First Class Counselors

Camp counselors have the most important job at summer camp. Period. A great camp staff will have kids wanting to come back to camp year after year. First Class Counsellors is here to make great camp staff. Each week, we’ll cover practical and accessible tips that will level up your camp counselor skills. Our two hosts, Oliver Gregan, Summer and Families Camp Director at YMCA Camp Jewell and Matt Honsberger from Go Camp Pro are excited to be able to provide this resource to camp counselors.

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First Class Counselors

Meaningful and Masterful Facilitation - First Class Counselors #79

November 27, 2025 • First Class Counsellors - from Go Camp Pro • Episode 79

0:00 | 1:02:08

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Find full show notes and links at: https://gocamp.pro/first-class-counselors-pod/meaningful-and-masterful-facilitation

Stop Talking, Start Leading: The Counselor's Guide to Facilitation

Join Oliver and Matt as they delve into the art and science of facilitation—the core skill needed to run first-class activities, whether it's team building, archery, or a simple transition. This episode breaks down the critical stages of leading a group, from the moment they arrive to the final debrief. Learn how to master first impressions, use language effectively to manage attention, utilize props strategically, and employ powerful debriefing techniques that move beyond simply having fun to ensuring campers find real meaning and application in their experiences.

Key Takeaways:

Master the First Impression: Your initial interaction sets the tone. Use confidence, learn names (and address people by name), have well-rehearsed safety guidelines (like flight attendants), and offer a commitment to the group for the activity.
Start with Play to Engage: Use quick, low-explanation, high-energy games (like "Everybody's It") immediately to get participants moving and focused on you as the leader. Use creative instructions to organize groups, such as the "Chicken Wing Circle."
Debriefing is Transference of Learning: The purpose of debriefing is to help participants understand the significance of their experience and transfer those skills (community, communication, teamwork) to the non-camp world. Use the What, So What, Now What structure.

E.G.E.L – Ever Growing, Ever Learning:

Oliver: AI music generator Suno

Matt: Seed Bombs

Sponsors:

AMSkier is a leading insurance and strategic partner for many of the finest camps in America. AMSkier partners with camps to provide public relations, legal, medical, behavior support and more - Experience the AMSkier difference. Learn more at https://amskier.com

Host Links:

Matt Wilfrid, Executive Producer of Podcasting at Go Camp Pro
Oliver Gregan, Executive Director at YMCA Camp Winona

SPEAKER_00 0:00

People will give back the energy that you give them. And I always think that you have to give it a little bit more. A good facilitator is looking at their entire group and saying, How are you as an individual engaged in this moment in the activity?

SPEAKER_01 0:17

This is First Class Counselors, another innovative podcast brought to you by Camp Hacker. First Class Counselors is dedicated to young and up-and-coming camp efforts. By equipping and empowering our on-the-ground staff, camp directors can rest easy knowing that our campers are having the true life-changing experience that parents expect. Find our show notes and our blog for Camp Leaders and Professionals at camphacker.tv.

SPEAKER_00 0:48

AMSky is a leading insurance and strategic partner for many of the finest camps in America. AM Skyer partners with camps to provide public relations, legal, medical, behavioral support, and more. Experience the AMSkire difference. Learn more at AMSkyer.com.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Welcome to First Class Counselors, where we give camp counselors insider tips and advice on how to make a camper summer the best it can be.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Whether you have led some activities before or you've gotten some campers from point A to point B, you know that being a first class counselor means having a growth mindset and a commitment to self-improvement. And that's why we do this podcast. So we're happy to be here on First Class Counselors.

SPEAKER_02 1:29

My name is Oliver. I'm the director of camping services at YMCA Camp Westwood with the Pawtucket YMCA in Coventry, Rhode Island. We are a rebuilding day camp that plans to introduce an overnight camp in 2025. Well, 2026.

SPEAKER_00 1:43

And my name is Matt Wilfred, pronouns are he him, and I'm the executive producer of podcasting and a consultant with Go Camp Pro.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

Perfect. Yep. And today we're talking about attention getters. We're doing calls and responses, speech, feedback, and the patience to not give the answer away, right? You don't want to just make it easy and do it for them. It's all about being a good facilitator. One of the biggest parts of being a counselor is running activities like team building to archery to swim lessons. And there are skills that are across the board that you need in order to make sure that campers not only have a great time, but they can build upon these fundamental skills to make them better at whatever you're doing, but also that they have a great time. This is how you're going to run a first class activity.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

