Jenness Journal

Unpublished Blog

2010-04-10T21:42:00.000-07:00

Random thoughts from my "Unpublished Blog"

hitting

not doing anything

"man of family"

demanding

being a brat

Need to always be doing something

Want to be a better dad

show no affection towards one another

always lecturing or explaining things, never a personal conversation

nearly killing us, overall recklessness

arragonace in all things

Restlessness

More to this world

Peace, rest, at ease, CONTENT

Sooooo............................

2010-03-27T14:04:00.000-07:00

Bored... waiting for work... looked at my blog because my girl got one... http://www.converse-n-scrubs.blogspot.com/.... realized that I hadn't post in forever... so... there...

Maybe I'll post a real post sometime soon. Maybe.

Week 14

2008-08-23T20:31:00.000-07:00

Well, the summer is over and that means I head home. That also means that this will be my last blog for the summer. With this being my last post I've decided to go over some issues that have confronted me this summer, namely as to I think I could make it as full time staff and the fact that this summer, though it was a wonderful summer, seemed to bother me the most of all my 3 years at Jenness.

The past couple of weeks (since Fuge got over) have really made me think about being able to make it as full time staff. Summer staff are leaving, the consistency of Fuge is gone, and things just seem like they have done 360. Rather than having a huge group of campers, we usually have smaller groups, most of which come in over the weekends. I worked PM shift last week, alone, and realized that though I did enjoy the work and I was able to keep myself busy, it was definitely different from when I worked PM during Fuge. The camp was much more quiet, there wasn't the constant stream of people coming through the office, and there weren't the normal tasks that needed to be done on PM shift. This posed somewhat a problem for me, seeing that I really like having a steady stream of work, and if at all possible, have this work on some sort of list that I can look at and mark off. The fact that the other summer staff are leaving also made me think about working full time at a camp. It's completely different when you are living with a bunch of other guys and have people to talk with and spend your free time with, but now that the summer is over that just isn't possible. Rather, I come home to an empty house, work alone, and spend my off time more alone. Being alone has never posed a problem for me, but I did notice the difference. I think though, that things would be different if I were full time staff. Rather than going home to an empty house, with very few of my possessions, I would be able to go home to MY house and have many of the luxuries that I enjoy at home, such as having access to my book collection, which I can not bring with me as summer staff.

Some things that were really brought to my attention this year were some character flaws of mine, which caused this summer to be the most aggravating and frustrating summer of my entire time at Jenness Park. The first and foremost of these flaws is my lack of patience with what I deam to be incompetence or slacking off. With most of the summer staff being fresh out of high school and seemingly rather immature, I realized that I lacked patience with many of them. This would lead me to become frustrated with the other summer staffers, which in turn led to me either mistreating them or being overly cynical to them, both of which was wrong on my part. I had actually never realized this flaw within myself before this summer, mostly because I am never in such a position at school or at home. When I worked at Jenness this summer, I was the experenced summer staffer and should have acted as an example to the younger staff, which I will try to work on next summer.

Weeks 12 & 13

2008-08-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

What seems to be a recurring theme this year has been scheduling, and it reared its ugly head many times this week. First off, we had four separate camps in this week, ranging in number from 30 to 120. Yesterday we had three of the four camps wanting to use our amplitheater/firepits, with only one of them having actually requested it. What shocked and irritated me the most was the fact that the firepit was scheduled on the group's program schedule, yet no one at Jenness Park cared to actually look at the schedule and realize that they conflicted (at least until I noticed it). This ended with me talking it over with Barry and finally having to tell one group they couldn't have the fire, telling another group that they had to use a smaller pit, and letting the group who had requested it have it.

Another problem was meal times. One group in particular had on their schedule that they were going to eat dinner at 6pm, whereas our schedule said 5:30pm. Again, no one noticed this until 5:30 roiled around and there was no group to be found.

One final example of this poor planning and scheduling was in regards to the adventure recreation we had today. We had a full day of running our zipline, swing, climbing wall, and leap of faith; with a admittedly lower staff count. Unfortunately, on our rec schedule numerous people were double booked, booked on days off, or not even listed. After going through a few revisions, we thought we had it down, until half and hour before the rec was to start, when we had to change around most of the schedule.

It just seems to me that things like this shouldn't happen. Simple things such as actually looking at a groups schedule and calling them about any conflicts would solve many of the problems. Even if a group doesn't give us a schedule or there are conflicts, the issues should be dealt with before the groups arrive. It just seems like a little effort to communicate with the groups would solve all our problems. As far as the rec goes, it should have been dealt with days before. We knew what rec the groups wanted, we knew the schedules of the staffers, and we should have been able to create an affective schedule.

