Camping Blog

PRODUCT RECALL- AUTO BELAY DESCENDERS

ZTaylor — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:08:00 GMT

We recently received a Stop Use Notice provided by the Association for Challenge Course Technology (ACCT) for ALL Redpoint Auto-Belay Descender devises. There have been two incidents in which climbers using a Redpoint Auto-Belay device experienced rapid rates of descent resulting in injury.

This Stop Use Notice applies to the following descender units:

All Redpoint Descenders (part numbers 10024873, 10027646, and 10027798) regardless of the date the unit was manufactured or last serviced,

Auto-Belay Descenders (part number 10021806) manufactured or last serviced on or after June 30, 2000.

The part number, date of manufacture, and date of last factory service of the unit is located on the white date of manufacture label affixed to the back of the housing.

Please check your climbing equipment to see if you are affected by this recall and contact you challenge course vendor. For more information on this recall visit http://www.acctinfo.org/.

Climbing & Ropes Course Advisory

Admin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:39:00 GMT

In the past few weeks we have seen a number of severe injuries related to climbing walls and ropes activities. The first injury happened to a young male camper. Three other campers were belaying him on the high ropes course. He gave them the command to come down, and they appropriately responded. Within the last 10 feet of the camper's descent the belayers lost control; he fell to the ground and fractured his tailbone. The second injury happened when a young female camper was on the high ropes course. The knot in the rope came undone and dropped the camper onto the ground, where she fractured both arms. In this incident a first year staff member who only had three weeks of ropes experience tied the knot incorrectly.

We are in the middle of summer and time is precious, but we hope you take a few extra precautionary steps to reinforce the staff's pre-season training and to re-validate their skills. You want to be sure that all of your YMCA's climbing and challenge elements are safe for children and that your staff is at their best. Here are some tips you can follow:

Remind staff that the child's safety is in their hands. Staff should avoid the urge to rush the program and should never skip any steps in their safety systems (knot checks, belay commands, equipment checks pre-climb...)
When campers are belaying, have a qualified counselor or staff member provide the back-up belay and hold the rope. At a minimum, ensure that any belaying campers and back-up belaying campers maintain a positive brake position at all times to reduce the chance of a fall or uncontrolled drop.
Double-back all harnesses (make sure they are "closed") and tie additional safety knots on all ropes. Make sure a senior person is designated on your course to check all knots, harnesses, and other equipment prior to the climb (5-point check).
Prevent trip/fall injuries by eliminating "Dead Turtles" (climbing helmets flipped over) in areas where people walk or stand and by designating at least 1 non-belaying staff to monitor behavior so that campers are not running around the climbing site.
Regularly reinforce campers' climbing skills (belay skills, lowering skills, knots and equipment skills) and commands - "On Belay", "Climbing", etc.
Require campers and counselors to wear closed-toed shoes and helmet when they participate in any high challenge course program.
Practice good supervision, and make sure everyone is aware of his or her surroundings.
Conduct weekly in-service training to strengthen the skills, especially for the newest staff that are working on your course and document frequent skills evaluations for all staff.

If you have additional questions about your climbing elements, equipment, or procedures please call us at 1-800-463-8546.

Archery Range Safety

Admin — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 18:08:00 GMT

With camp fast approaching you are gearing up your program areas and cleaning them up from winter. The archery range is one of the many areas that you will be preparing. So much of the focus on archery safety is on clear commands and orderly progression by the shooters to ensure the safety of all those on the range. Whistles and voice commands are vital to the safety of the shooters.

Prior to the start of camp, look at the layout and condition of the range. In the last 10 years a YMCA insured by the Redwoods Group has not experienced an archery program related injury. Children are more likely to be injured from a trip or a fall on the range than by being hit by an arrow while down range or on the firing line.

The first step to safety prior to the start of camp is examining your range and the layout of the range. Stumps, roots, rocks represent a danger on the range and should be removed prior to camp so the range is clear and level. When excitedly going towards a target or returning with arrows, objects a child could trip over pose a great risk. If your current range has natural hazards that cannot be removed consider moving the location of the range.