And truthfully, we're going to talk about activities a lot in the context of this episode, but facilitating happens in every single part of the day. When you are leaving a group of people doing something, you are facilitating. If we go all Latin root wordy, the the root word of facilitate is the Latin facili, which means to make things easier. I may have butchered the pronunciation, but that that is true that what the root word is. So we want to think about how do we make things easier? Because we don't want things to be hard for our participants, but we don't want to work harder than we need to as facilitators ourselves. So these tips will be applicable, yes, for leading activities, but seriously, in every part of the day, let's just make things easier for people.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Uh, don't worry, Matt. My three years of high school Latin, I think you did just fine. Great. So as we start this topic, I do want to make sure that all of our viewers know that this podcast is not the limitation of our facilitation skills. Matt actually has a whole session that he runs on facilitation, that he can go to your location and help some of you guys be better in person, which is always a great thing to have. Facilitation facilitation is a lot easier to teach when you're in person than when you're doing it over a podcast. But that's a shout out, Matt that did not know I was giving him today, just trying to help his personal private enterprise of you know Matt facilitation skills and try to, you know, do my best. You know, we're all entrepreneurs in some way, right? Okay, but let's get started with the core, right? So as a facilitator, your job starts right when the group arrives, even sometimes before, right? Like, how do you prerequisite or pre-let the group know what's going to be happening when they come to camp? Really, like making sure they have the necessary information before they get there is really important. So we, you know, you might not be the one sending the emails or the conversation beforehand, but do make sure that those things are happening so that before the group comes, they're prepared, right? And then first impressions are absolutely important. From the time that those kids get off the bus or those adults for your adult team building group come off if you're working like an outdoor center season, or even if it's your group has arrived to the activity they're doing, you have to put it on a first impression for that activity or for that location. I've talked about the magic door before when you enter a new place and how important that is. Go back to our earlier podcast if you don't know what the magic door is, inspiring some listening. But I think being like well dressed, right? What you know, making sure that you look clean, there's no holes in your clothes, you're, you know, you don't look tattered and stuff, you do want to look at the parts and make sure you're warm and welcoming, smiling, being willing to shake hands and just being outgoing in that in that moment of getting things started. I think having confidence as well is very important. There's a much bit there's a there's a very big difference between someone who goes, hey everybody, me gather around right now, versus, hey everybody, it is so nice to see you. If you could all start to circle around right here, those are two different facilitators, those are two different people. And that first impression lets everyone know who you are going to be as a facilitator that day. So you have to have that confidence. Matt's gonna talk a little bit about how this is putting on a performance, and that confidence is really important. In those first moments, I think learning names is extremely important. You may do name tags, that helps a lot, right? Always got my wine name tag on, but it's also really important because it shows a resign of respect to all of your guests, right? Let your kids know, your campers know that you do care about them. You're gonna learn their name, you're gonna learn about their personalities, you're gonna be able to address them by name for this team building activity or this activity that you're going through. So names is significantly important for you to do. So name game at the beginning of whatever you're doing, if you don't know their names already, super, super important. And make sure you address people by name, right? Like it's not, hey, you or you guys, or hey, ooh, could you come over, right? Like those things don't make the group think that you really care about what you're doing within that day, right? Simply knowing name is really important. Your safety guidelines is when you're starting something off, and this includes everything from like, hey, everybody, if you do need to use the bathroom, right, to something as simple as, you know, today when we are going to be putting on our life jackets, we want to make sure all three buckles are buckled, right? Those safety guidelines are repeatable, they're constant. You you can learn that bit. Think about TSA agents or the flight attendants on a plane, not the TSA agent, although they probably have a few lines they say over and over again, please take your shoes off, please file and love. Yeah. But your your your flight attendants, right? They have a bit that they do beforehand. South Southwest Airlines does a great job making fun of it, but also still getting that information. If you've ever gone whitewater rafting, those guys are great because they have to get you on a bus and entertain you for 30 minutes with the safety spiel of getting to that location and they make some jokes and stuff along the way. You can practice that. You can practice those for all the different programs, activities, introductions to things that you're gonna be doing at camp that are gonna make you a lot more fun. And yeah, sometimes those jokes are repeat, repeat, repeat, and but well practiced and well done makes a really big thing. And then I think also saying something to everybody, a commitment to them. Today I promise you guys that this is what we're gonna get to or this is what we're moving forward to. It lets them know that you're putting a commitment into them. And then the other thing is you could have them put a commitment back to you at the beginning of something. You could have them say something at the beginning of this activity or program where they say, Hey, I promise that I'm gonna give it my best shot. Today is all about effort, right? And have them repeat that back to you. We're gonna talk about how repeating is important a little bit, but those are all great ways to start with a great first impression and have some tools ready to go. So, Matt, can you bring us into this performance though? This this the importance of making sure people know what's going on when they see you.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah, I I think you know, the the idea of facilitation being a performance is is is kind of self-explanatory, but I think it's remembering that as a camp staff member, especially when we're working with kids, but I think this is applicable to working with adults too, is that people will give back the energy that you give them. And I always think that you have to give it a little bit more. When I'm when I teach kids music lessons, I remember working with kids and teaching them piano lessons. And when when we want to make uh you know a dynamic change from from pianissimo to forte, so quiet to loud. I always need, I always get my students to do it louder than they think they need to, or like put more emphasis than they think they need to. And then I say, like, okay, just be like, be crazy about it. Like go, go as go like ridiculously too much. And then they give me the amount that I was actually looking for. And I so I think that's kind of the way with facilitating too. It's not being like so over the top or ridiculous that you're gonna like create distance between yourself and the participant, and you need to tailor your energy and your vibe to the group that you're working with. Facilitating for teens much differently than facilitating for like six-year-old campers and different than adults too. You have to, you'll, you'll find your vibe as a facilitator as you, you know, as you do it more often, but remember that people will follow your energy, and then that's that'll set you off in a good, a good position. I think Oliver, you gave some great tips about learning names. I think it's also about making sure that you tell folks if I pronounce your name wrong, can you please correct me on that one? You don't want to like ask a kid three times how to get it right and struggle, but you can you can try your best to get it right the first time, and then you can let the group know, hey, if I get your name wrong or I mispronounce it, please correct me because that's that's important that we get people's names correct, no matter how their names are pronounced, how how used to their names we are. So quick, quick little plus one there. Then it all depends on the context, the activity or what you're doing. But if we're talking about like activities, Oliver, you said the magic door and and it's great. It's what is the world that we are welcoming our participants into and how can we welcome them in within the first five minutes. So for me, I often, if I'm doing like team building with a group or, you know, I try to think about how can I get these people excited right from the start. And often that involves play. So I will try to think about what is an activity that I can facilitate that takes very little explaining and is super quick and can get the energy off on the right level. So it has to like make sense for the activity that you're doing. But say we're doing like team building, it's these are called like de-inhibitizers in the adventure learning world. It's like, what can we do to get people out of their comfort zone with being respectful? You know, we're not like asking people to share their deepest, darkest secrets or like behave like like a creature if that's not good for them. That's great for six-year-olds, but like a very easy game like everybody's it, where it's a giant game of tag, you give them the boundaries and you say, like, okay, in this game, every single person is it. You can tag people between the shoulders down or the shoulders to the hips, depending on where you want to do it. And when I say go, literally everybody is it. If you get tagged, freeze, and then we'll just the games will be quick. Very little instructions. You just get people playing, get people moving around. I think I talked about, and I'll put a link in the show notes. There's a game called Walk Stop, which is literally just they follow your you say walk, everyone walks. You say stop, everyone stops, and then you flip, stop, and walk. I think this is a Mark Collard game, and then you can add some more instructions to it. It's so simple and it's silly, and it doesn't matter if people make mistakes, no one is out, and it's just a way to get people going and flowing. And I honestly sometimes do that before almost anything else, before names, before like the major, like where the bathrooms are, those types of things, because it's quick and it gets people engaged, and then they're focused on me as the leader of this time together. Again, tailor it how you will. If you need to do safety instructions, if you need to do bathrooms first, totally fine. But like get people engaged right from the start. And my favorite way, I'll just give one quick tip before we move on. I love getting people into circle. I really I strongly dislike the make a circle song. I think it's just it, I think we can be more creative. I know you all, for those of you watching, Oliver's mouthing it right now, and it's my blood is starting to boil. My favorite thing to do is say I give them types of circles. So we do like chicken wing circles if you want to control your size. People get their elbows out. I don't know where my camera is right now, but you get your elbows out and you say, okay, touch, touch your chicken wings together so they get elbow to elbow. You can do a flying eagle circle, which is you spread your wings super far, and you can do your baby chick circle if you want to go like hip to hip and get them close. But by saying that, you're just giving them a instruction of how to get into a circle without saying make a circle, because then I I what I oft also hate is when you tell kids to make a circle, it they they just cannot do it. Kids are standing in front of each other. So a chicken wing circle, everyone's elbow touching everyone's elbow. There's no like without having to be annoying about it or like recorrecting, you're giving them a very quick instruction that they can't like literally cannot get wrong because if they're not touching elbow to elbow, they're doing it wrong. So uh a couple quick things there, but I I love the chicken wing circle.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

