Camping Program Committee
The Camping Program Committee consists of approximately 18 persons nominated by the Nominating Committee and appointed by the Yearly Meeting, plus the directors of the camping programs, and the Camp Administrative Secretary, ex-officio.
The Camping Program Committee oversees and coordinates the philosophy, policy, financing, and program emphasis of all Yearly Meeting endeavors in the field of outdoor religious education—seeking to provide for all the various ages and interests of our Yearly Meeting through a variety of camping styles. The Camp Administrative Secretary is responsible for implementing goals, direction, and policy as set by the Camping Program Committee.
The Camping Program Committee advises the General Secretary on employment of camp directors and the Camp Administrative Secretary. The Committee nurtures and supports the directors and staff in the implementation of the outdoor religious education programs and works to promote awareness of the programs within the wider Quaker community.
The Clerk or another member of the Camping Program Committee
serves as a member of the Camp Property Management Committee.
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Manual of Procedure, August 2005, p18
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Advance Report - 2007
The Camping Program Committee had a busy year and enjoyed a number of new committee members who brought new energy and ideas to the committee’s work. As a whole, we are amazed and pleased with the uniqueness of BYM’s Camping Program and the quality of experience it provides all involved. In this report we focus on several areas which were of primary focus for the CPC this year:
- Camp Evaluation process
- Teen Program
- Leadership
- Under-Enrollment
- Finances
- Relationships with other BYM Committees
Camp Evaluations & related issues
The Camping Program Committee has always actively sought and valued the feedback of campers, parents, staff and volunteers, but the results of our past evaluation efforts—laborious though they were—have often been disappointing. This year we established a new evaluation process using an online survey. This process brought in more input from campers, parents, staff, and volunteers. The Committee was able to use the feedback to guide our off-season work as well as the operation of camps in session.
From the evaluations, the CPC developed the following queries, which led to rich discussion at the yearly directors’ meeting in March:
- How does the camping program honor different comfort levels with the expression of sexuality at camp?
- How does the camping program nurture and foster a sense of inclusion for ALL campers, especially those on the margins (quieter children, new children)?
- We (CPC, CPMC, Camp Directors) have collective ownership of safety issues. How do we support each other in assuring safety of people at camp?
The CPC and Camp Directors found common ground in realizing that we cannot assume that all members of the camping program community share values with all others, and we must be careful to communicate and be mindful of others’ values. In our discussion we again realized the importance of pre-camp training of staff as well as the role of counselors and camp staff in being aware of potential issues, then communicating clearly to resolve any problems.
In an effort to be good fiscal stewards and in response to the evaluations, the CPC has examined our management of food planning and purchasing. We encourage each camp to serve fresh, healthy food, organic when possible, keeping the budget in mind. Each summer our kitchen managers have a range of experience; some have held the position for several years, while others have cooked or been at camp but are new to managing the kitchen. This year, Betsy Krome, kitchen manager at Shiloh and CPC member, will be coordinating communication among kitchen managers at the camps to share planning tips, favorite camp recipes, etc.
Teen Program
Last year we had a large number of campers who were not able to attend Teen Adventure due to a shortage of space, and the CPC was deeply aware of the pain and distress this caused many families. In last year’s discussions about the space shortage, we identified a number of challenges to expanding TA including the saturation of the available locations along the Blue Ridge, the difficulty in locating appropriate staff, and transportation. Way opened this year to add additional trips in a North Carolina location through a collaboration with Wilmington Friends School. This year we were able to accept nearly all of the on-time applicants, and although it's too early to pronounce the program successful, we have every expectation that it will be. Although the North Carolina trips ended up presenting too many challenges to see it actualize, the process required investigation, discussion and negotiation, and discernment, which led to a closer to home option of slight programmatic changes to TALT (the 2nd year of the TA Program). The CPC is grateful to Jane Megginson for her role in recognizing the possibilities for expanding the program and for her work in bringing our ideas to fruition in so short a time (only a few months!). We are also grateful for our new TA directors, who have dedicated immense time and energy to program planning for the new approach to TA.
