[7/22/2009 Author's note: This posting has been unpublished since this time last year. I just completed 2009's first session of camp and am now resting up and preparing for the second. I wasn't going to publish this post but have relented since this year's experiences seem to match last year's so closely.]
Today is the opening day of Greater Cleveland Council's 2008 Webelos Resident Camp. I'm supposed to be the "Program Director". It is sort of an interesting job (volunteer position). This year we have downsized from two, 4-day camps to one 3-day camp. And upsized from 130-ish total campers to 180 total campers and 107 adult leaders. So camp's infrastructure is being stressed, from the swimming pool to the dining hall to the roads at camp.
It's mostly a fun position. Not always. I get asked to plan months in advance and then everyone seems too busy to hear until the week before camp. And even then, I'm still waiting to deliver the craft materials to the craft area that starts tomorrow morning at 8:45. So I am encouraged to plan as far in advance as possible and end up discouraged when no one wants to think past the next half hour!
Right now I'm waiting in a program area that has wi-fi, waiting for a group that is now 17 minutes late. Some one in the group has parked a car where they shouldn't and I was going to take a load off my feet, find some shade and pass along the message before moving on to head off the next crisis.
Crises are OK at camp, as long as the boys don't figure it out. A long line at the pool swim-check? Get more adults to take their tests early so we can get increase our spotters and achieve the maximum through-put of six simultaneous test-takers. No string at a program area? I've got string and can walk it around to the others.
I find that's largely my job. Walking around and putting out fires before they get too big. This morning it was peanut allergies. Solution? Well, we do have separate dining rooms.
Well, it doesn't look like they're coming. I think I'll get the keys to the craft area and go deliver 180 blank 1x4x9" boards for pondsailer sailboats. And then figure out where everyone is.