You do the little tiny little chiclet one to I do penguins and they put their hands on their side, and then we have a penguin, and then we do you're supposed to waddle, waddle, waddle, waddle and to make a circle. So that's a lot of fun. Another great one that I always love for getting one's attention is like, can everyone take a knee, please? And then everyone takes a knee, and then you go, okay, I want you guys to make a circle, but only one gamber can move at a time. So then, right, everyone's on their knees, and then one person moves, they get to next, but they can imagine the circle. So it does there's not all this like complicated talking as they do it. They're like, Okay, John, your turn, Keith, your turn, Ryan, your turn, and all of a sudden they just form a really good circle. It's super efficient, actually, and it it's it works. I don't know why, but it works. And I also I'm a big fan of taking a knee, comes from an athletics background, but uh works well. But yeah, Matt, I think you had so many great points there, and now we want to move a little bit more into you know, we're in the activity. What is some of the language that we want to use in order to make sure that we're keeping everyone's attention, right? Like a lot of us know about like speech pacing. So while I'm talking, I pause at times, or I can change my volume level so that people want to listen. These are all little tricks we're about to learn about. So, Matt, what are some things that are really important for you in facilitation management when it comes to your language?

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah, I want to zoom out just a little bit and talk about like what is facilitation really? Like it's to make things easier, but it also when you are doing things with kids, period, whether you're in an activity, you're waking them up in the morning or whatever, you are trying to manage engagement. You're trying to manage how engaged your participants are. And and that doesn't always mean by you like forcing them to be engaged, but you're creating the conditions for them to choose to be a part of this activity and be engaged. And a good facilitator is looking at their entire group and saying, How are you as an individual engaged in this moment in the activity? And that goes to like how you capture their attention, which we kind of talked about at the start, but like using good attention getters, like like it can be as simple as the the clapping pattern, the clap, clap, clap, clap, clap, and the other people do it back to you. You can say, like, when I say hey, you say ho, hey, ho, hey, any of those attention getters, you're just like everyone is verbally saying something. So you're getting their attention and you're managing engagement that way. And we're gonna focus on like giving instructions here, right? How do we manage engagement while we're giving instructions? I think every one of our listeners know that you can't just talk at people. We have to be strategic about how we give instructions as we manage engagement. So I think this section is all about those like keeping engagement while we give instructions. And Oliver has a bunch of really great tips, but I'll just kind of set up my general like philosophy about giving instructions. It falls under this this acronym of G3C. So G is what is the goal? And not just like what is it's important to say what is the goal of this entire activity? Like, what does it what does success look like? But I think even more important is like, what is the goal of this little chunk of instructions that I'm gonna give you? So, so if if I'm getting a group into a circle, it looks it looks like this. Okay, in a moment but not yet, we're all gonna get into a circle. Or in a moment but not yet, I want you to get your chicken wings out. Or let's get our chicken wings out, right? It's it's very quick. This is what the goal looks like. Then I'm gonna give no more than three steps. So G is goal, three is no more than three steps of what they need to do to accomplish that goal. And then C is asking clarifying questions, so making sure we're giving room or giving ways for the group to check their understanding of this little bit of instructions, right? And and this is literally what is the least amount of things I need to say to get them to the next part where I'm gonna need them to say things. So, like, even think about arts and crafts. Like, if if the kids are going into arts and crafts or you're meeting them outside of the arts and crafts building, what are the three things they need to do to be successful? Or like what is the goal? The goal is to get them to sit down at the tables, right? So, what are the least amount of instructions I need to give them to do that? And what clarifying questions do they need to ask? And then they sit at the tables. Okay, what's next? Okay, it's it's all about the goal is to get their supplies out or to like see what is on the table. So the goal is to see that. What are the three, what are the least amount of steps I need for them to be successful for that? We're not even making the craft yet, right? But we're being intentional about the different chunks of information we need to give them at a certain time. And by doing that, we're allowing people who have different like learning abilities or different amounts of focus to be able to be successful in those small chunks. Because if we just give it to them all at once, like it's not fair to expect them to remember all of those things, right? So that's kind of my like overarching philosophy with that G3C goal, no more than three steps clarifying questions. But I know, Oliver, you've got kind of the practical parts of each of those sections coming up here. So so please, please share those. For over a hundred years, Summer Camp has been an integral part of the AM Skyer world. Today, AM Skyre is a strategic partner for summer camps across the country, building personal relationships and providing valuable resources to their clients and friends. Every day, AM Skyer is proud to support camps and help make them safer. AM Skyre was founded by Abe Skyer in 1920 and is now in the third generation of Skyer family leadership. Henry, Jeffrey, Amy, and the experienced AM Skyer staff eat, sleep, and breathe summer camps. In addition to fostering partnerships with camps that last for decades, give AM Skyre the opportunity to find solutions for your most challenging insurance needs. They go above and beyond. Learn more at amskire.com.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Yeah, and I think uh going back to how Matt has talked about this as a performance. I think your language and how you talk is actually how you can present this performance in many ways, right? And I think action is an important part of that performance as well. So we're gonna go through it. The first thing is Matt talked about goals, right? And I think that's pivotal for whenever you're starting these types of activities you're facilitating. Something I remembered as Matt is talking. Your goal should have a hook. Like, what's the thing you say to everyone when you get there, right? Like when you get to Archery, the once you have their attention, you go you say something like, Today Matt's gonna hit a bullseye. I know, dare I say, controversial. We've never even seen him pick up a bow before, but I guarantee you, by the end of the day's lesson, not only will Matt, but all of you will have a chance to hit that target today, right? That instantly gets everyone's attention, they're involved, they have their goal, and it's a hook, right? Or you ask like in a question, like you go to your giant swing, your high-rope select, and you say something along the lines of, hey everybody, once I saw kids go so high on the giant swing they were able to grab a piece of cloud and eat it like cotton candy. Do you think clouds actually taste like cotton candy? And all of a sudden you got them thinking about it. And now their goal in their head is oh, if I go to the full power, the full extent of this giant swing, am I gonna get to taste cotton candy today? Right? So having those hooks, thinking about what those first lines that you say that are connected to the goal you're about to perform is super, super important. Love that. Um, I think I think it makes a huge difference in you as a facilitator as well. Matt talks about breaking down the information. I think that's really important. It's a step by step. But I think it's really important for you as a facilitator to practice giving. Directions, right? And this does not always have to be just in the camp field, right? Like you don't always have a group of kids at your disposal to go to the giant swing or go to archery or go to aquatics, right? Sometimes you just practice those things as you're walking around. I when I do like my morning walk around my camp and just checking things, and I'm thinking about my rules and regulations and all those things and standard operating procedures as a camp director. I also think about like, well, how would I say that to somebody? Like, how would that information come across? And I practice, like I say it out loud. I stand down at boating and I go, do I still want to say motorcycle grip on my on my kayak paddles? Or do I want to say that we're gonna be gripping the wheel of a ship? Right. Like, how do I perform that for someone? And there's ways to practice this at home, even for you right now. Are you gonna play a board game with a family, right? Be the person who says the rules of the board game, right? Walks everyone through how it's done, right? Be the person who plans something that your family is gonna go out or your friends are gonna go out and do, right? So you have to step by step explain to them, hey guys, we're gonna be going to Denny's before the movie tonight. And then when the movie is gonna start at 6:30, and right, so you walk them through that process, that schedule, you're getting to practice direction giving. The other important tool that I say is having demonstration as well. If you know you're explaining a game or rules or something, even like tag, having somebody who can help you out who will pretend to be a toilet for toilet tag and they get down the ground and you can and they put a knee down and you can flush the toilet and kids can see. It's funny, they laugh, but you can do this for so many other activities, right? You know, whether you are like whether you are doing something like toilet tag or capture the flag or swimming, right? Having demonstration is a great way to show people how something is done if you can do it beforehand. It's a little bit tougher sometimes with team building activities. You might have to do pieces of the activity so you don't show the answer, but like to clarify like what you mean. And then that might hold, like, for example, everybody has probably seen a peanut butter pit or a nitro crossing. It's a rope you have to swing from one point to another. It's good to demonstrate how to do that so they see how it's safely done and some of the safety things that are involved in that. You don't want to give away the the the trick, right? About how everyone can stand on a platform and all these other things you might add in there. My other point is Q words, cue words. So things that when people hear, it gets their brain thinking right away. So first, before we begin, or in a moment, but not yet, right? These allow people to listen right before taking action. Sometimes you might say something like, You're gonna pick up your bow and shoot it, right? And then all of a sudden people are gonna start picking up their bow and start shooting, and you're like, we do not want a live range yet. We don't want, so please like keep your bows down. So in a moment, you're gonna pick up your bow, right? Really helps. Ask for understanding. Can you repeat back to me? Can you explain what we're doing? Can you tell a neighbor, tell a friend how it works? You can overhear those things, making sure that they can clearly communicate what they're about to do. Those are really good ways to make sure they're doing it. I also think just while you're talking, like as I might be saying these things, I might say, like, hey Matt, can you tell me what's really important when working with someone to have clarification that they know what they're about to do? And then Matt will have to answer that back to me. Or I might Michael Branwine is really great at this if you ever go to any of his sessions where he might say a line and then he has the entire crowd of like six to seven hundred people say the answer back to him. And you know, it might be, hey, if I'm looking for to get someone's attention, I might use a and then the crowd goes, few words. Great job, everybody, right? You're doing those types of things so that everyone gets involved and it keeps their attention up, they don't start falling asleep on you. And then the the other thing that I think about that's really important is your golden moment or your pause and refocus. Things are getting out of hand. Don't ever be scared as an instructor to pause, freeze, refocus, get back on task, reorientate everybody. It's better that you do that than to fully lose control of what's going on if it's starting to kind of fall apart a little bit, right? Getting someone reoriented, that's your job as a facilitator. You're stepping up. However, it's also really important to know when to step back and watch a golden moment happen. Watch them have to problem solve. Is the struggle there something that you can debrief and talk about? Or is the struggle there something that's going to prevent them from accomplishing their goal? Right. You want to make sure you're toe in that line as a facilitator. So, and then when everything does finish, you do have the golden moment. Let people recognize that time. If they're successful in their task, give it that minute, let them enjoy, let them talk. They do a natural debrief right there, and then all of a sudden they have this warm feeling that comes from that success rather than you coming in as an instructor and being going, great job, right? Like it's their moment, let them have it, and then you get to step in. So those are some things that I think are really important. Coming back to it. Matt, did you have anything else you would want to add to, you know, making sure we have that proper language, or do you want to move on to props and tools?

