The Power of Pause - Reopening and Reimagining Camp After 4 Years

This was supposed to be my first summer not working at camp in over 15 years, but that was not to be. Despite having officially “retired” from the YMCA in August, the opportunity to help re-open Camp Ravencliff after 4 years was an opportunity I just couldn’t pass up! If you’re not familiar with my background, I was a camper at Ravencliff many years ago and directed the camp from the early 2000s until 2018. In the spring of 2019 the camp transferred ownership to a different YMCA too late in the season for the Y to operate a program that summer. With COVID hitting in 2020, the camp ended up sitting dormant and without a Y program for 4 years. The Y was eager to get their program launched this summer and with my new flexibility, I was happy to take on the task of directing this crucial season!

It’s a big lift to get a camp back open and operating, and thanks to a fantastic team of people we made it happen! We offered just one session this first summer back, but that meant our amazing staff team could pour all of their energy and enthusiasm into that week and the result was a memorable, impactful week full of laughter, growth and the return of camper’s voices echoing off our giant river cliffs during the Y Yell.

I’ve done a lot of speaking and training about the opportunity the COVID pause created for camps that are steeped in “this is how we’ve always done it”, and I was grateful for the opportunity to take a critical look at the traditions and practices of this 90 year old camp to explore what changes we could and/or should make. This can definitely be challenging when you’ve been in a camp for many years, but the combination of time away, other camp experiences and recent work I’ve been doing provided a new perspective.

Camp Ravencliff is a pretty unique camp. It’s traditional, "old-school" summer camp. There is no electricity in the cabins, no ropes course or fancy bells and whistles, it is simply buildings and dirt, and hard-working creative staff, on a hillside along the Eel River in Southern Humboldt County. Perhaps its most important feature is its small size, with just a 90 camper maximum each session. The programming is very intentional, with a sharp focus on managing the experience to make camp feel safe from the beginning and ramp up the energy as the week progresses and people are feeling more comfortable. Activity periods include camper choice activities, “free range” periods where they can move freely between a variety of activity options, dedicated cabin activity times and an all-camp evening activity period. We focus a lot on community building at Ravencliff. In fact, by the end of each session most of our staff know most of our campers’ names. We start each day together as a camp community at morning inspiration and celebrate the end of each day together at campfire, primarily starring our campers. We are proud of this format and the impact we’ve had on generations of young people over the years. And we also know that there are always areas we can improve. As we prepared to reopen, it was important to me to practice what I preach, and take a good hard look at what we had done in the past and what we wanted to build for the future.

One of the first things I looked at was overall culture. I’m extremely proud of the work we do at Ravencliff. Sometimes, though, we can give off a “we’re better than everyone else” vibe. This can unintentionally alienate first-time campers and staff when we veterans – who know Ravencliff’s programming and operation inside & out - forget how overwhelming camp can be when you have no frame of reference. For someone brand new coming in, the learning curve is steeper than the hill camp is built on. There have been a number of instances over the years where new staff, for example, ask questions and veterans (I'm sure even myself) respond or react as though these are 'dumb questions', forgetting all about this learning curve. It is unintentional and not the case for all staff or even every summer, but it is a trend I’ve seen recur over the years. In addition to just knowing how camp runs, there are many "inside jokes" or "remember that one time" stories returning staff or campers share. These are completely natural when people have a shared experience, and they can add to the feeling of exclusion someone new can experience. If I'm going to be intentional about the workplace culture I create, and I'm a big proponent of doing just that, I want to create a culture that shows we are proud of what we do while also showing humility. I want us to be great at what we do while always remembering the heritage we carry forward, that there are many great camps, and that we always have opportunities to learn and grow - often by listening to and supporting our first time staff and campers. We talked a lot before campers arrived about how to build a culture that is kind, inclusive, patient and supportive. It was a good, and sometimes difficult, conversation, but it created a shared commitment, understanding and awareness so that we can be mindful of our words and actions and help remind each other when we hear or see things that might be making people feel on the outside.

