The camp season at GVR is soon concluding, so NewsNuggets asked Becca Brown, programming director at the camp, for her views on the way the camp went through the eyes of a staff member. Here are her words.
With summer camps coming to an end, many Glacier View Ranch staff members are looking back at how their summer began. For a few, that means looking back to the beginning of the summer camp season. Young adults from all over the country applied for positions at a variety of camps and some ended up right here at Glacier View Ranch.
When a new staff member first shows up at GVR, they experience a lot of mixed feelings. While they may be scared and nervous or excited and completely comfortable, they still show up to do a really tough job.
The staff come early in the summer for staff training week where they are able to get to know one another. Even though the week is considered a training week, they begin by participating in multiple icebreakers and team-building exercises, all of which really break down the barriers that some may have brought with them, helping to create the feeling of home, the camp theme this summer.
Thrown into the mix is the actual training. It is a very vigorous week containing new friendships and new job titles. When asked what the best part of training week was, Hannah Kern, GVR’s camp nurse intern, replied, “It’s fun to get together and see what type of culture we will all create.”
Having so many people come from so many different places, the camp’s culture changes each year as each staff member brings something different to the table. Staff training week is when the many cultures and personalities get mixed into their own special culture.
That week is the most fundamental week that happens at camp. When the campers come it is also an amazing experience, but truthfully training week and the culture created then has the ability to make or break the rest of the summer.
GVR was blessed this year with an amazing staff and those staff individually took it upon themselves to make the camp the best it could be. Just by walking into the camp, anyone would be able to tell that Glacier View Ranch has had and will continue to have an amazing summer with some of the best staff the camp has seen in a long time. The staff members left knowing they reached kids for eternity and made life-long friends working at GVR.
Thirteen-year-old Sienna was asked what she liked best and what she didn’t like. In answer to the first question, Sienna said, “I loved meeting all the people here.” For the second, she complained, “Sometimes, the counselors team up at Rec and beat us at whatever game we are playing.” Yet in her description of relationships with the staff, she said, “I think sometimes we find staff that share similar personal lives to us and it is kind of cool to experience that.”
