Leading with Heart and History - with Larry Bell - Intentionally Intentional Leaders

Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/camphacker/ill-larry-b

Lessons from 80 Years of Camp Robin Hood

Join Travis Allison as he sits down with Larry Bell, Director Emeritus of Camp Robin Hood, Canada’s oldest privately established day camp. In this episode of Intentionally Intentional Leaders, Larry reflects on his legendary career—from becoming a director at just 23 years old to navigating the massive shift from paper-based logistics to modern digital systems. The conversation dives deep into the "why" behind camp traditions, the evolving relationship between camps and parents, and the secret to building a staff culture where everyone feels seen, supported, and personally invested in the mission.

Key takeaways include:

• The Power of "Why": Larry emphasizes that camp staff shouldn't just follow rules; they need to understand the purpose behind every action. When staff understand the "why," they take ownership of their roles, turning a summer job into a high-level professional development experience.
• Scaling Intentional Connection: Despite managing a seasonal staff that grew from 80 to over 300, Larry made it a point to know every individual. By taking photos during interviews to ensure he remembered faces and stories, he built a culture where the Director was approachable and every staff member felt seen.
• Invisible Technology vs. Front-and-Center Logistics: From 21-page carbon-copy bus routes to the custom-built "Larry App," the goal of technology at camp should be transparency. Larry discusses how high-tech back-ends should make the logistics invisible so the staff can focus entirely on the human experience.
• The "Helicopter" Evolution: Larry notes a significant shift in the camp-parent partnership over the decades. He discusses the challenge of modern parenting styles that sometimes "stymie" a child's growth and how camp remains a unique environment for children to build resilience outside their parents' protective bubble.
• The Evolution of Tradition: Rituals like the Camp Robin Hood dance aren't maintained by accident. Larry shares how involving a year-round senior staff in reflecting on "what worked" ensures that 80-year-old traditions remain vibrant and relevant for a new generation of campers.

Your Hosts

• Travis Allison, Summer Camp Consultant - Go Camp Pro
• Larry Bell, Director Emeritus - Camp Robin Hood

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Our free Resilient Camp Blueprint diagnostic is available at: https://camp.mba/travis

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

This is Camp Hacker. Come find our show notes and our blog for camp directors and leaders at camphacker.tv.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Your mission is campers. Whereabouts' mission is making their experience coordinated and connected. Whereabouts is the only camper management system that keeps parents, admin, and staff in sync in real time. So every camper's day runs with confidence, clarity, and care. Check them out today at whereaboutsapp.io.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

What if one meaningful insight or a great question could shift how you lead this summer? Welcome to Intentionally Intentional Leaders, a GoCamp Pro Podcast, brought to you by our Resilience Camp Blueprint Diagnostic, a free tool to help you reclaim time, reignite your purpose, and build your resilience at camp. You can take it at camp.mba slash Travis. So for those of you new, each episode our guest rolls a 20-sided dice to resp to spark some reflection through three specific lenses memories, insights, and beliefs. My name is Travis Dallison. I help camps turn care into action, building camps that help people feel seen and supported. Today's guest is Larry Bell from Camp Robinhood. Larry, welcome.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

I'm so grateful to have you here. We've had other Robin Hood people on this show before, but if people are coming for the first time, can you give me just a quick overview on Robinhood and what you folks do?

SPEAKER_03 1:38

So Robinhood is the oldest privately established day camp in Canada. And um we were we started off in Sherwood Park. That's how we got our name. I joined them when they were at Sportsland Park, which is Highway 7 and 400 in Toronto. It was a had a swimming pool that was uh a quarter mile long, uh, was built like a lake, and they put in some walls so that there could be a 50-meter pool within it. And I was training in that pool when I was first hired as a swimming director for Camp Robinhood. And since that uh just recently, Camp Robinhood celebrated it, its 80th anniversary.

SPEAKER_02 2:19

Yes, congratulations. I've seen some of the videos and things. Robin Hood has been amazing at multimedia stuff for years and years and years. Definitely something that camp should check out because you folks have been so incredibly intentional about the media that you put out and and the stories that you tell. It's been great to see.