SPEAKER_00 27:01

I I think the last thing I just want to pick up on the like knowing when to like step in and intervene as a facilitator, I think is it's something you just learn by experience. I think in my we're gonna talk about debriefing two topics from now, but like you are watching and paying attention as things are going for like moments to bring up in the the processing or the debrief moment at the end. And I think it's okay, you you know, there's a lot of like experiential learning theory. If you want like books about this stuff, email me. We can nerd out and talk about it. But like, what is is the role of the facilitator to make sure things go well or to make sure things happen and then we can process and talk about it? It all depends on how much time you have with your group. You know, if you don't want things to end on a bad note, so it might you might need to stop and refocus. But if you're with kids for a long amount of time, I'm a big fan of like letting things happen and being and then just talking with the group and being like, whoa, man, we didn't expect that to happen. Like, what do you think happened? Anyway, I don't want to give too much away about debriefing, but I think that the happy middle ground is it comes back to managing engagement during the activity that you're that you're doing. Once you're in the middle of it, your presence is really important. But you don't want to like step in and influence things, you don't want to give away the team building thing and you don't want to like have people's experience be solely about you as a facilitator. But I think being somewhat present as group discussions are going on or as the activity is going in, be a part of it, a role model the behavior that you want to see in the session. And that might mean like being in with a group as they're talking for for a second and not influencing the conversation, but just stepping in and then you can step back. But I I really want to discourage people from thinking that facilitating is like supervising a group and just like walking around with your metaphorical or real clipboard and like making sure people are on track because we want participants to feel like the experience is kind of theirs and not that you're supervising them if that's not you know appropriate for the time. I I think like there's a difference between being a lifeguard. Like if you're facilitating a swim session and your role as being a lifeguard, you have to be a lifeguard. You have to make sure that kids are safe. But that's why if you're not the lifeguard at a swim session, you should be in there playing with kids or like leading games or facilitating activities, because then it's more than just a like, you know, let's go swim around, which has its place, but I don't think that takes us too far on a tangent. But just again, think about engagement. What is how is every single participant in the activity given the opportunity to engage in the activity? Is that does that make sense?

