How to Adapt Your Summer Schedule During COVID - Guest Post from Camptivities
Thanks to Camptivities for this great piece, and their sponsorship of Go Camp Pro.
As camp professionals, we could all use a little extra time during the summer. Extra time to devote to our campers, our staff, and this summer, focusing on COVID procedures. With all of these added procedures, is there a way to simplify scheduling to still achieve your “why” with some slight changes to your “how”? Let’s take a look at some ways to modify your “how” without changing your “why”.
FOCUS ON WHAT YOU CAN DO RATHER THAN WHAT YOU CAN’T
Across the industry, camp professionals are having to evaluate their programming to meet 2021 guidelines and best practices. If you are like most, you are worried about upholding those long standing traditions, which you feel define your campers experience; and doing this while accounting for all of the new health and safety protocols. Don’t feel like you have to. Now is the time to explore, test the waters, try things that you may not have been able to try in year’s past. The summer is already going to look different because of the new protocols. Take advantage of the opportunity to change “how” you create your summer without losing “why” you do what makes your camp special.
Campers are coming to you this summer after a long year of uncertainty, isolation, and change. Some have been away from their peers, at home since last March. Some have been at school separated by plexiglass. Simply put, children just need to have fun and feel a sense of normalcy this summer. There are lots of creative ways to modify previous programming to meet today’s standards.
TEST & CHECK
It’s likely your team has a tried and true method that they schedule, and in a normal summer that may work. But with so many changes, so many things to consider, don’t wait until the last minute. Get started early, look at the schedules created with all of your changes, and decide if it meets your camp’s goal. Did every group get all of the activities they were supposed? Did any groups get double scheduled? Is a staff person available for each period? Are your staff having too much “unscheduled” time? While doing this on spreadsheets or pen and paper may take considerable time, it is well worth it.
On the other hand, this might be the time to consider purchasing a scheduling software like Camptivities (camptivities.com). This product allows you to create a customized schedule that fits your camp’s needs, can do hours worth of work in a couple of minutes, and doesn’t make any mistakes. Their system allows for manual scheduling, customized tweaking of the auto scheduled output and forty different reports to see your data. In a year where camps are watching budgets more than ever, compare the cost of the man hours spent manually scheduling and iterating your schedule to using a software like Camptivities. What else could you have that high level person doing, if they can complete their scheduling duties in less than 50% of the time?
SCHEDULE CHANGE SUGGESTIONS DURING COVID
Instead of: Camper Choice: the mixing of campers from different groups could increase the risk of virus spread.
Do this: Consider offering group choice. Allow groups the opportunity to select which activities they want to participate in together. This could be accomplished by asking groups to submit activity preferences, holding an activity fair where they can build their schedule or simply assign them two activities per period and they have to decide which to go to.
Instead of: All Camp Programming: having everyone together in one place (i.e. large morning assembly, etc.) is out of the question. So how do you keep your sense of community and being a part of something without everyone in one place at one time?
Do this: Just because all groups may not be able to attend a program at the same time, does not mean it needs to be eliminated from your schedule. Consider scheduling tradition-rich activities by cohort throughout the session to ensure everyone is able to participate at different times. Perhaps have the assemblies in different locations simultaneously. Alternatively, broadcast the facilitation of the assembly while groups/cohorts are gathered in smaller spaces. Or lastly, have groups do things for one another so that they still feel connected to the larger camp community.
Instead of: Meals: is your dining space too small to seat everyone while maintaining social distancing, how does that impact your schedule?
Do this: While meal shifts may seem like a challenge, optimize that time by continuing to offer activity programming while part of your camp eats, then switch. Having a staggered meal time, although different, does afford some other fun opportunities. Can the groups not eating have group choice during this time as more activities are available? Could they do a large game of tag, hide-and-seek, etc. that covers multiple activity areas.
Bottom line, it’s easy to focus on what you can’t do. Instead, focus on what you can do and what new opportunities exist.
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Thanks to Camptivities for this guest post! Find out more about the good word they do at https://www.camptivities.com/