Camping Visits Debrief by Olga Lukina

Georgia at Campfire Conference

mariammamulashvili16 — 2025-03-10 14:19:38 UTC

Managing Staff (Training councellors, managing their wellbeing, etc)
How to incorporate ESL in different camp programs
Establishing new partnerships
Learning about how other YMCAs operate (especially non camp programs)
Working through challenges

Contacts for international camper exchanges

2025-03-10 14:20:11 UTC

American camp games and traditions (campfire, Gaga, 9square, cleanest cabin awards, etc)

2025-03-10 14:20:41 UTC

Approach to the camp as a product

2025-03-10 14:20:54 UTC

Usually our camps are mostly supported by grants and are done for the internally displaced children or other vulnerable groups but given the experience we have, I think we can gradually move to the idea of the camps as self-sustainable. Not all of them but at least part of them

Georgia at Campfire conference

mariammamulashvili16 — 2025-03-10 14:21:41 UTC

New and old partnerships established and strengthened
New activity areas in the camp (new ideas)
Updating program to include more ESL elements
Implementing new activities
Updating camper experience in the programs (from registration to the evalutation/feedback)

New contacts, experiences, specific ideas, fundraising tools, just an inspiration for growth

2025-03-10 14:22:35 UTC

Used games and activities to build Full English Immersion summer camp program after Miguel Santos participated in MACC in 2015, bringing American camp games and traditions to Spain

2025-03-10 14:22:36 UTC

Using learnings to develop a standardized staff training across YMCA Spain camps

2025-03-10 14:24:15 UTC

Me and Stas will be contributing to the programme of the YMCA Ukraine Camp Leaders Training (organized by Marta Huretska)

2025-03-10 14:24:47 UTC

Kosovo (East & MACC)

adi165 — 2025-03-10 14:25:10 UTC

Camp Tours

-Maintenance budgets, rota's, Unforseen costs

-Outdoor Activities

-Receptions, Storage, How to use space effectively

-Integration of camp into an association

-Types of camps/Marketing

-Branding

-Room naming, traditions

-Alumni engagement

Georgia at Campfire Conference

mariammamulashvili16 — 2025-03-10 14:25:30 UTC

to have more network/connection option with other camp people throughout the year, not only on conferences within YMCA Europe.

2025-03-10 14:26:48 UTC

motivation to go towards the set goals, understanding how fundraising works, established new partnerships, adjusted my vision of how the YMCA works

Learning outcomes/realisations

2025-03-10 14:26:57 UTC

We deliver great programmes in Bulgaria.

We need a better marketing strategy.
Paid staff is something good and we are heading there.
It is necessary that we have our own property which is crucial for achieving sustainability and we need support for that.
There are many partnership opportunities with European YMCAs related to camping, as some of our programmes are pretty similar.
We need to improve our collection of written policies and procedures.
Camping has always been important for YMCA Gabrovo. It is gaining momentum now which leads to dedicated more time and resources on it.

MACC 2023 - new ideas for Camp Orange program, better management standards, international partnership opportunities, extended camping network

2025-03-10 14:28:50 UTC

Kosovo

adi165 — 2025-03-10 14:29:17 UTC

New partnership (Iowa)
Ideas on activities/Equipment
Director to Director mentorship
Network of US camp staff/leaders
How we approach Maintenance
Influenced camp staff/team in general

Collected materials from the MACC and the camps that we visited will be partly used for the YMCA Ukraine Camp Manual

2025-03-10 14:29:43 UTC

To host the Conference at Camp Orange, Georgia :))))

2025-03-10 14:29:55 UTC

It´s very complicated for those of us working in summer camp...but if it were possible some day, it would be great to be able to have camp visits during the summer to see camp in action. Maybe this is more viable on a European level with a 2/3 day trip instead of going all the way to the US.

2025-03-10 14:30:16 UTC

There are few potential partnerships with camps at the USA that could help us to improve the knowledge and to get additional support

2025-03-10 14:30:54 UTC

Met people who are interested in us and will try ro establish a partnership with them.
We are establish a dedicated department handling only camps at our office.
There is a great amount of YMCA camping history in BG and we need to build on it.
We have modernised drastically the administration procedures related to camps for the last couple of years and still moving forward with new updates for this season, inspired by MACC.

adi165 — 2025-03-10 14:31:36 UTC

YE need:

-Better camp mapping

-A longer shared vision around camping in Europe that doesn't rely on Erasmus

-A Staff member designated to camp

-A fund in which camps can apply to for equipment or support- this goes hand in hand with minimum standards

-Annual camp conference

-Two host more YE events in camps

To have more opportunities to talk to the camp staff and dig more into their work rather than just exploring the camps

2025-03-10 14:32:19 UTC

2025-03-10 14:33:03 UTC

1.Establish official camping partnerships and planning on various way to meet and improve together during the year.

As some of us a in the process of building a campsite or has already done it, or are trying to do so, I would greatly appreciate any support this way.

2025-03-10 14:37:16 UTC

This helped create a vision and strategic planning for the next year, and also helped create a strong team.

2025-03-10 14:39:15 UTC

creating the history of camps in Ukraine

Camping Visits Debrief by Olga Lukina

Georgia at Campfire Conference

Contacts for international camper exchanges

American camp games and traditions (campfire, Gaga, 9square, cleanest cabin awards, etc)

Approach to the camp as a product

Georgia at Campfire conference

New contacts, experiences, specific ideas, fundraising tools, just an inspiration for growth

Used games and activities to build Full English Immersion summer camp program after Miguel Santos participated in MACC in 2015, bringing American camp games and traditions to Spain

Using learnings to develop a standardized staff training across YMCA Spain camps

Me and Stas will be contributing to the programme of the YMCA Ukraine Camp Leaders Training (organized by Marta Huretska)

Kosovo (East & MACC)

Georgia at Campfire Conference

Learning outcomes/realisations

MACC 2023 - new ideas for Camp Orange program, better management standards, international partnership opportunities, extended camping network

Kosovo

Collected materials from the MACC and the camps that we visited will be partly used for the YMCA Ukraine Camp Manual

To host the Conference at Camp Orange, Georgia :))))

It´s very complicated for those of us working in summer camp...but if it were possible some day, it would be great to be able to have camp visits during the summer to see camp in action. Maybe this is more viable on a European level with a 2/3 day trip instead of going all the way to the US.

There are few potential partnerships with camps at the USA that could help us to improve the knowledge and to get additional support

AD

To have more opportunities to talk to the camp staff and dig more into their work rather than just exploring the camps