With this season’s staff theme focused on being “Together,” the Camp Arcadia Management Team chose a new strategy to kick off the first week of training with an all-staff camping trip to the Platte River Campground. The journey itself became an adventure right from the start. After arriving on site, moving into staff quarters, and weathering a major storm that caused a total power outage, the staff undeterredly packed their bags, loaded tents into vehicles, and headed north on M-22.
Executive Director Chip May explained the core rationale behind this excursion:
“Our experience developing the Staff community at Camp Arcadia—backed by research—shows just how critical it is to connect our staff sooner rather than later. By being intentional and having this camping trip at the very beginning of our training, we build a foundation of trust. In the past, we noticed that diving straight into department-specific training kept staff from bonding deeply. This trip changes that, bringing everyone together to form strong relationships before the summer even begins.”
Though the trip offered immediate challenges—including a brief delay from rain and a hatching of bugs of Biblical proportions—the weather quickly cleared, and the staff’s enthusiasm remained unchanged.
A main component of the trip was a strict “unplugged” protocol: everyone left their cell phones back at camp, except for the drivers who kept them tucked away in their cars. For first-year staffer Libby Spencer, who was camping for the very first time, this intentional digital break made all the difference.
“Even with the rain, it was still really fun,” Libby reflected. “Being unplugged and not having my phone gave me time to really get to know everyone on staff. Instead of everyone pulling out their phones the second there was a break in conversation, this gave us the chance to keep talking without distractions. It was an incredible bonding experience and a memory that will last for years.”
Assistant Director Shelly Gallo and Program Director Stephanie Jass were strategic in structuring the team challenges and activities. Rather than putting the staff into departmental groups, they mixed returning and new staffers into their designated “day-off” groups. This allowed team members to learn who they were in a community sense and begin communicating how they would plan their shared day-offs together.
The team challenges really highlighted the importance of everyone working together. It gave the staff a fun, low-stakes environment to learn about each other, look at their own group dynamics, and figure out how they will handle things when they have to pivot during the summer.
After working together to set up large, 10-person tents, the staff cooked a classic dinner of hot dogs and brats over the open fire. The clear highlight of the evening for many was a scenic, 3-mile hike through the woods out to Peterson Beach at Platte Bay to watch the sunset over Lake Michigan.
For first-year staffer Jack May, the hike was a defining moment of the trip. “It was a blast!” Jack shared. “It was great to get out into nature and hike through the woods to Lake Michigan. The trip really connected us as a group, and I hope the staff do this every year.”
The bonding continued into the night with creative small-group skits. In a humorous twist, the prompt for each skit required groups to invent an alternative ending to a real-life minor event from earlier in the day: when a deer collided with a staffer’s car on the drive up (no one was injured in the accident). The skits proved to be incredibly creative, earning laughs and applause from the director panel of Shelly, Steph, and Chip.
No campout is complete without traditional s’mores and a late-night card game. This year’s staff quickly revealed themselves to be an exceptionally enthusiastic, loud group of Euchre players. Crowded around the fire with only two decks of cards on hand, the games became so aggressively competitive that Chip had to jokingly deploy his “dad voice” to finally quiet the card players down for the night.
The next morning, after packing up rain-dampened tents, a tired but tight-knit group of staffers returned to Camp Arcadia. Reflecting on the camping trip, the leadership team agreed that the experiment was a resounding success. Staffers were grateful for the opportunity to get to know each other outside of the normal groupings of roommates or departments.
Shelly beautifully summarized the underlying spirit of the excursion:
“Yes, there were bugs, and yes, it was raining, with tight quarters in the tents. But that is exactly what made it a bonding experience—because we all did it together. Overall, it was a phenomenal experience and our core intentions were fulfilled.”
While the management team notes that they won’t fully grasp the ripple effects of this trip until later in the summer season, the foundation has been laid. Plans are already in motion to make the all-staff campout an annual Camp Arcadia tradition.
One Response
We can tell it worked! The staff is having a lot of fun with each other and we can tell they are very good friends with each other.
They are so engaging with us older folks,; we are amazed and delighted.