Most camp archery ranges are set-up with the targets ten yards from the firing line. In that case your range should be restricted at least ten yards along the sides to reduce the chance of a deflected arrow or poor shot striking a person. At no time should anyone be permitted to stand along the sides of the range past the firing line. To the rear of the targets the area should be blocked off through natural or artificial barriers or relatively impassible to 150 yards. Many camp bows can shoot that distance, thus activities should not occur in those areas. The area to the rear of the range should be marked within that distance with, Danger Archery Range Do Not Enter.

Finally, anytime the range is closed the bows and arrows should not be left out where they can be used.

Background Checks at Camp

Stephen Dauchert — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 13:56:00 GMT

As the summer approaches and you prepare for counselors to arrive make sure you have completed a background check on all staff. There are many different types of background checks available: Criminal, Credit, Medical, Military, Sexual, and Worker's Compensation checks are just a few. In this post we will discuss the most important checks: the Criminal Background Check and the Sexual Offender Registration Check.

The American Camping Association (ACA) has set a requirement for all ACA Accredited camps to annually check the National Sex Offender Public Registry for all employees. Additionally, accredited camps must complete criminal background checks, verify previous employers, verify two references, and hold a personal interview for all new employees.

You may search the National Sex Offender Public Registry for free here: http://www.nsopr.gov/

Criminal Background checks may be obtained through private vendors, such as IntelliCorp (http://www.intellicorp.net/), or state agencies, such as 123NC.com (http://www.123nc.com/). Both will charge a fee.

There are many additional questions you need to ask yourself before doing a background check:

In what state do your employees live (if they are students do they have 2 addresses)? You may need to run background checks on their home state and the state where they go to school.
Are your staff under 18 years old? Most states will seal the records for staff under 18 years old. Also, the ACA does not require you to run criminal background checks on employees under 18.
Do you hire international staff? Most counselor placement agencies will supply background information for the international staff that you hire. Make sure the agency gives you this information and you receive a copy written in English.
How many employees do you have? If you have a large camp or multiple camps this could be a costly endeavor. Some companies will give discounts to non-profit organizations; ask if they do.
Do you need an annual criminal check? Best practice is to run a criminal background check every year on every employee. This is often not an option for most camps. The next best option would be to run checks ever 2-3 years. Again ACA only requires you do this for new hires. However, employees may get in trouble after you have hired them. Especially if they are seasonal employees you will not know about it. You do need to run annual checks of the Sexual Offender Registration, which is free of charge.
What do you do with the results? Coordinate with your HR department to create a camp policy. Typically there will be 3 levels of crimes: A) traffic and other small misdemeanors - nothing to worry about and probably will not show up on background checks, B) DUI, drug possession, or larger misdemeanors - These may or may not warrant an automatic no-hire. If you hire the person as the bus driver and a DUI turn up then there is a problem; if the person was hired as a counselor and will not drive then you can hire the person (and consider adding limitations), and C) felony or sex crimes - if you have any employees that have been charged with murder, rape, etc. this should be an automatic no-hire every time. The same should go for registered sex offenders, no matter what level the offense was.

Hazardous Materials & MSDS

Stephen Dauchert — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 18:22:00 GMT

At camp you can find many hazardous materials. These chemicals can threaten the health and safety of campers, counselors, and staff. All chemicals should be properly stored and maintained. Here are some areas where you may find hazardous materials at your camp:

Pool Chemicals - Chlorine, Hydrochloric Acid, Sodium Bisulfate
Kitchen Chemicals - Oven Cleaner, Degreaser, Dishwashing Detergent
Cleaning Agents - Bleach, Ammonia, Laundry Detergent, Spray Cleaner
Pesticides - Grass Fertilizer, Rat Poison, Insecticide, Weed Killer
Vehicle Supplies - Fuel, Antifreeze, Transmission Fluid
Miscellaneous - Paint, Paint Thinner, Kerosene, Algae Killer

All chemicals should be handled appropriately with the proper protective equipment (gloves, mask, respirator, etc.) You may contact your local fire department or police station to find out what the protocols are for handling certain materials. You may also read the Material Safety Data Sheet for the chemical.

Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) are documents containing information about a specific chemical or substance. The sheet will have the chemical's name, property, how it reacts, safe handling procedures, and first aid measures.