We also had a dedicated group of people begin exploration of a Teen Arts Adventure (TAA), which would be a more site based program potentially meeting the needs of teens who would like further camp type programs, but are not as able or interested in the level of physical activity required by TA. A successful planning retreat was held at the Clearing, with the support of Richmond Monthly Meeting and a grant from the Ethel Reynolds fund. The sense of the CPC was that while the vision of a TAA is clear and meaningful, the practical details of planning and initiating this type of program are too immense for us to undertake at this time. Even so, the process of exploration and discernment was good, and helped identify other existing opportunities for teens interested in this type of experience through Pendle Hill, Washington Quaker Workcamps, and other organizations.
After last year’s shortage of spaces in Teen Adventure, we felt we must clarify our acceptance policy. Our discussion reaffirmed some of our core beliefs: our belief that our programs work best and change lives most profoundly when campers are able to return each year, and our commitment to serving children within the Baltimore Yearly Meeting. We structured our acceptance policy around these beliefs. We felt that the Quaker testimony of integrity requires a full and complete disclosure of the process that is used for admission to the TA programs, and the step-by-step process is now posted on the Camping Program website.
Leadership
We are blessed with talented and committed Camp Directors with long successful tenures. However, for a few, success and growth in other areas of their lives has required them to look for new ways to be a part of the camping program. CPC helped interview 3 new directors—Jennifer Schneider and Alison Downey to replace outgoing TA co-directors Melissa Poole and Whitney Thompson, and Alex Jadin to join Linda Garretson as Catoctin co-director. The CPC has observed that the co-director design seems to be a good system for highlighting and complementing strengths, helping with off-season requirements, and supporting the leadership of the camping program.
Under-enrollment
Despite last summer’s experience with a shortage of TA positions, the camping program as a whole has been underenrolled for the past few years, particularly at Opequon and Shiloh. In our Advance Report of 2005, we noted a problem with underenrollment, which we believed was “caused partly by demographic trends, and partly perhaps by overconfidence in the power of word-of-mouth advertising and past patterns of family commitments. We may have failed to recognize the demographic trends in time to advertise appropriately.” We also believe this is a nation-wide problem for overnight summer camps. Neverthless, we continue to explore ways to increase enrollment, including more effective advertising in Quaker publications and in other arenas, presentations to monthly meetings, and individual recruitment efforts.
Finances
It is always a challenge to provide a budget for the following year, when our current year hasn’t even started yet. In the past, the CPC has generally been a year behind in the budgeting process, but over the past several years, our Camp Administrative Secretary and our Budget subcommittee have worked very hard to bring the CPC budgeting process in line with BYM’s budget timelines. For several years the CPC has been working to make the Camping Program fiscally viable so that it does not rely solely on the financial support of BYM in order to function. This has required us to raise the camp fees. Although the new fees are higher than we are accustomed to, they are still well below comparable camping programs. Moreover, the increased fees will allow us to take care of necessary equipment upkeep. Finally, retaining experienced staff is a key to the quality of our programs, and meaningful pay increases for our wonderful camp directors and staff are long overdue.
We have also acknowledged the need to be able to change the way the scholarships are financed. Currently, many meetings provide scholarships for their young friends, and others put effort into raising money to sponsor youth from the wider community. Beyond that, BYM has a Barry Morley endowment that helps provide additional scholarships. The amount of scholarships requested outnumbers the amount of scholarship funds currently available through this endowment. As a result, we must continually choose between forgoing equipment replacement and other operational needs or denying campers the opportunity provided through the scholarship program. CPC has begun working with stewardship & finance committee re: fundraising to increase the scholarship endowment.
Relationships with other BYM committees
We generally have a joint meeting once a year with the Camp Property Management Committee, and we continue to find this beneficial to the operation of the camping program. This year, in our ongoing efforts to nurture more formal connections with other BYM committees, we worked with Youth Program Committee as they grew and changed, and we hope to continue supporting each other in areas of common focus.
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