SPEAKER_02 29:48

Yeah, I think you kind of inspired me to think about it too, with your with the lifeguard. Like they're as a facilitator, you're not a lifeguard. You're like a lifeguard is there for safety, make sure everything doesn't go wrong, right? Whereas you're actually more of a swim instructor, right? You're trying to walk someone through it. Now, maybe like instruction is maybe a little bit more hands-on, but I think that's a really good analogy though, Matt. I think you you you you were getting to that, and I'm happy, I'm happy to brainstorm that with you too, because it's I I think you're you are along those rights. But I think the moving into kind of the next category for us is kind of props, tools, equipment, facility, right? These are really important for you as a facilitor too. I think a lot of this is a little bit more explanational. Just you know, like you know, when you're going to archery, you need to have your bows, your arrows, your targets, a clean range, right? If you're going to do your team building, you're gonna have your pool noodles, your pool hoops, your poly dots that you can put on the ground, a nice raccoon rope. A lot of these things are pretty classic props and tools to have. I think it's really important to say from from somebody who has facilitated a lot of stuff, you need to make sure everything's ready for your group before they get there. I think that's really like preset setup is really, really important. So, you know, if your team building or your boating or whatever starts at nine, like know how much more time you need before they arrive to be prepared for them, right? And what does that look like, right? If someone's coming to high reps, do you have your harness ready for them to put on, right? Is it either a hanging nicely and easy to grab and get to them? Is it maybe laying on a tarp and look really clean with a helmet and everything like that? So that it's very clear this is my equipment, this is what I'll be using. Is your team building stuff kind of laid out maybe on a picnic table or something close by where it's easy for you to grab and adapt and and move as things go along? I think those are really important things that are like a professional facilitator is aware of and knows, right? Like I'm ready for my group. I don't have to run and grab something before something gets started. I'm ready for them. I also think, like, where are you standing when they arrive? Like you in a clearly visible area. Do they know where they're going on your camps? Or are you getting to them first? Right. All those things are really important. We're making sure that everything's prepared and ready. And the other thing with your tools and and your equipment and everything, make sure you have stuff to make adaptations as you go along, right? Do you have someone coming in that might have a disability? Or do you have a group coming in that maybe like their age or stage that they're at is not something like maybe you're like, oh, I'm having I'm getting my program ready for nine-year-olds. And then they come and you're like, ooh, these nine-year-olds are more like some seven-year-olds that I've met. I gotta kind of pull back a little bit. Or wow, these nine-year-olds are really accomplished. Like, I might have to increase the toughness of what we're doing to give them more of a challenge, right? You need to be able to adapt, and your props and equipment can really help you do that. So, not talking so much about a language there that you know, we covered that before, but what can you do, or what can you have ready at your disposal to say, like, ooh, I'm running team building, these kids have a pretty good grasp on communication. I can tell from our first game. I wasn't gonna go this far, but maybe I do push them a little bit more and we play this game instead. And in order to do that, I'm gonna need some pool noodles instead, right? So you have that at your disposal before you go. I always like to say, like, when I run team building, like in an hour, I might have about anywhere from three to six games that I'll play, but I have six to twelve games ready to go. And then I also think about, you know, while I'm team building with a group, you know, what am I paying attention to? What track am I gonna go on? Does this group need to focus more on trust? Because I see in the first couple games that's a that's an area to to go towards, or is it communication or is it teamwork or right? We've we have these tracks that we want to follow, and I think your props and tools can really give you that flexibility to move in those directions. So Matt, what are some props or tools that you use for your facilitation that you might pull out?

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Yeah, I I love that we're talking about props and also about preparation because I think I think both are like so important. I think we'll talk about like props and tools. I have like two to three, I my my wife laughs at me all the time for the amount of just like knapsacks that I have of random like dollar store items. Like I have my I have my games and I don't want people if you're listening to this as a new facilitator, Oliver and I we're talking about like backup plans and the experience that we have. You'll you'll you'll get there with time and you'll fill your backpacks with like dollar store items, but like things that are like squishy or throwable, or I have like in you know, rubber sharks in my bag, and I I I name them things when I bring them out of my bag. I I think just having the things that you need and like revealing them in interesting ways is a great way to use your props. I love having my little backpack, or I have interesting little like stuff sacks that are tie-dye or that I've gotten on my travels or whatever that I put my things in, and then you know, I leave them strategically to the side while I'm facilitating. So kids are like, oh, what is that box? Or like I'll walk over and I'll pick it up and I'll grab something out of it. And then people wonder, oh, what else is in that bag? Hmm, that that could be interesting. Using things that could cause that have a perceived sense of like danger or risk. I'll I'll give you a prime example. One of my favorite like team building sequences uses tarps, and you can use tarps to do like the folded tarp activity where everyone stands on the tarp, then it's like a shrinking island. So you fold the tarp in half, then they have to balance, they have to get on there, you do it in half and see how many times that they can balance on the tarp together. And then I move them into like where everyone holds the tarp together, and they have to be able to like toss a tennis ball up in the air while holding the tarp, and the tennis ball comes back down and they all catch it. And then I'm like, okay, you know, you you folks are really good at this. Can we try something a little scary? I don't know if we can do this. And then I bring out an egg and I put the egg on the tarp. And little do they know that egg is hard boiled. And so if it so when it falls off the tarp the first time, they're like, oh, you know, Matt was tricking us. And then I bring out a real egg if they're ready for it. And I say, okay, like no joke. And I show them how to, you know, when you spin an egg and you stop it, and if you if if it keeps spinning when you let go of it, you can tell it's a real egg. I'm like, okay, this is for real. Let's do it. And then, you know, you've built some trust with them. So that even just those like silly little, like I said, perceived risk things will help get people engaged. I I want to quickly pivot to picking up on this idea of like preparation, how to prepare. One of the best tips that I can give you as a facilitator is as much as you can try to get to know your group ahead of time. And the easiest way to do that is if you have the ability, try to sit with them the meal before you program with them. And that way they get to know you and your vibe as a as a person at camp first, and you can start to like very gently build some mystery or like pitch the thing that you're gonna be doing. If it's as simple as archery, be like, hey, I'm my name's Matt. I'm gonna be with you for archery later today. Who here has done archery at camp before? And then you can also identify where the skill level of your group is so you can make some pre-adjustments to make the task harder, or you can identify who like a leader might be in the activity as well. So if if you can see that Stephanie at your table is super passionate about archery and she says, Oh, I've done this a million times before, or maybe Stephanie is like, I've done this a million times before, I'm not excited about it. Maybe between the meal and Archery, you can pull Stephanie aside and say, Hey, you've done this a bunch. Do you want to help me call the call the range or get or be a demonstration? And then you're engaging Stephanie, even though she's super engaged. Because if you if you didn't do that, Stephanie comes to Archery, she's done it before. She might not be paying attention or she might not, she might, you know, distract the group because she's bored. So you're even you're catching her attention and engagement level right from the start of things. So the most, you know, a lot of the times you're not going to know your group super well, and you got to be able to adapt on the fly. But if you can get some of that data ahead of time, it can be helpful.