SPEAKER_03 2:40

And great people working with us.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

Totally. So for this intentionally intentional leaders podcast, we borrow this format from NPR's wildcard podcast. So our thank you to Rachel Martin for the inspiration for this. Here's how it works: in each round, we explore one of three themes memories, insights, and beliefs. The guest rolls, if they have a 20-sided dice, or I'll roll it on screen, which is what we're gonna do to today. And that number determines the question that we're gonna ask. And Larry, you get one skip, which lets you just I'll pick a different number and one flip where I will answer first, and then you. Are you ready to dive in?

SPEAKER_03 3:20

Ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

All right. I am going to share my screen so people can see, and then I will hit one little change. Then I'll hit roll and we'll get started from there. Number 11 in the memory section. Larry, what was the first big decision that you made without your parents knowing?

SPEAKER_03 3:45

So the the first decision that I made was um going to university because uh they weren't sure that I that I would get there, although I was definitely uh heading in that direction. And so um I decided that I was going to try and go into medicine. And I I didn't wind up in medicine, I wound up in physical education. Yes. I found that I enjoyed teaching and and uh and I stuck it out at University of Toronto and uh eventually got my teaching degree. And at the same time, uh I swam for the the uh university and played water polo for them, so I kept myself busy all during those years.

SPEAKER_02 4:27

Right. That's great, that's great. And uh and how did you come across Robin Hood at that point? Like it might assume it was around that point.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

So I was training for the um the Macavia games in Israel at that time, and um I was using the pool at sports like very familiar with the the facility, and I'd seen the the program operate there, and a friend of mine phoned and said, Hey Larry, guess what? There's an ad in the paper, they're looking for a swimming director, and they're looking for a nurse. Yeah, and Pearl and I were going out at that time, and she was in her first year of of uh nursing, I was in my first year of university, and uh so we applied for the job and we both got it.

SPEAKER_02 5:12

Right. That's correct.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Yeah, it was shortly after that that they a year later that they asked me to be the director.

SPEAKER_02 5:19

Oh yeah. A quick rise, a quick rise in your profession.

SPEAKER_03 5:24

It was a surprise, and I guess you had to be in the right place at the right time because they needed somebody that they trusted uh to be there, and uh I got the job.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

Right. That's great. Thank you. The next question in our memory section is question number four. What is a vivid memory, Larry, you have of your grandparents or another elder in your life?

SPEAKER_03 5:52

I was very fortunate to to have three grandparents uh active in my life. A couple, um, one one of them the grandmother and grandfather came from Poland. And so they were getting established here in in Canada. Um, my mother came along with them to Canada, and um my grandfather started off as a tailor for Eaton's Canada. And uh, you know, they didn't speak a great deal of English, but they were certainly very welcoming, and so regularly for services on on a Friday night, we would be there uh with other family, and they they impacted uh my life greatly. So much so that that our home here is kosher. In other words, uh you know, we have separate plates. We the meats that we have have been uh koshered and so on. And um that that was the only way my grandparents would come to eat at my home. So we made sure that our home was open to them, and so that was important. And my father's mother, uh he lost my father lost his father when he was uh young man, maybe about 12 or 13. And his mother, who had five children, had to look after the the family and and deal with them. So all those young guys had to go out to be able to work. So my grandmother was very, very strong in in how she handled things and what she expected and how she wanted us to be able to deal with day-to-day with her to make her life a little bit easier. So it was quite an interesting time in my life.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Well, and it's such a privilege to get to spend so much time with the three of them, too.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

Absolutely, yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:38

Yeah, I was lucky enough to spend my I spent a lot of time with my grandparents too, and I'm I'm always grateful for that. Okay, next question. Question number eight. When you think about Robin Hood, and I'm I'm gonna assume we're talking about the the new site, but what's a place at camp that taught you the most about risk and responsibility and the job of being a camp owner?

