VIP TOUR OF THE PROGRAM OFFICE
For some of you, the office is a cubical in a big room with many other people, for others your office in on a soft comfy chair in your living room. The office at camp has many components or a "regular" office but also many other things you might not expect, so let's give you a VIP tour of the Program Office.
For starters, it's right in the middle of camp. The building is technically or historically called Basswood. It used to be a maintenance shop a ton of years ago. Side note, a couple years ago, all of our young camp kids were digging up old parts that they found with a metal detector and started selling them to unsuspecting summer staff... camp kids...
The inside currently is kind of separated into two halves. The front office is more formal, answering phone calls, setting up guest groups and things like that. The back office is the Program Office where the craziness happens.
Right now when you walk in, even though it's a pretty big room it's hard to get around. The next two weekends we have Mother & Daughter Weekend, which means the office is full of stuff to prepare for it. I'm talking a huge pile of books (Library Theme) for some crafts, prop constructing going on, snacks and other things that we will need throughout the weekend... Then a bunch of desk spaces for all of the interns.
In this room we have a rule, laptops can't be left open and unattended because you never know when an impromptu dodgeball game might break out, or whatever. You can't start a dodgeball game if there is open or wet paint. Lots of rules that make complete sense once you have been in the office for a while. There is a lot of brainstorming and testing of chapel games.
Snack time. This is really important. 10:18 am and 3:18 pm would be standard snack time. Also 10:18 pm, and if you are really working unfortunately late, 3:18 am. Could be anything from fruit to a little debbie or warmed up pizza. Feel free to send a snack care package any time! Here's the thing though... You have to put your snacks away into a sealed container so they don't get eaten by Dale the Squirrel. He finds his way in sometimes and can cause some trouble. FYI we also have Dale the maintenance guy, totally different. We like him way more.
Army helmets... Seems random but when Herb is wearing his army helmet, it means don't interrupt because he has to get some stuff done. I guess I just have to shut and lock my door. Neither happens that often but sometimes. That is a strangely great thing about camp. Staff are really interruptable and available, dropping everything to help each other out.
In a couple weeks we will be full speed ahead to summer. Program staff and some other support staff will get here to start training and planning. The office gets much cleaner then and there will be about 15 people jammed into desk spaces and the big round table. It is nice to have all the program staff in one room for team unity. Speaking of the round table... It's a 9 foot round table, great for meetings and ping pong. I should say EXTREME PONG! It's 3 on 3, you can set each other like volleyball, play it off the walls, people and other non horizontal things, it's really fun. Many times the youth speakers and musicians want to play during retreats. It's hard to find time in summer though.
That's the jist of it, other than building things, craft and equipment storage, meeting place for morning devos and much more. It's a bit of the heartbeat of camp and where most of the program planning comes from. The tone is great. Making sure everything fits into our mission and always pointing our guests to Jesus. We are looking forward to summer with thousands of kids and families coming.