Our CILT program is another area we examined closely. CILTs (Campers in Leadership Training) are high school age students who pay to come to camp and are expecting to learn about leadership and teamwork, but also want to have regular camp fun. In recent years the program had shifted to the point where we were leading some of the sessions we lead during staff training with our CILTs, which had two outcomes. One was that we were training for things for which they weren’t actually responsible. The other was that we set them up for redundancy if they do join the staff team in the future. With camps finding it increasingly difficult to find enough candidates for their summer staff, the number one internal goal of our program is to build a base from which to hire staff in the future. We decided that the best way to do that is to focus on building connections within the CILT group and connecting the CILTs to the camp experience, creating a strong desire to be at camp, with much less focus on giving them counselor-type training.

Another small change we made was the name of our rest time after lunch. It has been called Siesta for as far back as any of us can remember, but as camps continue work around eliminating cultural appropriation, we thought this might be a good time for a name change. I’m particularly picky about names, so struggled to find something I loved. We went with Recharge for this summer, but I think it may be a work in progress.

A bigger change we made was to our version of the YMCA Rag program. If you’re unfamiliar the Rag program is a program that was started over 100 years and has developed into a program about setting personal goals toward self-improvement. It is an incredibly powerful program and gives participants ages 12 and up the opportunity to really focus on how to become the best versions on themselves. Each rag color is connected to a specific challenge, and each step builds on the previous. While it didn’t originally start as a specifically Christian program, because the Y as a whole was much more connected to Christianity at the time, it was very quickly added to it as the program grew, with it being added into study cards and ceremonies and being incorporated into the program’s logo which is also on the rags participants wear as reminders of their personal goals. This is a topic of frequent discussion and debate in the camp and ragger community, as some feel strongly that it’s an important component of the program while others feel excluded and choose not to participate as it does not align with their beliefs.

This had been something we’d struggled with for many years, as we understood strong feelings on both sides of the issue. We hadn’t made a formal change, but knew that if we were going to, this was the year to do so. After much consideration, we decided to move forward with a more non-denominational version of the program. We believe the program is too important to exclude people. The program is still about values and goals and being the best versions of ourselves, all of which align with the Christian faith, as well as most any other faiths or beliefs. For us, this change meant shifting to non-denominational language in our ceremonies and making a change to the logo on the rags, replacing the cross with a tree in the center.

These changes don’t change the overall impact of the program and make it available to all of our campers and staff, regardless of personal faith or beliefs. We feel strongly that this is the right decision for the communities we serve and believe that if we are focusing on inclusion, then we are moving in a positive direction.

In a surprising turn of events, one of the programmatic changes we made as a result of COVID ended up being a surprise hit. As we continue to maneuver in the presence of COVID, we made the decision to use “pods” for our first few days of camp, until completion of our COVID testing on day 3. That meant that for the first few days of camp, cabins were paired with 1 or 2 other cabins and they would do activities only in those pod groups until the completion of testing. This is a drastic shift from our usual choice/free range programming and while the team fully understood the need, there was a lot of disappointment that campers would miss out on those choice/free activities for those few days.

As it turned out, staff and campers actually enjoyed the podded activities. They found it a great way to sample camp activities that they might not otherwise have tried. Because pods were intentionally mixed genders, it allowed us to interrupt some of the traditional gendering of activities that happens at camp, which is one of our overall goals. It also seemed to help first-time campers increase their comfort level before being at a place where they had to make choices about things they didn’t fully understand. The entire staff team felt there were some real benefits to the pods and while none of us want to shift to that entirely, we will definitely incorporate some of this into our future programming. This is what we call a COVID-positive – an unexpected positive outcome from having to operate in the midst of COVID, and it’s always exciting when we find these amongst these challenging times.

One of the areas I specialize in and enjoy working on the most is leading change. Change can be very difficult, especially in a camp setting, but I’ve seen so many great outcomes on the other side of the work that I know how beneficial it can be. I’m so grateful to have had the opportunity to really dig in and make some significant shifts to the Ravencliff program. I look forward to continuing to strengthen this new foundation as I work with the team again next summer, and I’m hopeful our efforts will have a lasting positive effect on the program in the years to come!

Have you taken advantage of the pause that COVID created? What changes have you implemented, or could you still implement, to take advantage of this unique opportunity? I’d really love to know! Feel free to comment below or send me a message! And of course, let me know if I can help!