SPEAKER_02 38:16

I think really emphasizing your point of like preparation, right? Like hard-boiled eggs just don't come around. You have to take the time to go and boil it beforehand, right? That's right. People don't think about like I I find that so much nowadays that a lot of my like younger instructors don't think about those things all the time leading into an activity. They just kind of think like, oh, I want to do this. And it's like, okay, cool, go get it ready. Go like you need to prep yourself, right? Before and and I think too, and just on the note of like, you know, a lot of the times people are thinking, like, oh man, Oliver and Matt have all these really creative ideas. A lot of the time, these ideas we get them, we get them from other instructors, other people that we've met. But a lot of times, like sometimes great team building or great activities and learning about those just come from you going, what if we did this, right? Like in that activity, like 18 to 22 year olds running archery for the first time ask so many what if questions that I go, you know what? It's not a bad idea if we tried to shoot some pumpkins with some arrows, right? Like, let's see what happens, right? And then eventually you learn, like, well, you can do it. You just need to make sure you clean the arrows or it stinks, or make sure you clean up the pumpkins afterwards, or your archery range is going to become a pumpkin growth. So, like, there's learning experiences that come with a lot of this, and you debrief about them, which is what we're going into now. So, Matt, let's talk about debriefing. I think it's so essentially important, but I really want you to just give us the philosophy. Why is debriefing so important that every single great facilitator of any camp activity should be doing it all the time?

SPEAKER_00 39:47

First of all, Oliver, what what a seamless transition. Good for you. That was that was really good.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

I get better at it every season, I hope.

SPEAKER_00 39:54

I I agree. Yeah, I I think you know what makes camp special is the amount of intention that we put into what we do. And I think that debriefing is kind of that example. I I remember getting into a like a big philosophical discussion with somebody at camp of them being like, well, shouldn't the activity just be fun for the sake of being fun? And I said, fun is like a byproduct of of a really well-run activity. But also, what is the point of kids being here? Right? It's not just to have fun, it's to, you know, there's whatever your camp's mission is, but a lot of camps missions will be like, we want people to leave better people than they came, or something like that. We want them to experience community or or whatever. And and the point of debriefing is to help them understand what the why what they did in an experience was significant. You'll hear me, I've said it time and time again on the podcast that a job of a good counselor is to hold up a mirror in front of a kid and point out the cool, amazing person that they are, and understanding that what they did was significant and and meaningful. So debriefing an activity, or some people call it processing an activity, is just a moment to take those good nuggets and say why it was important. Like experiential learning theory would say this is the transference of experience, the transference of learning. Very simply, it's like, what was the point of what we did and why is it significant to who we are as people, who we are as a community, what skills can they take from this and apply in the non-camp world to help them be successful? What skills from this team building activity will help us be a better community going forward? So, you know, we don't I think there is a place, and you we can argue till the cows come home about fun for the sake of fun, but I think, you know, it's also not debriefing, I think sometimes gets a bad rap of like everyone needs to sit in a circle and talk about their feelings and just talk about the experience. And that's that's not what we're talking about here. So I'm gonna I'm gonna tee up kind of the like the basic structure of what a debrief can look like or what the kind of like the points are, but Oliver's gonna give you the like some specific tools, items, ways to make debriefs engaging, right? If we're talking about managing engagement, just sitting in a circle and one person talking at a time is about the least engaging thing that you can do. You can do it, but it requires some serious skill. So let me let me give you the philosophy. So my my philosophy of debriefing, it's it's not mine, it's uh people have written about it, is is what happened, so what, and now what? So what, so what, now what? You know, did you notice when this happened and and why did that happen? So like oh, so we I noticed that while we were doing the nitro crossing, that we were we were so close to finishing this, we had everyone on the platform, and then we had to restart. Why did why did that happen? And then the group, you know, brainstorms ideas, or you can give some tools there. I'm like, did that does that happen other times? Like, do we ever get close to our goals? Like in not the nitro crossing, do we ever do we ever get close to our goals and then we fall short? Yeah, why does that happen? So, like, what did we do in this activity in the Nitro Crossing to like get back together um and and and accomplish our goal? Oh, okay. So, like, what do we know about getting close to our goals? And and that is like a conversational debrief, but you can see where I'm going is that the group says, okay, we we tried hard or we communicated better to achieve our goals. And would that help us in the rest of camp in in the non camp world? Ah, so there we're getting to the gold nuggets of the activity and how it applies to the non camp world. Again, though, that's one way of debriefing that might not be very engagement for, say, like a rowdy group of 10 year olds. So, Oliver, what what are some ways that you can take my boring? Debrief and make it a little bit more exciting.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Debriefing, it's really important to understand. It's just identifying what happened, how did we interpret what happened? And then what hopefully we can apply in the future, right? I we F I A is my acronym for it. It's facts, interpretation, application. It's like a like a secret mission. But you're just trying to get that information out of the conversation that you're having, right? Whether it's self-evaluation that your participants are doing, whether it's a group evaluation, right? It's it's just important that you have that time to evaluate and and debrief about that situation, have that chance to share, right? And I think it's important. It can be in a group setting, it can be one-on-one, right? You can do both, right? You might have a group setting and you notice that someone in your group needs to share a little bit more. So you might reach out to them afterwards and just be like, hey, I think you had something else you wanted to add and you didn't have a chance. What what what was it? What was going on in your head? I just saw it on your face, right? You it's it's giving people that time to share. And it's why cabin chats exist or or devos, whatever you want to call them at the end of the day in cabins. That that is a debrief, right? That's a debrief about the day. It gives people to share. And and I like to say about those, it's especially a camp, it's not about identifying if it was a good day, if it was a bad day, right? It's about being able to share about your day and having others listen and be there to support you on whatever your feelings were. If you had a hyped day, they're there to hype you up. If you had a bad day, they're there to give you the support that you need. So that's what debriefing is to me. And there's so many ways to go about doing it. So let's talk about some of those props tools and ways to go about it. So the first one is yeah, Matt's right. If you're sitting around in a circle having a talk, it's gonna be rough sometimes, especially if you're not used to it or you don't have those questions ready. So having some props sometimes really, really helps. Or performed questions, right? Like cabin chats. I love like something as simple as like, hey, this is Aladdin's lamp. I want everyone to rub on Aladdin's lamp tonight. It's our talking stick, right? And when when you rub onto it, what I want you to do is you share with me something that you wish was different about today, right? And now everybody has this context to work within, right? So you have an item that you can use. You can use pictures. I really love this one. You put a bunch of pictures or items in the middle of the circle and you say, Hey, I want you to grab an item that most identifies how you felt today went, right? And it can be anything, like it can be just a random assortment of stuff you have. It can be pictures of different places in the world or different things. It literally can be like Getty's images, AI random generated. Give me 50 pictures of things I've never seen before, right? Print them off, you put them in the middle of the circle, and and the kids get to pick and they get to choose how they identified with how they're feeling from those things. The others are like fingers. We want to get a rating system. Sometimes it works help to get more analytical information. So you can say, hey, I want you to hold up fingers, give me a five if it was great, a one if it wasn't great. It doesn't always have to be good or great. It could be like, hey, how well do you think we communicated? Do you think we communicated on a five scale, right? So you can do that to get them. You can also do high low. So, like, hey, if you think we did really well, I want you to start jumping. If you think we did really bad, I want you to lay down on the ground, right? A little bit more of an active one. Yeah. And you're like, if you think we did really, really bad, I want you to pretend to be dead. Like, just give up. Just lay down on the ground, give up. If you think we did super, super good, like this is your chance to jump up and down. Like, hooray, hooray, let's go. And then, you know, you find that happy medium with them, but it gives you a range and it gives you more of an analytical information on what you're what you're looking at. And some of these can be a secret share, right? Like you don't need to have them hold those fingers up right away, or they can hold them behind their back and you can walk around the circle or walk behind them and you can get everyone's ratings, or they can rate first and then share to the group. Those are all great ways to give them the confidence that they they have that time to share. The other one, too, a secret share. I love if you've ever heard snowball, you get to write how you felt the your your feel or what your feelings are. You crumple it into a ball, you throw it into the middle, and everyone's eyes are closed, and then everyone goes and collects a sheet, and then they get to read it to the group. So they don't know who's saying it, but you can identify maybe more specific things, and there's no blame game on who said it, but it still gets the information out there into the group. There are so many ways to go through with team building. The the last important most important part is how do you handle making sure that they're, you know, facts sometimes aren't kind, right? How are we tactful about it? How do we go about talking about it? How do we like when when Jimmy calls out Ryan for being really, really bad at the team building activity and is he is the reason why they failed? How do you how do you address that, right? And you might even know he is they failed. He did so bad, right? And like, can you like is he gonna take ownership for it? Is he gonna deny it? These are all things. And I really, as an instructor, when we go into this, I identify that. I identify what was happening. So I'm not blaming Jimmy for failing. I will openly say, hey, you guys, some of these design, these games are designed to fail, or some of these activities, maybe we weren't ready to accomplish that goal. That's okay, that's part of this process. But what I want to identify is how are we making sure that next time we do this, Jimmy is going to do a much better job, right? Or that all of us are successful, right? Because his his failure in this is not an individual failure, it's a universal failure. Anyone could have been in his spot. Anyone else can go into that? We're just talking about the failure that occurred. It's not Jimmy. We're talking about the event, right? And that takes Jimmy out of it and that just focuses on like what could have we done to make sure Jimmy's successful, or what can Jimmy do? What can he take ownership to make sure that when he comes back to the SaaS the next time, you know, it's the event, not the person, right? So that's really important with handling those disputes and handling tact in that group. We're talking about the activity, we're talking about what the challenge was, not the person who failed at it, because people fail every day. That's fine. How do we come back to it great the next time? And my last thing that I want to share about debriefing is there's a difference between one's own experience and the shared experience, right? Yeah. Every single person who's in that group has their own experience they the that they felt, right? Like you can use I feel statements, all are great pieces of tools. But I think it's an understanding too that this was a shared experience. We all had this experience together. So whether we failed as a group, one side failed, the other side was successful, we were all in this together. We had this moment, we shared in it. And going back to like what is important about debriefing, it's not about having a good day or a bad day. It's about being able to share that day. And that's what debriefing does. It lets us know that we're all in this together. So that those are my main coaching points when it comes to debriefing. Matt, what else can you add to this just before we wrap?

