Dance Summer Mode

One of the things baked into the realities of outdoor ministry that many of us appreciate and thrive in is seasonality. For everything there is a season, and then another one, and then another one. It’s a beautiful cycle, and we usually love it. It also means that in our work and our mental state and our spirit we have a similar seasonality. We go into ________ mode, and then we shift into ________ mode (fill in the blank). If you’ve ever been a program director leading a day of camp you know you usually have to shift modes every 27 seconds or so. Again, we often thrive in this, and its part of why we do what we do. And, for sake of our souls and our personal and organizational sustainability, its worth paying attention and giving intention to the times we’re shifting. Like right now.

For most of us, it’s been a few weeks since the last summer campers we’re on site splashing and running and worshipping and meeting Jesus in new ways. We put months of time on the way in, and yet we often shift out of summer mode so quickly. It was tiring, hopefully in a good way. We heard from staff members about how they were doing this summer through a quick pulse check survey. We broke those results down last week on the Sacred Playgrounds Podcast. Give that a listen to hear how things went for your fellow ministry leaders this summer. I’m not sure what it feels like for you, whether you’ve put a bow on the summer completely, or you’re still processing, but here’s your sign to think about a few key post-summer things that you may or may not be thinking about.

PS. In case you missed it, the “dance mode” reference is from a much-beloved children’s show called Bluey. Look it up, even if you’re an adult. Dance Mode is a great episode to start with, and get your groove on.

1. Gather your numbers and turn them into stories

You likely have some end of week evaluations, parents surveys, or some other way of gathering evaluative feedback from participants. If you are like many, these are sitting in an office somewhere, where they’ll remain until a recycling day in some distant future. Maybe you did an initial look through the comments to make sure there wasn’t anything needing immediate attention, but let us encourage you to maximize how you use and what you learn from your evaluation processes.

If your staff don’t have the capacity, get some volunteers to enter this data into a spreadsheet or other software where you can run some simple analytical processes. Gather these numbers and see what they tell you. Ask the data questions. Some good quick things to consider are averages and ranges (the space between the high and the low) of any numerical data. Ask the data when, where, and why.

Then, you use that data to do two things. For one, start conversations with your team about any shifts needed in programs or processes based on the feedback. And, you turn the numbers into stories and share them with your staff, campers, and especially in spaces where you might find new families and new campers.

PS, if you want help with any of this, or just really don’t want to do data entry, let us know. We’d love to help.

2. Evaluate and encourage leaders

The research makes it clear, camp success is about program quality, and program quality goes as leaders go. Fully equipped and engaged leaders with strong future in this vocation or another go through evaluation processes in order to get better. Your ministry impact is worth asking the questions, sharpening the growth edges, and maximizing the strengths of those that lead the way.

Directors, encourage your board chair to set up a clear evaluation process for you. If you don’t have one yet, ask a seasoned leader, your association’s director if you have one, or learn more and send us a message on how to evaluate well. Now, in the early fall is the time to make sure this process is in place.

3. Set your staff recruiting timeline

It that time of year! Yes, recruiting season is here.

It sounds a little crazy because some of your summer seasonal staff members just left camp within the last couple of weeks. The truth is, just like campers and families, recruiting is a year-round engagement. We know the days of hitting a couple of college camp fairs in late March and filling out summer staff are gone, and there’s a new timeline the is both a necessary reality and a big opportunity.

Set your recruiting timeline now. Think in phases and/or milestones. The current phase that should conclude soon is evaluation and learning. Just like for campers above, gather insights from your summer staff. You can use a simple survey (you could use the post-summer pulse check we did as a template to tweak), look through notes you may have written in end of summer group or individual exit interviews, and do some of your own reflecting and writing down.

A few thoughts on what’s ahead. The next phase includes conversations with staff members you know you’d like to have back, and checking in on timing of important recruiting event like college visits, conferences, or other spaces you connect with staff. Then be sure to make changes to any recruiting and hiring processes or documents. After that, once they have action steps, get those returners to fill out applications and get those interviews done. Let these returners, especially coordinators and leadership staff, set the foundation for next summers team.

 The step right now is to set your phases and milestones, with thoughtful deadlines, for your staffing process. 

What else?

Those are a few thoughts, but leaders sharpen leaders, so what other post-summer processes to you have built into your camp world that others may benefit from? Post a comment on the post here, send us an email, or comment and share in whatever social space you may have found this!