SPEAKER_03 8:04

So every day was was um was something that made us think about what needed to be done. You have to be alert, I think, all of the time to be able to uh make sure the kids are safe and and that we're providing the kind of program that we should be providing. So being ready for it and and uh working at it made things easier for us. So I remember right at the beginning, when we didn't have many of the machines that we have now, all we had basically was a typewriter back then. We didn't even have good copy machines, trying to get materials prepared so that the the staff would know what to be able to do in different circumstances. And so it was a real challenge to be able to deal with communication. It wasn't as as it is today. So we had to work very hard at making sure that everything was taken care of, and we also had to make sure that all of the staff were aware of the needs of the kids. So without a database, you know, we we were preparing notes that had to be transferred from person to person, yeah, to be able to get the information across to make sure that the kids were safe. So it was a a very challenging period in our life, but one that was most enjoyable in camping, even at that time for us was was uh it was great. It was just yeah, it was something that possessed us.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah. Well, and when I think of Robin Hood's impact on the industry, it certainly to me um centers around the professionalization of the childcare that we're providing. And it sounds like that's come from the very beginning, working around lots of challenges, but to figure out how to make sure that your summer staff could be the best possible at looking for your looking after your kids.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Exactly. And I and I should tell you that the OCA helped a great deal at that time. When I first came in to camping, I was 20. Um, by the time I was 23, I was a chairman of the daycamp committee, which was one of the nicest things that happened to me. Bill Babcock was my right-hand guy, and there were lots of great daycamp uh leaders out there. And we would get together just as a as a group to be able to discuss issues and what have you. And uh my involvement in the association expanded from that that time. But that was a very important time of of my life because it gave me connections, it hooked me up with people within the uh organization and allowed me to use ideas that they gave me and then gave me an opportunity to put my ideas out there so that they might have a chance to be able to deal with them.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Right, right. Thinking back to the to those times at Robin Hood when you're trying to make these steps to to make sure everybody could be cared for, what were some of the first things that you did in training to just move from playing games and teaching swimming into the kind of care that Robinhead's known for?

SPEAKER_03 10:58

Well, we started out with behavior of children so that they had to understand the the uh children that they would be dealing with at the different age levels. And so, you know, planning for them to be able to do that rather than lecturing at them, but involve them in the discussions so that they had their questions answered and they could feel confident when they got out in the field. And uh that helped us an awful lot in terms of being able to get them involved. They they felt a little bit of ownership, and I think if I had to talk about ownership, that's the key to I think our success, at least in the era that I was involved, that having them feel like they they were answering the questions and and uh taking ownership on everything that they were dealing with.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

Right. Right. I I've been thinking a lot this year in particular about how camps can I've been thinking about how we get camps to to continue on and be a part of what's available to families. One of the parts of that I've been thinking a lot, I think echoes that the way you chose to do that. I think that we as year-round leaders in camp should be better at saying why we do things at camp. And so that, well, first of all, of course, to to get rid of that major annoyance of every camp director when somebody says, but we've always done it this way, which is usually not the case. But just so there are more people who understand the depths of camp.

SPEAKER_03 12:28

Exactly. And that why question is so important in everything you do, uh, because just telling them something um doesn't mean that they're going to accept it. But if they understand why they're doing it and the impact of it, it makes a great deal of difference for them as they're doing their job. It doesn't matter what level they're doing, they the counseling, the unit head, an administrator, they all have to be aware of of those kinds of issues. So we try and and put it out there to make sure that they're they're getting those uh those answers.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

Yeah. Yeah, I think it makes a huge difference in summer staff and child child children's care, one that it's not just this is just a thing we do, but it's we do this thing because.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Absolutely. And and it it's over the years it's it's gotten more involved. And so you know that the training is not only at the level of the staff that are coming in, the young staff in particular, but it's now it's the organizational staff. We call it our senior staff, and we make sure that they're getting together. Uh, we have a group of maybe 14 or 15 and they get ready to get together all year long to discuss camp. And so we lay out in front of them the what happened last year, what's going to happen this year, how do they feel about it, what do they want to include, so that they're part of the development of what goes on. And when we give them the training and then they deal with the unit heads and the the staff uh before camp begins, they've got something to be able to deal with. And then when uh we get to camp and we deal with the the uh lower staff, the staff that are counselors and specialists and so on, then we can really do a job at training them and letting them know how to be able to be successful.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

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SPEAKER_02 15:28

This leads us right into our next group of topics, Larry. We're gonna talk about insights next. And you and I got ahead of ourselves on that, but I just get excited about these things and love sharing them with you. Larry, first question on insights. What is something people think comes naturally to you, but actually takes a lot of work?

