Last Updated: October 21, 2009

Fall Conference 2009 - Breakouts

Leadership: What Really Matters?
Research says we need to get campers involved, that they want to help make decisions, and it is up to us as camp directors to teach them the essential components to be an ethical and responsible leader in a global society. This is a daunting task and leaves a lot of room fori nterpretation. At the end of the day, what really matters? This session will cover key research findings about leadership in camps. Going beyond camp leadership, the session will provide information about key leadership traits and skills. The session will give camp leaders the skills necessary to help their campers become better leaders in the camp community as well as in campers' home communities.

Getting the best out of your male counselors
What sort of feedback do campers and parents give you regarding your male counselors? Are your male counselors giving your camp-
ers the same quality experience as your female counselors? This session is designed to focus on improving the experience your male staff provide for campers. Tenets from "Season of Life" by Jeffrey Marx and real life application from Summer '09 will be shared. This session will remind participants what it is like to be a young adult male and help them speak directly to their male staff about overcoming societal expectations.

Going Digital - Camper Paperwork Reduction
Come share your successes and challenges and hear about the best practices in the industry for the reduction of camper paperwork.
Where do you turn after online registration in order to streamline and reduce the physical papers that are created, copied and moved
from place to place for each camper? Specifically we will look at release forms, medical forms, third party paperwork, programmatic
notes on campers, and more. We will dive into both the logistics and legality of going digital.

When Saying "Thanks" isn't enough
This session is designed to share ideas about what works and perhaps what hasn't for letting staff know that you appreciate them. In
addition to talking about having different generations of camp staff at the same time, we will spend quite a bit of time focusing on the Millenials as summer staff members, and what they want from you to keep motivated and doing their job this summer. It will be a roundtable, interactive session with not only ideas from us, but we will be facilitating the retrieval of ideas from the participants. There will be fun props and take home ideas that will be useful in the summer of 2010.

Converting Your Web Site to 2.0
The new level of technological interactivity between web sites, services, and customers along with social phenomena are driving new types of online communities and social networks. It has changed the way web pages are designed and the expectation the customer has. Come hear what you can do to move your web site out of the dark ages.

The sessions above are just a few of the over 20 excellent breakout sessions presented by camp and youth development professionals. If you are interested in presenting at this conference or at a future event please contact: Andrew VanDerWege, 303-413-9622 x 4450, or andrew.vanderwege@ymcabv.org