Summer Camp Facility Tips 2008
As the camping season quickly approaches here are some tips to improve your camp facility. The following tips were sent to me by Gary Forster, Camping Specialist for YMCA of the USA. Please respond to this thread with any questions, comments, or additional tips you have found helpful.
- Howard Longino
Potholes in your entry road (THUNK) are a bad first impression. Don't wait, fill them now. Here's the secret: go to your home improvement warehouse and pick up bags of "cold-patch" or "driveway patch" for asphalt repair. Looks just like asphalt in a bag like concrete mix, but it sets up by drying out instead of cooling off. The trick the pros know that you don't know: rent a "vibrating plate compactor" at your local rental store. The smallest one should do, probably about $45 for 4 hours. Overfill the pothole by an inch or more, and then run the compactor over it ‘till it's smooth as a baby's bottom.
Punch List - Here's a partial list of things worth a "double check" (a list created from my own stays at YMCA camps this time of year!):
- Check every shower head for good flow - (they may have gotten clogged over the winter and no-one complained.) New shower heads are only $8; don't be stingy. And dip them on a regular basis in CLR or similar to keep them clear.
- Add coat pegs and a shelf next to each shower. (If it was you, where would you hang your towel? Put your toiletry kit? Sit to dry your feet? A $5 resin chair will do).
- Knock down all those spider-webs on the outside of your buildings.
- Put up some new archery targets; some new nets on the basketball hoops.
- Give your maintenance staff some new staff shirts and name tags. (For guests to love your staff, they have to know who they are.) "Clothes Make the Man. Naked people have little or no influence on society." - (Mark Twain.) Another good argument for staff shirts.
Don't Paint Yet - This product is as close to a miracle as I've seen in the grocery store. "Mr. Clean Eraser" can clean scuff marks, squished mosquitoes, and molding root-beer splatter off your cabin or dining hall walls without harming the paint. And ANYONE can do it (unlike painting). http://www.startsampling.com/sm/5161/product.iphtml?item=5161&source=hms
"Don't let the bed-bugs bite!"-Time magazine ran a story that bedbugs where becoming more common. At least two Y camps have reported big problems with the little critters this year. The important thing for us all to know is that they jump their host and set up housekeeping in our cabins, lay eggs, and a new batch hatches in 4 to 12 days to hunt for a "blood feast" to reproduce again. You must take aggressive action early, or they will go home with your campers, too. Check out http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/entfacts/struct/ef636.htm for more on the buggers, and this one for how to deal with them: http://www.ymcaexchange.org/front/programs/camping/risk/bedbugs_2004-04-26.aspx
Cookin' dem Bugs - Heat is the most effective way to eradicate bed bugs, and many exterminators don't offer it. Dave Wright of Camp Tecumseh sent us this example of a commercial solution: http://www.e-hospitality.com/content/news/article.asp?docid=b14cd4eb-2543-4401-a24e-58a8686ad865&atc~c=771+s=773+r=001+l=a
Flag It - Here's my annual push to make your camp look welcoming on opening day:
Well Water Stink Like Rotten Eggs? If you've already got a water softener and an iron filter, the reason is almost always in your hot water tank. To keep tanks from rusting out they come with a "sacrificial anode," a long rod that's screwed down into the tank that's made of a material like magnesium that dissolves first so the steel in the tank doesn't. But hard well water reacts with it and creates that horrible smell. This article tells you exactly how to fix it with an easy-to-get replacement anode that doesn't stink.
http://www.waterheaterrescue.com/pages/WHRpages/English/Longevity/water-heater-anodes.html
Add Some Color - How do your camp shower-rooms look? Steve Heiny at Flat Rock River Camp (Indianapolis YMCA) had some pretty sad looking bathrooms, even with a new coat of white paint. He went to Wal-Mart (they're too far out in the boonies to have a Bed, Bath & Beyond) and got some beautifully colored shower curtains and matching window curtains. Amazing how they brightened up! Contact Steve at sheiny@indymca.org.
Flags and Pennants - "Welcome" flags for your front gate, "Open" flags for your trading post, used-car pennant strings to liven up check-in, 2x3' flags in the 4 character colors... quick and inexpensive ways to make your camp look fresh and welcoming. One source, http://www.carrot-top.com/
The Real Facts on Norovirus - the "cruise ship virus" affects more camps every summer. Here's the link to the CDC's easy-to-understand information. It's spread primarily by people not washing their hands, especially before meals. Your foodservice, maintenance, and counseling staff should learn this just as they learn about blood-born pathogens: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dvrd/revb/gastro/norovirus.htm
Tell People Where to Go -- Need a LOT of routed wood signs for your camp? This was featured on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" on April 27th. It's a computer-driven 3-D router by Craftsman that can handle materials up to 14 inches wide, 4.5" thick, and any length. Any font, logo, etc. Format it on a computer, touch a button and it takes over. http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00921754000P
Rusty Tools Make Your Shop Look Sloppy? - "We filled a 5 gallon pail with sand and used motor oil. Every time a shovel, spade, clippers, etc. comes back it gets a few dips in the bucket where the sand scrapes it clean and the oil protects it from rust. It even works when stuff gets left in the rain by a "work" crew!" Pat Murphy, YMCA Camp Sturtevant WI ymcacamp1@yahoo.com
Critter Huntin' - Camp Weona (Buffalo YMCA) has a nifty little bridge over their creek. Bridges are kid-magnets. Every kid loves to hunt for salamanders and crayfish in that creek, and they obey this sign: "Rule of Threes: you can hold it in a wet hand and look at it for three minutes, show it to three people, don't walk more than three steps, and then let it go where you found it. Green is for Responsibility, like for the Earth."