SPEAKER_03 15:47

So um often I'm I'm credited uh with uh a lot of the things that that uh go on at camp. And and uh I know my niche is not out in front of everybody, and my niche is is somewhere somewhere else. And so people don't always recognize what's going on during the year and behind the scenes at camp to make the job of everybody a little bit easier. So it it's it certainly is a it's a different situation in in our camp as it is in many. And as can' as as uh camp got underway, I'm the people that supported me uh were great. They were out front and making all of those things happen, and I found my niche that I could work with easily, and so I I had a different role.

SPEAKER_02 16:32

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you think that there is something along the way that people have not always understood about you, Larry, because you were the the big picture support person?

SPEAKER_03 16:45

I don't know. I tried very hard to to make my my role one of knowing all about them. Yeah, even though we had large staff and and what have you, I had to know um where they were coming from, what their what their background was, why I hired them to be able to come on to onto camp. And so I got to know every staff member personally. As a matter of fact, I did something that maybe wasn't acceptable back then, but when they came in for an interview, I asked them if I could take their picture. And everybody looked at me and wondered, why am I taking a picture? And I said, Listen, I've written notes about you. I've got it on your application, but I've seen eight eight to ten people tonight. Do you think I'll remember all of the discussion? If I see your face and I uh put it to the application, I know exactly what's happening. And so um when I got to camp, I knew about everybody and I became approachable to be able to deal with uh with each of them on an individual basis. It's a lot of work to be able to do, but it was certainly worth it the effort.

SPEAKER_02 17:48

Well, and a lot of work because it was not a small staff. How many would be your average number of seasonal staff you'd hire those years?

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Well, back back then when we started about 80 to 100, we wound up with about 250, and then we wound up close to 300. So an awful lot of people. And I I might just might add, I also made sure and and I recommended to to our staff that we do the same thing that we try and communicate with every one of them personally during the summer, just to ask them how they're doing, to get a feeling for what's going on, what what's what's happening in your life, you know, how is camp going? And uh just uh simple questions as to as to what we're have what's happening.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And when camp gets so busy and people have a lot of stress about things and they're getting oh it's always surprises and they're getting pulled on lots of pressure. I that's something I've been recommending forever is to be intentional and make sure you have just a hi, how are you? How are things really going? Conversation with certainly your direct people that you're supporting, but as many people as possible as director.

SPEAKER_03 18:59

Exactly. And and we intro him, we introduced what we called a PPG, a personal progress report, PPR. Yeah, so so that they they would be out there so that uh we felt that that was one of the best ways to be able to do it. And we we had to counsel the head staff on how to be able to do them, and then we had to counsel the the counselors on how to look forward into what they wanted to accomplish during the summer. So it wasn't just a summer job to pick up some money, it was an opportunity to grow as as they went along, and I think each of them appreciated the effort that went into making sure that they were doing the uh things that would help them in the future.

SPEAKER_02 19:39

Well, and I I think the evidence really supports that. It's it's amazing to see how Robinhood has managed to keep people as they've gone into adulthood and they're still connected and still part of things. And some people, it's their characters have continued on, but that just there's so many people who have a lot of life experience who stay connected to Robinhood because of the treatment there.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Yeah, I think so. And then it said something about the return staff as well. So up until uh the the pandemic, the years before the pandemic, um, we had a great staff returning ratio uh because because of the way that we dealt with them. We were in the mid-70s, almost almost eighties, and and getting them to be returned. And then came this whole pandemic area. Uh, and uh we had new people coming in who had never been to camp. Usually we had dealt with campers that had moved up and what have you. Now we were dealing with a whole different demographic coming into the into the camp, and we had to work even harder to get them to understand camp before they dealt even with the behavior, understand where we were coming from. And so it was hard. And now we're back to the point where we've got over 70 percent of our staff coming back to us from last year.

SPEAKER_02 20:55

Right.