SPEAKER_00 51:09

Yeah, I'm gonna put a link in the show notes to a couple of like tools, like practical tools. Like I love like feelings cards are just a bunch of cards that have both positive and negative emotions on them, and you can allow people to like pick a thing. And you can also do that with like like items. Like you can go to the dollar store again and buy a bunch of items, and you can it's like make me a metaphor essentially. Like, what what were you during this activity? Like, I have a toolbox that sometimes I'll bring, or like I'll ask the maintenance person at camp to let me borrow a bunch of tools and say, like, pick a tool and tell us how you contributed. Were you the hammer? Were you the wrench? Were you the again, making sure it's like developmentally appropriate? I in one of my facilitator bags, I bought a keyboard, an old like computer keyboard at the dollar store, and I smashed it and like took all the keys off of it and I put the keys out and I say, like, pick a key and tell me how you were why were you the space bar? Why were you the delete button or those types of things? Those are like metaphor tools that they can point to. I also want to I I want to pick up, I I think, Oliver, your point about like what happens when things go wrong as part of it and and it could be the cause of a person. I think it's also important going back to like this is around kind of team building, but like what is the goal? What is the goal here? And sometimes we get lost in like, oh, the goal is for the group to throw the ball and catch it. Like if we're using my tarp activity, but that's that's that's one goal. That's the outcome of the task. But what's our and I remind the group at the start, I was like, what's our goal at camp? Our goal at camp is to be a community together. Our goal at camp is to work well together, to communicate well. And I think last or a couple episodes ago, we talked about those like full value contracts, your cabin contracts that you can make. I think it's really powerful to like bring those up as you're designing these activities as well. Like these are the things we've committed to like what we're going to like do and not do, but this is how we want to grow as a community, so that when things do go badly, it again, Oliver, you're talking about that it's it's on the group. How can we be successful as a community? And and we're not always going to accomplish the task that we want to set. Almost no sports team, there at there is no sports team that has never lost a game, right? Everyone loses a game, everyone fails at a task, and and we do that as a group, but what is most important is our community, is our teamwork, are those things, despite whether we win or lose a task. And then again, you're zooming out from that one person, and you can say, like, I want all of you and to think, take a moment and think about one way that if we were to do this over again, what would you do differently? And and like Jimmy's might be very obvious. He might not like knock down the tower that that bit like quote unquote failed the task, but then it gives everyone the opportunity to think, like, oh, how could I have been a better communicator throughout this activity? And then would that have helped us create the conditions where Jimmy might not have done it or something like that? You know what I mean? So I think giving people the opportunity to with like you don't have to like get mad at the group for calling somebody out, but you can remind them of the true goal of these is community or or those senses that you know whether we drop the egg or not doesn't actually matter.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