The Occupational Safety & Health Administration (OSHA) requires all business in the United States to keep MSDS records for all hazardous substances used and stored at your facility. A complete list of all MSDS documents should be kept in a central location (such as the camp office) and in the location where the chemicals are stored. They should be kept in a central location because you may have an emergency where the Fire Department or other responding agency will need to see what chemicals are stored on site. Additionally they should be kept with the chemicals in case a staff member is exposed it will give them immediate access to know what the chemical was and how to treat the injury.

The supplier of the chemical is required to give you copies of the MSDS sheets with the chemical. If you do not have the sheets you may request them from the supplier or print them from the internet. Here are a few website to use: www.ilpi.com/msds/; http://www.msds.com/; hazards.com/msds.

Social Networks & Camp

Stephen Dauchert — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 20:46:00 GMT

Today there are almost too many social networks to keep track of: Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter are the largest. Last month Facebook reached over 175 million users.

These networks are available for anyone to join and can lead to problems at your camp. The Today Show recently posted an article about "Social Netiquette" (http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/29616648/). It discusses the responsibilities that come along with having an online account.

You need to be aware of your staff's network pages. For example, your head counselor/unit leader may be the best counselor at camp but has a completely different social life away from camp. If campers go home and see pictures of their favorite counselor drinking beer (or doing worse things) this may give your camp a bad reputation.

If you have not already done so you may want to create a camp policy for social networks. This policy could include points such as:

do not upload pictures of campers on your network page,
do not be "friends" or "followers" of campers,
do not post inappropriate pictures of yourself,
do not post inappropriate updates about yourself.

This will help to prevent possible cases of abuse. If you can limit the outside contact staff has with campers then you will lower your risk of abuse after camp has ended.

Some of your counselors will argue that they can set the privacy to "limited profile". This is possible; however, they need to realize how widespread and accessible the internet actually is. You should Google your camp's name every so often to be sure you are portrayed appropriately on the internet.

You may be tempted to remove your camp from the social networking scene altogether and have counselors remove all their information relating to camp. This is probably a bad idea. Social networks can be harmful but can also be beneficial. The best marketing tool is word of mouth. What better way to market than to have counselors send messages about camp to their friends, or tweet about how fun camp was last summer?

Create an official camp group on Facebook. Ask counselors, campers, alumni, or anyone to join the group and discuss just how great your camp is! You can also create an official camp twitter. Ask counselors, campers, or anyone to be your follower and let them know daily the great stuff going on at camp!

When used carefully and properly social networks can be a great advantage for your camp.

YouTube: How is your camp represented?

Admin — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:45:00 GMT

Have you entered your camps name on YouTube lately? A search of YMCA camps on www.youtube.com identifies a number of great camp videos that show a wonderful environment. However, there may be videos on there that would never be part of your promotional materials. Worm Fighting, suggestive dance videos, WWE style events and just plain staff stupidity are all easily found when a YMCA camp's name is in the video title or subject.

Managing your profile on YouTube is an important part of being a camp director. As we all know, you are marketing to moms. If a mother decides to search YouTube to learn about your camp, are you going to like what she sees?

There are some very easy steps you can take to make sure the image of your camp on YouTube is the right one.

First, create your own YouTube channel. This is easy to do and free. Then upload your camp's promotional videos, slideshows, etc. This will give campers, parents, and staff an official place to see your camp's videos. You can add a link to your YouTube channel on your camp's website. This will help direct all traffic to the official videos that you want people to see instead of having them search.
Visit the videos you develop frequently and have your staff rate the ones you want people to see as the highest level. The search engine allows you to sort by view count, rating, relevance or date added. Make sure the ones you want people to see are the first ones that come up by managing those search categories.
Have a policy with your staff that no personal videos taken at camp can be posted on the web. Especially ones with children in them are to be avoided. Let staff know that if videos are found they will be asked to be removed or the staff maybe subject to termination.
Do not allow campers to have cell phones or video cameras with them. Bullying or other inappropriate behavior could easily be filmed and posted without your knowledge.

While you might not be able to remove inappropriate posts, don't allow your camps image and reputation to be managed by others. Use the tool that is YouTube as an additional low cost way to show the world your unique environment. If your peers in the camping movement searched on your camp, are you going to be embarrassed by what they find?

Sexting at Camp: Are you at risk?

Admin — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:17:00 GMT

Cell phones, the internet and digital cameras have changed the way camps have to operate. The youth of today are keeping you on your toes with ever-changing ways technology can be used. As you prepare for camp you should be asking whether sexting is something your camp is ready for.