SPEAKER_03 20:57

I shouldn't say we, I I Howie and Sarah and the and the owners of the camp are doing that.

SPEAKER_02 21:05

Yeah, Larry's official title is director emeritus, Larry, is that right? Yeah, that's exactly right. So okay. Our next role is a five. What decision rules guide you when the impact on kids and the making money conflict in in the camp world?

SPEAKER_03 21:26

So if you want to talk to me personally, the money was was never a factor. It was doing what was necessary to to make it go. But you of course you have to do run a business and yeah, yeah, it's gotta keep going. Yeah, so we we had to be careful on how we did things, but program was not an area that we skimped on. And so we made sure that that everything that the kids needed to make them enjoy camp and also to make them safe were looked into. So we spent a lot of time looking at facility and making sure all of those things were were in good shape. Shape. And then the next thing was looking at our spreadsheet to make sure that we were we were covering the things that were necessary to be able to do and that we'd have enough funds to be able to get into the next year and make some improvements because year to year, that's been a tradition with us. We found something that has allowed us to make the facility even better for the kids that are coming and safe for 19 on the die.

SPEAKER_02 22:30

Oh, it's interesting. What do you believe now, Larry, about the partnership between camps and parents that you didn't necessarily believe earlier in your career?

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Well, I I can say it's it certainly has has shifted a great deal. In the early years, um dealing with the parents uh was not particularly difficult. In other words, they if they trusted us to take their children, um they they um you know we we did and they were comfortable and we didn't have too much feedback. They just if we were successful, they they were really happy with us. Today it's uh a lot more complex in terms of dealing with those parents. And so the expectation on the parents is that we're gonna do the job for them. And I don't mean that in an in a negative way, but they feel that they trusted us and and so we better do it. And they didn't they abdicated from where they might be, and so we had more trouble trying to deal with some of the issues uh with their children and the way they protected them in order to uh to um make camp successful. And and one of the things that that uh the parents didn't realize that they're fighting the battle for their children and wanting to make sure their children had the very best without looking at allowing their children to grow. And so the the children that were in camp were stymied often by their parents and they're interfering with what was going on in the camp environment. And we were we were trying to to give them good self-esteem, make them feel good about themselves, make them feel that they accomplished things, that they experienced the things that that they should in the way that they should.

SPEAKER_02 24:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 24:11

So it was a difficult it's a difficult relationship.

SPEAKER_02 24:14

Yeah, yeah, and then we all know how much it's changed in the last few years. Yeah. All right, let us move on then to the final section, Larry, the belief section. And we're gonna start with question number 12. This is a pretty pretty big question. So I I I is there anything in your life, Larry, that has felt predestined to you?

SPEAKER_03 24:39

I don't I don't think so. I mean, I mean, I I was fortunate to be in the right place at the right time. So I guess that that maybe that's part of it. The fact that I had the opportunity to do this at a very young age. And when I got involved in camping, I I was 20, as I said, by 21 I was directing the program. The staff that were the the head staff were all teachers, and I was in secondary university. So it was a real challenge, you know, to to be able to uh to to do that. And uh I worked had to work at it to be able to create things. I I had knew nothing about finance, and so my partners left me in the breach. I mean, I did camp. Um they were out there as silent partners, making sure that the camp could function the next year, but I did all of the financial uh work with it, I did all of the transportation work, I did everything relating to camp without having a mentor come into camp. Now, I I'm not saying that because I felt, you know, that I was doing something extra special, but it was something that was absolutely necessary to be able to get us through those early years and functioning the way I would I had envisioned it happening. So I'm I've been very fortunate in my life. So you know, my family has supported me throughout camp. Um Michelle and and Sari have have been helpful in everything that's gone on. Michelle has has uh moved to uh the other other areas, but Sari has stayed with camping and and uh she and Howie have have I think move camp ahead well.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:16

Not predestined.

SPEAKER_02 26:18

Not predestined. I gotcha. Question number two. Oh, this is really interesting because it it aligns with something that Robin Hood's really well known for. Lair, where do you think technology should be invisible at camp and where should it be front and center?