"Carpetball sensation" - If you haven't seen this yet, get someone on it! A perfect volunteer construction project (my son and I built two in a day). http://www.duke.edu/~mfc5/ultracarpetballplans/ Now that they're installed at camp, it's a huge it. My only suggestion: we built one to the same dimensions as the plans, which is ideal for adults and teens. But we built the second one 6" lower, which works much better for most kids. Thanks to Camp Tecumseh for discovering this great activity!
More New Photos - Share some of the excitement of camping innovation with your staff through the great ideas at http://www.ymcaexchange.org/photos (Username "YMCA", password "9622"). New albums include outdoor activities, signs, rustic cabins, yurts, and porches. The most popular album so far is "Places to Make Friends."
Ask the kids -- One of the coolest things I ever saw was a cabin activity where the campers were asked to design their ideal camp from the ground up. Kids would brainstorm first with the director; talking about the "stuff" they wanted. Then each camper drew one or more of the "things" on to 8 ½ x 11" sheets of paper. Finally the group arranged the facilities and activity areas on a roll of newsprint into a "site map" and filled in the water, paths, etc (An incredible rainy-day activity).
For instance, camp Kitaki had their kids meet with the architect who was designing their new bath-house. The kids' number one request? "Have the toilets be the self-flushing kind like at the airport" (and you know why!) The architect did a fine job with the design, but when it was submitted for bids the camp director Chris Klingenberg noticed that regular toilet valves had been specified. The architect's response: "I didn't think the kids were serious." The director made sure the kids were listened to! -- CKlingenberg@ymcalincoln.org
Does Purell® Work? - A quick search on Google® for "Alcohol Hand Sanitizer Norovirus" yields the positive research results on using hand sanitizers like Purell before meals (yes, it works), and answers to almost any question you might get from staff and parents.
"Cleanup on Isle Five" - A poster to print out on how to sanitize surfaces: http://www.epi.hss.state.ak.us/id/dod/norovirus/sanitize.pdf
Black Fly problems? Gnats, no-see-em's, whatever you've got, they can ruin springtime. Here's an outdoorsman's tip I recently leaned: Get some duct tape and position several strips on the top of a ball cap sticky side out. Those nasty critters fly around your head and get stuck to the tape. Kids will be amazed at how many they collect! Have competitions! Guess why one person attracts more than another! All in the name of scientific exploration!
What's in a name? A reason for fantasy and adventure! The Southington/Cheshire CT YMCA's Sloper Day Camp knows the values of naming places. One end of their small canoeing lake is "Turtle's Paradise, where turtles go on vacation!" They have a hillside where kids can dig for small quartz crystals called "The Crystal Mine," (including a cool sign), and their lookout/treehouse platform across the lake is called "Pirate Point." They even have a "Wiffle-Ball Stadium" complete with a "Green Monster" outfield wall (can you tell the Red Sox are the local favorites?) for kids to hit home-runs over. Now that's magical!
Healthy Grass - we had a turf expert at the maintenance conference this year that went into depth (literally) on the right and wrong ways to get more durable, drought-resistant grass around camp. Turns out most of us do five things wrong (blame your dad for teaching you bad habits).
First, we don't cut the grass often enough. You've heard never to cut more than the third of the length of the grass (So if you want 2" grass you have to cut it at 3"). "What happens when I let it go to 7" before I cut? It's still 2" when I'm done." But it puts the plant into such shock that it stops replacing roots and growing new blades, so it's much easier damaged beyond repair.
Mistake number two, we use high-nitrogen (that's the first number on the bag) to "green up" the lawn. That stuff works like steroids and makes the blades grow incredibly fast (which makes it IMPOSSIBLE to keep up with the mowing at 1/3 of the length), and it does nothing to help root growth.
Number three? Sharpen the blades after every 10 hours of use. Dull blades rip and tear the blades, letting the grass lose moisture as those rough ends brown.
When we do cut the grass, we often cut it too short. The shorter the blades, the shorter the roots they can support, so if you cut it down to 1" high, you'll get only an inch or less of roots, and it will dry out and die. Keep it at 2 ½ or 3" and you get roots down deep to the cooler, moister soil.
Finally, dad took the hose and gave the lawn a quick watering, or moved the sprinkler around often. That encourages root growth only at the surface and not down deep (again, the roots get damaged too easily when they're short and the plants dry out too quickly). If you're going to water (and doing that once or at most twice a week is a very good thing), make sure your sprinklers are on long enough to soak the soil down past the roots; and the roots will grow down deep because it stays moist longer there.
"There's No Way I've got time for all of this!" You don't need this level of care everywhere, just in the places kids actually play on the grass
Good turf isn't just important for looks, it's the primary safety equipment when kids are playing field games. It's important to take care of it for risk management reasons. That should get you a few more dollars each year to do another thing more useful than fertilizer: core- aeration every spring and fall. Soil gets compacted from foot and vehicle traffic, which chokes off new growth. Either renting the machine for a day or paying a service to plug your most important fields will help protect new root growth, let water get down deeper, and even let in seed you throw on top. Got a real problem area? The golf courses spread sand after they've plugged so that twice a year they're improving the sand/soil ratio and the aeration does long-term good, too.