Has everyone gone and checked out the new ACA 100 Years Anniversary web page? Check it out here – www.acacamps.org/anniversary. I don’t know how the rest of you feel about history but I need mine in short quick doses. I can only watch 20 minutes of the History Channel at a time. Well I think this look back at the ACA’s 100 years is perfect for my attention span.
I’d suggest anyone who has had any worthwhile experience in camping to go check it out, specially the storyboard page. It’s nice to hear from people who still remember their time at camp, years later. I believe I read a little something from Camp Horizons, a very loyal former camper and current staff member shared some thoughts.
The combined knowledge of 100 years and the many camps that contribute to that knowledge and experience prove that camps have and continue to make a difference in many children’s lives. I’d encourage you to share this link with your camp families and maybe they will share their life changing stories about your camp with everyone.
I’m Back! It has been a while since my last post on the Independent Camps Blog. I guess my day job kinda took me for a spin. I hope everyone had a great summer and they are on their way to an even better summer.
On Wednesday Camp Friendship hosted the ACA Virginia’s Annual Fall Conference and we had a really nice time with many of you. Thank you to all who came and participated with us. We had some great sessions and for those of you who missed it, Dr. Karla Henderson gave a very straight forward keynote address. Karla addressed the topic of “Minding Your Mission”, something we need to remember as we move forward. It’s key to remember why we do what we do and where we are headed in the process.
I have been speaking to Alina Ackenbom, the ACA Virginia’s Independent Camps Chair, and we would like to focus this little blog more. It would be great if I could get some suggestions from all of you on what kinds of things you would like more information on. As an example during our Fall Conference I attended a couple of sessions on connecting with your staff and training. Some of the things covered like Facebook and blogs seemed a bit confusing for some and I’d be happy to talk about that here to make it a little less mystifying. Any suggestions on other topics would be very helpful.
In the mean time I will be looking into topics that I’m personally interested in for our camps and doing a little research. As I explore these things I hope to share them with you here. Personally one of the things I’m interested in is new ways of sparking Word of Mouth among our camp families. I hear from a lot of new families that they heard about camp from a former family or camper. My question is how can we encourage more of that.
Well that’s all I’ve got for now, hopefully next time we speak it’ll be before the summer of 2010.
The word is out, the American Camp Association has unleashed a Public Service Announcement about the benefits of camp. Through a simple 50 second video celebrities are sharing some of the simple benefits they received from their time at summer camp, as campers and staff.
Some of you have already reached out with blog posts and Facebook updates and we are starting to spread the word. While this seems like a simple first step and I hope to see more similar attempts and announcements we should all take a moment to really spread the word about this video and page by linking to it through your site, blogs, twitter, digg, or what ever form of media you can get your hands on.
If you are just now hearing about it, head on over to – http://www.acacamps.org/becauseofcamp/ and check it out. I’ve embedded the video below for your convenience.
Has everyone gone and checked out the new ACA 100 Years Anniversary web page? Check it out here – www.acacamps.org/anniversary. I don’t know how the rest of you feel about history but I need mine in short quick doses. I can only watch 20 minutes of the History Channel at a time. Well I think this look back at the ACA’s 100 years is perfect for my attention span. 