SPEAKER_03 26:34

So that's a that's a very good um question. The technology needs to be there to be able to support everything that we do. Today, having all that technology means that we can provide all kinds of uh resources for people to be able to work with. It's there, it's simple to be able to get at. We're well organized. So if we need information, we get it almost immediately. If we need to talk to parents, we know exactly what's happened, we keep records of of the discussions that we've had, and so on. And so that that's really important. Out front, I don't know that the staff really recognizes all of the technology that's out there. They know things are organized for them, they know that the the program is scheduled for them, they know where they're going, they know what their job is, they have the job descriptions that that we spent time creating and so on. And and so they're not fully aware of all of those other things that are are going on. It's transparent to them, which I think is the most important thing.

SPEAKER_02 27:39

Right, right. And and I think about the size of your program and all of the things that all the moving pieces to set that up. Robin Hood's very well known. I know lots of folks come to you for help on coordinating the buses and where kids get picked up. And because you're doing so much busing for the the size of the camp, I I imagine for a camp counselor who's just starting trying to do I've got eight kids and I've still got eight kids, that some of the big pieces of that just wouldn't even wouldn't rise to their notice.

SPEAKER_03 28:11

Absolutely. And you know, we used to do them by paper maps to do the transportation. So I used to get a pearlies and I I I would take them out of the that big book that they had, and I would create ways to be able to find out where all the homes were so that I could uh so that I could do routes for for yeah. And when when the day came for the transportation, I handed the maps and the route because it took the people in the office 21 man days to type a set of routes. And they were only with carbon paper. So if they were changed, we had to then cross out and add in and do whatever. But it but it was really it was a major job back then, and it's it's been so much easier how we in theory have invested in technology to the point that transportation is done by an app that they've got. Yeah, and they've been kind enough to name it Delarius.

SPEAKER_04 29:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:06

So uh people see it almost every day, which is very nice, uh great recognition. But but the fact is that that um someone took all of the facets of what we did for transportation, put them into technology to make it easy for someone sitting in the office, uh, one person can do all of the transportation uh within a couple of days, change periods in one day and be ready to go almost the next.

SPEAKER_02 29:30

Right. Right.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

That is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 29:33

When you're doing it on paper, Larry, how many at the end of the paper season when before databases came into it, how many kids were taking buses every day?

SPEAKER_03 29:42

So at the before the pandemic, almost everybody was taking a bus. So up to you know, up to 200 and up to 500 or 600 kids on our buses doing routes. Once the pandemic hit, people were driving their kids to school. So a portion to camp, a portion of the transportation was take taken up by having to get them in in camp. And that wasn't easy. To bring in 200 cars and to drop off kids on our site uh needed a great deal of organization. And and thankfully, we had a great senior staff that after the first try at this, they came up with some solutions that have been in place ever since that that time. So uh yeah, it it it is it needs to be coordinated.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

Yeah, yeah. Last question then, Larry. Question number one. Ah, what do you believe camp is uniquely positioned to deliver to kids and families that schools or even schools on their phones can't deliver?

SPEAKER_03 30:49

That that that's a question. And I think um you know Michael Brandwein, and so Michael has been a for the last 40 years, has been a go-to person at Camp Rothhood and has come many times to be able to talk to us. And so, you know, dealing with with that aspect of it has been um very an important part of what's gone on and how we deal with camping. It's experiential. And so we want the kids to not to worry about pass and fail. We want them to be able to learn how to get together, how to work together, how to how to create an environment that that's inviting to everybody, how to solve uh their conflicts, how to deal with each other successfully. All of those things I think are are are really important. And then, you know, dealing with the staff, we're talking about intentional leaders here. Well, we also have to talk about what we have to do to have the self staff feel good about themselves. So when we see things with kids and with staff, instead of saying that's good, uh, we need to be able to say why it's good and understand what they've done that's made them good in that situation. And if it wasn't good, then we have to talk to them about what they might do. And that's another approach that I always believed in. I I never came to someone and said, that was did you notice that wasn't a particularly good program that you ran? I I would say, how did you feel about the program that you ran? Yeah. Yeah, was it was it something that you were happy with? Did you notice anything that was happening outside of the main view of your eye? How could you resolve that? And and so dealing with it so it was a in a sort of a positive way so that they understood that they what they were what they were doing and how they could improve themselves.

