Today marks the beginning of one of the most important things that WinShape Camps does all year long.
Not only is our Staff Training significant to executing the programming of camp, it’s also one of our favorite events of the year. Over the next week and a half, you’ll be seeing a lot of posts going out from our 2016 Staff Training. We thought we could take a second and help you understand exactly what we mean when we talk about Staff Training. Here’s the who, what, when, where and why of Staff Training.
WHO
Staff Training involves everyone that is working for WinShape Camps in the summer of 2016. Whether you work at WinShape Camps for Boys, Girls, or Communities, you attend Staff Training. Our entire full-time team leads the way as the work to train our summer staff on everything we’ve been developing since last summer. This year, we will have over 700 full-time and summer staff participating in staff training. Our summer staff come from close to 20 different states, and over 100 different colleges. Some of them fly in from California, while others drive up from Atlanta. Close to 50% of our summer staff served during a pervious summer.
WHAT
Staff Training is an extremely intentional and exciting event that develops our summer staff in a few different ways.:
- WinShape Camps 101: We remind our returning summer staff, while teaching our new summer staff about what makes up the DNA of WinShape Camps. How did WinShape Camps begin? What is our mission? What is our organization structure? All of this is answered at Staff Training.
- Skill/Track Development: Chances are the reason your kids want to go to camp is that it’s….well…fun. One of the highlights of their week is probably skills or tracks. (i.e. basketball, secret ops, painting, etc.) We’ve created a playbook for each skill and we train summer staff on how to lead them well.
- Theme Content: Each year WinShape Camps chooses new biblical truths to teach campers. Our summer staff spend time deeply trying to grasp just what we are teaching campers, and how to help them understand. We help summer staff learn to apply our truths to their own lives during worship sessions so that they can help campers do the same.
- Team Building: Most of these college students have never served on a team with the people they are working with this summer. We create times of intentional team building to help them get to know each other while having some fun,
- Personal Development: We try to not make Staff Training solely about preparing for camp. We want to develop our summer staff in a way that impacts their life long after camp. We invite guest speakers in to talk about anything from finances to relationships. This year we’re excited to welcome Bob Goff, author of the book Love Does, to share in a session.
- Safety: There is nothing more important this summer to WinShape Camps than the safety of our campers. We prepare our summer staff to provide an environment that is safe and healthy for everyone who joins us. Summer staff will hear from experts on child safety and psychology.
- Fun: Summer staff participate in socials and competition throughout the week including a race put on by our friends at Connect Events.
WHEN:
Staff Training always begins the Wednesday that falls two weeks before first session. This year, it goes from May 25th-June 1st.
WHERE:
Staff Training takes place in Rome, GA which serves as the home of WinShape Camps for Boys and Girls at Mt. Berry. Some of our summer staff stay at our camp facility, while others stay in the dorms of Berry College.
WHY:
We believe the key to a successful summer starts with our summer staff. We think it’s important to bring them all to one location where they can collaborate and prepare together. In fact, their ability to learn and build relationships while at staff training is so essential, we do everything we can to remove distractions. This includes taking up the phones for every single summer staff. You read that right. Close to 700 college-age students making the sacrifice of no phone for a week!
We hope you enjoy following along on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram as share all about staff training this week!
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