TravisAllison.org

Using Video to Recruit Great Summer Camp Staff

Getting great people to work at your camp is an incredibly important part of a camp director’s job (keeping great staff is a bigger issue that I’ll write more about this winter).

I found this video on the recruiting page of the Canadian Foodgrains Bank (a non-profit doing amazing things for hunger issues in the developing world).   Let’s look at what it does for CFB:

• It gives the organization some personality - “Hey, we’re real people, with cool ideas, who can sort of draw.”
• It shows off the true spirit of the place - you understand from the video that this is a faith-based organization that is focused on bringing food to those who don’t have enough. We now know their values
• It allows the people of CFB to express themselves- by not “enforcing” a company line but allowing the people to write their own answers this video shows off the uniqueness of all of the people who work there
• It shows (not tells) us that this is a national organization - this also adds value to a potential recruit by demonstrating that there are people from across the country involved.
• It’s FUN - good music, personal pictures, people laughing and smiling. 

I’d love to work there.

Your Recruiting Task:

1. Ask your staff to send you a photo from their webcams at school, their phones when visiting cool places or their cameras at home answering this question: How does Camp _______  make the world a better place?
2. Take a half an hour and put it together in iMovie.
3. Place it on your website under staff recruiting.

I bet you’ll be surprised at how creative they can be!

How is your summer camp using all of the tools available to recruit the best possible staff?  

How Summer Camps Should Do Promotional Video

Ignore for a minute that this is a video about Twitter… just look at the great imagery. Twitter takes time and introduces their idea with stunning visuals.  

It would be dead-simple to head to Arts & Crafts, cut out your camp emblem from construction paper and use it to tie together visual ideas as you build to reveal your new idea at camp.

Maybe this is the year to use short videos to promote special programs at your summer camp. 

Have you ever done a “trailer” for a new program?   Leave us a comment with a link!

How to take the best possible meeting notes.   A great life skill to teach your summer camp staff.

Tiny Liveable House (video). @yoyojoer would love this.  Can you see a bunch of this at your summer camp?

Camp Robin Hood staff rocking the Camp Dance Flash mob outside of the Skydome in Toronto.  Congratulations to Howie and the gang!

The Duty Song by Electric Croquet

A skit to creatively tell campers what their morning duties were - from Cairn’s Glen Mhor Programme in Baysville, ON.

What does a summer camp professional need in a calendar?

When do you use a calendar?

If it was more useful would it become essential to have with you at all times?

What could make your calendar more useful?