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Yeah. I'm gonna ask an extra question because I think it applies to the stuff that you've done. If you'll indulge me. What do you think is sacred about the Robin Hood site or even the rituals, the daily rituals at camp, that like what is extraordinary and sacred about those things? And then how do you get new people into and understand and participating in those those big rituals?

SPEAKER_03 33:03

So I think Howie addressed this really well at our 80th uh get together the the other week. Yeah, he addressed it by saying the traditions that everybody who's been at camp goes through are very similar, not the same, but similar from year to year. So there at the end of the second week of camp, we have a special program. In one session, it's directed in one way, at the next session, another way. But we go through all of those things. So at some time during the summer, we've introduced the staff on what our traditions are. As a matter of fact, even on the first day of their training sessions at camp, the new people are coming around and experiencing a day at camp. And during that experience, as they go through all the activities and what a day would look like with swim and everything else, we've talked about what's going to be happening, how it's going to how it's going to evolve toward the end of time. The songs we sing, the tradition of of the boys on the on the top of the uh on the top of the roof, uh doing the camp dance. All of those things, you know, are part of the tradition of camp, and it makes it so important. So when we met 300 staff the other day, they all had experienced similar things and uh knew where we were. So it's so important.

SPEAKER_02 34:24

Yeah, yeah. How did you is that by design all of the like outside of kids' activities, but the special rituals and the gatherings and things, was that by design, or is that stuff that just kind of came along like, oh, that seems to work and we keep it going?

SPEAKER_03 34:40

No, I I as I mentioned the senior staff get an opportunity and they're meeting, you know, during the year together, so there may be 15 or so of them sitting down, and all of that's put out in front of them and said, How did we do with that last year? Was that was that good? Was that did we build on it? Is it something we have to change? They're and they're very creative and and they they come up with new ideas, still maintaining the traditions that we've had, which makes it really very comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Yeah, wonderful.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Travis, can can I say that?

SPEAKER_02 35:12

Well, I really appreciate this, Larry. Thank you for your time and thank you for yes, please.

SPEAKER_03 35:18

I was just gonna offer one other comment, and not necessarily about me, but about you and Beth, if I might, and just to to say how fortunate the camping community has been to have you guys doing what you're doing. You started the the discussions amongst camp people years ago, and it's meant so much, I think, to everybody in the camping field that there is a resource that they can go to, whether it's J Camp or ownership or whatever. You've created something that is really, I think, exceptional. And I just want to congratulate you on that.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

Well, thank you, Leah. That's very kind, and I'm grateful to hear that it I'm great. I was grateful to hear what it has good impact on people I care so much about.

SPEAKER_04 36:02

For sure.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Yeah. Let me bring us to a close here. So that's a wrap on this episode of Intentionally Intentional Leaders from Go Camp Pro. If you'd like to explore how you can lead with more clarity and capacity, take our resilient camp blueprint for free at gcp.mba slash travis. And if you're looking for other great camp podcasts, may we recommend ones that Larry's family is involved in, the Daycamp pod, uh, where Jordana is and the camp owners pod where Howie is. And Larry, thank you. I'm so grateful for this time.

SPEAKER_03 36:38

Pleasure. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

I I have one final question for you. Who do you think is one intentionally intentional camp leader that you admire that you think we should invite to have this discussion next?

SPEAKER_03 36:50

Well, I I I know of a couple. I know my mentor was um Joe Cronick at at Camp White Pine. And Adam has taken over um that program with his son Jesse and uh and his daughter. And so I Adam's uh is a great person to be able to to think about. Another one in a similar situation is Jack Goodman, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 37:13

Okay, yeah. Yeah, great. Well, I appreciate that. We'll add them to the list as we're creating lists as we go of great people to talk to next. And I'm I'm grateful for that, Larry. And I want to say thank you for listening, stay resilient, and stay intentional.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

The Camp Hacker Podcast is brought to you by Beth and Travis Allison, Summer Camp Leadership Training and Marketing Consultants. Thanks for listening.