I think it's and I think a lot of people might be there and be like, well, what about application, right? Like failure, there's repercussion for failure, right? Like if you're if you go back into the working world, we like we want to prepare these kids. Like if you're part of a team and you are on a project and that project fails, there's repercussions, people can get fired, right? All this kind of stuff, like bad things can can truly happen. We're at camp right now. That's an important emphasis. Yeah, we are not doing things where the repercussion of failure is great, right? And that's important for kids to understand for team building with adults if you have them coming out. The repercussion of failure is not truly there. It is not a project where they're where you know there's things on the line, but it is important when you're leaving these debriefs to talk about that part of application, right? Like we want to make sure that we're better here or practicing here so that when we go out there, we know what we need to do, right? We know how we need to work together, we know what we need to do to practice and prepare to do some of these types of activities. We know what we need to do to think about when we engage in some things that might be bigger than us. And right now, we had a chance to see what it felt like to fail, but we haven't had to face any repercussions for it. And I that's the last part that I kind of put in there. That's part of debriefing, but it's the nice thing and what makes camp so glorious is that those repercussions are not high stakes, right? We are in a practice ground, we're in training, right? That's that's how this works. So with that being said, that is our show for today. Thank you guys all for joining us. But we do have one last thing that we do, and that is our eggle or ever growing, ever learning. It is a trick, a tip, game, or song for counselors to use to get better every day. Let's get started. Matt, what's your eggle for the day?

SPEAKER_00 56:14

Yes, Oliver. Thank you for the the assist on this eggle. I often struggle when we're at episode what, like 70 something now to find a new one someday. Are we in the 80s? Oh my goodness. The so Oliver had the idea of like getting wildflower seeds and and planting them around. I think it's it's super smart. My plus one to that idea is the idea of seed bombs. And this goes into the philosophy of I'm gonna get the name wrong. It's like renegade gardening, it's called, and believing that we should get our our spaces back to the the wild awesomeness because it's good for pollinators, it's good for local species. So not only will should you find out what the the native plants are for the area where you're gonna plant those seeds, but this is a cool activity that you can do at camp with kids, and it's called seed bombs. So I'll put the the link of like the recipe for seed bombs, but essentially it's mixing like clay and soil together with the seeds, and then you you find a space where you want those seeds to grow, like off the side of a highway or something like that, and you literally throw them in there so that the clay and the dirt, as the rain comes, it will settle in and those seeds will self-plant. So you don't actually need to like dig a hole for them because the it'll it'll just work because seeds are resilient. We don't always need to plant them like flowers. So yeah, make some seed bombs, go chucking and you know, little renegade gardening never hurt anybody.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

Yeah, it's such a great thing. And I think too, like if you're you have kids who are putting those flowers up and around camp, it it's a very shortened version of you know, planting a tree so that others can sit in the shade. You're planting flowers so some other can pick it for a more beautiful day. Nice, right? So it's great. I have a AI app that I recently got engaged with, and Matt has some history with it too. So uh it's called Suno. It makes music. It's it seems to be a pretty cool thing, but I got attached to it because I saw a gentleman who took their like end of the week report and he plugged it into this app to make a song for people to listen, like for his team to listen to to go into the weekend, and it was just such a hype, exciting song, and it like made like I'm not part of his team. Heard the song and was like, oh man, Becky killed it this week. That's great. Like I was part, like I was part of the team for the moment. I was excited. It's a Friday that Matt and I are recording this, so like I'm gonna probably install it for us to do just for fun and and see how it works for for our organization. But I also think like it'd be great for like the end of the week. Like if you're taking notes about like what happened, big accomplishments and things like that, you take those notes through the week, plug it into the app at the end of the week on Friday, and then share that with your kids at the end of the week of like, hey, I just want you guys to know I put together a song for our cabin, and I just wanted to share the link with you guys so that you can go home and then the kids can listen to that bop when they get back like in the car with their parents, right? And the parents get to listen to the song, and now the kid has to explain the lyrics, and like there's whatever that weird inside joke is actually the chorus now, and it like now you get to now that kid has the chorus for that weird inside joke for his cabin he's got a song that he'll always listen to. And the best part is like if he's at school or something and he's like, Hey, I got this song, it's such a good song. Nobody else has heard it, right? Like it's his song, it's his friend's songs. He puts it on. And the nice thing is something like that, it will last a really long time as long as they don't lose it, and they'll always have something they can go back to that kind of remembers remembers that week of camp. So imagine is something you as a counselor can do to improve the experience because I literally have been playing with this app and I've made like 15 songs with it just playing around, and it's so easy. It takes like 30 seconds to make a song, you guys. It's so simple.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

And and if you do both of our eggs, then you will like net zero your carbon impact from using AI that much, right? Planting some wildflowers using AI, we're back at net zero. So look at us go.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:02

So thank you guys all so much for joining us today. It's been a great show. If you enjoyed it, please, we'd be so grateful you left us a review wherever you're listening to our podcast. Ratings review not only tell us what you like or don't like about the show, but they help boost our rankings to get more people to discover the great things we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:18

And I want to give a special shout out to our editor, Ryan, for all the hard work that it takes to wrangle us and edit out our major mistakes or when people walk into the room when we're recording. Ryan, thank you so much for helping us get it out there. Ryan also does a great job of taking the show notes and all the things that we've talked about and making sure that there's links to those that you can follow up on all the things that we've talked about. So, Ryan, you're great. Shout out to you. And for everyone out there, don't forget that you can find out our show notes, the hard work that Ryan does at gocamp.pro slash FCC, and check out gocamp.pro slash podcast for all the other great GoCamp Pro podcasts out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:59

That's right. Thanks for listening, friends. And remember, camp is camp and camp is all good.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:08

First class counselors is brought to you by Beth and Travis Allison, Summer Camp Leadership Training and Marketing Consultants. Thanks for listening, friends.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:19

Hey Camp Pros, we love that our industry is built on sharing. In order to foster that spirit, we hope that whenever you share an idea that you learn from the Camp Hacker Podcast, conference, summer camp professionals group, or wherever else, that you're quick to give credit where credit is due. That way, we can all encourage more camp pros to share the tips and tricks that will make camp better.