Sexting is the sending receiving or forwarding of nude or sexual photos via your cell phone. Every summer, thousands of camp relationships start and end shortly after school starts. Now what is the likelihood of one of the teens will use the cell phone they brought to camp to sext? According to Newsweek magazine teens in Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Indiana, Michigan, New Jersey, New York Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin have been charged with distribution and possession of child pornography stemming from sexting. Now imagine the local police at your camp investigating child pornography claims from sexting that took place in your cabins and at your camp. Definitely not the publicity you desire for your operations.

A recent survey by the National Campaign to Support Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, found roughly 20 percent of teens admit to participating in "sexting." An even greater number, 48% of teens, admit to sending sexually suggestive messages. Teens feel more comfortable sending the information over a phone than they would in person. The full survey is found here nationwide survey (pdf) and provides valuable statistics for you and your camp leadership.

Camp leadership is about planning and preparing for what you may encounter this summer. To be ready you must consider what your teens might be involved in. They may not understand the lasting effect of a picture, but it could travel the world within in a day and land them in jail.

As a camp, take a look at the following measures that will enable you to better manage the behavior of teens in your care.

Communicate proactively to parents and teens that cell phones are not permitted to be left with campers. Let them know any cell phones will be confiscated and maintained with the director until the end of the session. Texting and communicating with friends off-site only serves to distract from the cabin community.
Train your staff to have the cabin conversation regarding cell phones at the start of your sessions. By staff having it up front they will be less likely to pull out the phone and use it for fear of getting caught.
Make sure staff models the right behavior. Have a designated area for phone use and let them know cell phones are off-limits for staff in the cabins. Staff should also know that videos filmed of the kids on their phones or other devices are not permitted.
Cabin time with teens: You can use these times to talk with campers about responsible use of cell phones and the internet. Teens will be more receptive to your staff versus parents or teachers because of the proximity in age. Teens are more likely to listen to staff who have grown up with the same exposures they face.

Sexting is the newest trend with our communication technology. As a camp leader you always have to be prepared to face new threats. You have the opportunity this summer to lead by example and plan for this particular threat or be caught off guard. By preparing your staff, parents and campers will enjoy their camp time and the increased sexual pressures on teens will be kept at bay.

Helicopter Parents

Stephen Dauchert — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 21:13:00 GMT

"Helicopter Parent" is a new term you may have heard before. It is used to define a parent who pays extremely close attention to their child and often makes decisions for the child. At camp you will see many helicopter parents drop of their kids. However, today's article will take a look at the parents of your counselors. (You may see another post closer to the summer about helicopter parents of campers).

Around this time you probably have most of your staff hired. As you begin to receive new applications or send rejection letters you will surely run into some helicopter parents. Your first response is the most important when these parents call.

The parent is calling because they want their child to be happy and have the best job. What parents don't realize is that it teaches their children that they will never have to face responsibility. It is important for the counselors to take action. If they can't make a phone call to you how do you expect them to take care of a child this summer.

Tips for grounding helicopter parents

Always try to deal directly with the counselor. Say, "This issue really concerns your son/daughter. Is he/she available to speak with now or can he/she call me later?"
When this does not suffice the parent is set on speaking with you. Have details prepared and listen to everything the parent says. Let them express all their issues.
Find out all of the parents concerns. Write them down and address each issue with the parents and the counselor.
If you rejected the counselor supply detailed reasons why.
If you know you will not rehire a counselor next summer tell that to the counselor before they leave for the summer.
Remeber, the parents have good intentions for their child, but don't always understand the harm they are creating. Be patient and respectful.

New 2009 Redwoods Trainings

Stephen Dauchert — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 21:32:00 GMT

We have put together some new trainings here at Redwoods. These trainings have been recently presented at various camping conferences during 2009.

If you would like a Power Point version of these trainings to use for your camp please use the Contact Button above.

Camp Aquatic Safety - http://blogs.redwoodsgroup.com/blogs/camping/Camp_Aquatic_Safety.pdf

Camp Bullying Prevention - http://blogs.redwoodsgroup.com/blogs/camping/Camp_Bullying_Prevention.pdf

Managing Risk at Camp - http://blogs.redwoodsgroup.com/blogs/camping/Managing_Risk_at_Camp.pdf