Go Camp Pro

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/the-staff-experience What’s the best way to ensure our staff keep coming back? Since the staff revolution of summer 2021, most camps have put more focus on the staff experience than ever before. If we’re being honest SOME focus, as opposed to hardly any, as most of us realize that we’ve been taking our workforce fo...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/crisis-management   When it comes to crisis, prepare and prevent, don’t repair and repent. With all the crazy stuff going on in our country and the world, camp directors often have to become crisis managers.  One of our friends, Dave Thoenson from Tamarack Day Camp outside of Chicago, joins us to debrief his experi...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/summer-2023-debrief What lessons can we learn from summer 2023? Summer 2023 is in the books, and we not only survived, but we thrived - very much like it’s 2019 again…  Our super-thoughtful friend from the West Coast, Kelly Jones, joins us to talk about last summer, and we’ll try hard not to just talk about staff s...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/remembering-doug-pierce “Whoever needed help, Doug was there with his sleeves rolled up.” - Jay Jacobs Doug Pierce was a larger than life camp director and industry leader who set the standard for Day Camping, ACA volunteerism, positivity, and sharing. Doug passed away last April, to the shock of his friends and co...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/camper-refunds-2023 Parents are the most important partnership a camp can have. But how do we balance the financial needs of our camp and our parents when it comes to deposits and refunds? As we head into the camp season, we’ve got plenty of parents hitting us up with refund requests for every reason imaginable. St...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/staff-training-2023 As you gear up for another year of staff training, tune in for some expert advice from the experts, Roz and Jed! It’s just about time to get our staff together, get them energized, and get them trained up as much as we can for the arrival of our campers. Who better to discuss the ins and outs of...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/variety-show Staff training is on the minds of camp pros nationwide. Dave and Dave are here to share their two cents on the hottest topics of the year! At the past ACA National Conference in February, I had the pleasure of experiencing both Dave Malter and David Phillips both in session rooms and informally in the...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/boss-convos Even if you’ve known your boss for years, interacting with them can still be nerve-wracking! Dan is here today to share his experience navigating this tricky power dynamic. Managing up, quiet quitting - most people have a pretty dysfunctional relationship with their supervisors. While it may be the norm...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/genz-hacks Staffing emergencies call for emergency podcasts! Are we really in a “hiring crisis,” or do we just need to change the hiring process? Justin is back to share the inside scoop on how to appeal to Gen Z applicants. I just got back from Tri-State, where I’ve been attending for close to 30 years, and the ge...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/public-relations-2023   Sometimes building public relations requires a bit of creativity, or at least some planning ahead. Tune in to hear Michael’s tips and tricks! Delivering a great summer camp program is paramount to the success of our camps. But what often gets overlooked is the importance of public relations...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/best-inclusion-practices “No culture can live, if it attempts to be exclusive.” – Mahatma Gandhi. Let’s work together to make sure all children get the camp experience they deserve.  Inclusion for our campers with disabilities is one of the biggest topics in all of camping. Our annual episodes are some of our most...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/mentoring-and-developmental-support Investing in your staff is investing in success! Our friends from e21 are here to tell us more. I don’t know about you, but when it comes time for my middle management to sit down with the front line staff for formal evaluations, I get very nervous about what’s about to happen. E...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/training-new-leadership Even with the pandemic in the rearview mirror, camps are struggling to find staff with experience. Leadership training will be more important than ever this year, so be sure to tune in to hear some advice from the legendary Michael Brandwein! Hey there Day Camp Pros! We are so grateful to be...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/scott-arizala Scott is no longer the “cool young buck” of the camp industry. Tune in to hear about the lessons learned from his years of experience! Scott Arizala is one of the greatest staff trainers that I’ve ever learned from. He’s a master teacher, able to translate big concepts with humor, realism, and story t...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/maximizing-use-of-facility How can you pivot your traditional Day Camp program and facility to help with year-round revenue? Andy and H are here to tell you how! COVID-19 forced us to be more creative than we’ve ever been before. From program to staffing to facilities, we re-writ the playbook on what is possible to...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/day-camp-trends Joanna has assessed and consulted over 500 camps… ya, you won’t want to miss this one! There are a lot of Camp Consultants out there, helping nice, well-meaning, camp operators get their act together, and run their camps like businesses, and Joanna Warren Smith is one of the originals. She’s been do...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/incentivizing-staff Front-line workers have certainly felt the pressure these past couple of years. Tune in to hear Ross and Adam’s tips on encouraging staff to keep coming back! Once upon a time, there were day camp staff that worked the full season, full days, and missing time was a rare occurrence. Today - not s...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/young-thoughts-with-justin There is LOTS to learn from our up-and-coming youth! Justin is back to share some key insights of the corporate world from the Gen Z point of view. Two of our most popular podcasts last year involved the perspectives of the opinionated young man, Justin Pritikin, who graduated college, an...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/learn-from-corporate-america Corporate practices are just as applicable to camps. Tune in to hear Mario’s top three! Camp is a warm fuzzy place. AND it’s a business. And our friend Jonathan Gold likes to remind us, we have to run a good business FIRST, in order to do the good things that we do. Mario Del Cueto atte...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/burnout-episode Burnout. We’ve all been there. Some may say it is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be that way! Are you a typical Day Camp operator that works so hard that you forget to smell the roses? You put your Camp first and you second? Didn’t the pandemic teach you that GRINDING your way through life may b...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/registrations-and-refunds The world is in an economic crisis. How are Camp Pros supposed to respond to it? As Day Camps continue to rebound from the pandemic, inflation is hitting hard and we just can’t raise prices as much as our costs are increasing- So what then?  Well, we can look at our policies for registrati...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/debriefing-and-decompressing Summer 2022: A summer of lesson, laughs, and learning opportunities. Summer 2022 is in the books- Woo-Hoo, Congratulations. And by all accounts, it was a helluva lot better than 2021, which ain’t saying much.  After a more normal school year, our campers and younger staff were a bit mor...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/including-non-neurotypical-campers Every child deserves a camp experience. Period. Allison Krabill and Sam sit down to tell you how to help non-neurotypical campers have a successful camp experience.  We’re grateful to welcome The Summer Camp Society’s new executive director, Allison Krabill join Sam to talk about...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/staff-not-coming-back Justin Pritikin returns to give you an inside scoop on why your staff are not coming back, quitting and in general, “done” with the camp industry. Picking up from our past episode 66, and the Tri-State Camp Conference Session that he and I gave last week in Atlantic City, Justin is back to giv...

Send us Fan Mail Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/day-camp-pod/staff-holding-hostage A proactive approach to working with this post-COVID generation of staff This past summer was intense, especially in the realm of managing our   staff who have been through a lot in the past two years. Managing staff resistance is something that comes with the job, but extreme staff resistance...