Weeks 10 & 11

2008-08-01T16:42:00.000-07:00

A major event that happened this past week, and is still going on right now is Spirit West Coast. Starting last year Jenness Park has had a booth in the SWC exhibitor hall, which has usually been run by a few full time staff and a few summer staff. Barry usually gives priority to returning summer staff, and had offered to let me go last year, but I had turned him down. This year though Barry told me I needed to go because it would show me another element of camp ministry and get me out of my comfort zone.

So far it's been pretty slow working the JP booth and really hasn't challenged me at all. We mostly meet and greet people as they pass by our booth, giving them information on the camp and what we have available. I did notice that doing this came easier to me than it did to the other two summer staff, both of which work in the kitchen. This seems to be a result of my working in guest services, where I get to learn about what's going on and how the camp works. In general though, this seems to be a pretty boring part of what needs to be done at Jenness Park. I realize the importance of getting our name out there and letting people know about the ministry we are doing, but there has to be easier and more efficient ways to do so.

After crunching some numbers, I believe that attending SWC is costing the camp way too much. Food for the trip cost over $400, gas probably costs close to $200, salaries for the summer staff comes close to $600 (plus whatever the full timers make), plus whatever the costs are to rent the booth and campsite, plus the costs of overtime that the camp has to pay staffers back at camp to cover the missing positions (namely the two PM kitchen staffers we brought with us), plus whatever misc. costs for promo materials. That just seems like a lot of money on something that isn't all that fruitful. Rather, it would seem to be more cost effective to focus more heavily and devote more resources to larger events; events that are more focused on what we do and focusing our resources on the demographics that are most heavily affected by the camp.

Overall though, the entire experience was a lot better than I thought it would be. It was a less stressful job than I had originally thought it would be, and I do realize the importance of getting our name out there.

Week 8 & 9

2008-07-17T18:56:00.000-07:00

These past two weeks have been what I see as "normal" weeks of Centrifuge. We've had around 500 people here every week and camp tends to take on the routine that comes with constant, large camps. Camp actually seems to run smoother when we have camps like this because each day is just like the previous. We've actually been getting done with our turnover days faster than any other year, mostly due to the fact that we have so many more staffers this year.

The biggest thing of note these past weeks is the fact that the entire guys house had to move out of our house into another. We were living in a huge, three story, house that slept close to 30 people, and were moved to a small, 2 story house that barely sleeps the 8 guys that we have. The reason that we had to move was the fact that the Centrifuge overbooked the camp, and the camp didn't have enough cabins for all the students. I talked with Barry about the whole situation, and he explained to me some of the circumstances that caused this to happen, but in the end it still seemed like poor planning on Centrifuge's part.

One of other thing of note is that I had an evaluation. Barry and I met and went over many of my pros and cons. Barry said that I needed to work on being less cynical, which I completely agree with him on. It's something I actually noticed a couple of weeks ago, and I believe it stems from me becoming frustrated by some of the younger summer staff. This year we have many more summer staff that are younger (17 & 18 years old), and it really shows. They are less mature, with many of them having just graduated from high school, which leads to me becoming frustrated with them a lot more, which leads to me being sarcastic or cynical towards them, because I see myself as more knowledgeable and "mature" than they are. Another area of improvement that Barry pointed out to me was that I give orders and boss people around when I do not necessarily have the authority to do so. This I think stems from the same problem as my sarcasm, in that I know what has to be done and how to do it, so I order the younger, less experienced staffers around. Barry is completely correct though, in that even though I may know more than they do, I am not their superior. As such I am going to try to not give as many orders, unless it is clear that I do have to authority and know what to do. I'm am going to try to follow the chain of command and talk with the full time staff about what needs to be done, rather than just plain giving orders to the other summer staff.

Week 7

2008-07-07T09:59:00.000-07:00

This week was the first week of our larger, summer-long camp, Centrifuge. Luckily for us though there were only about 120 kids in camp, which made it a breeze compared to district camp last week. As such I really didn't have anything to write on so I asked Barry for a topic. As such, Barry gave me a copy of In Site magazine, which is the Christian Camp and Conference Associations magazine. I read a couple of articles giving what people felt were the pros and cons of allowing summer staff to date while at working at camp.

When it comes down to it, I felt that both articles were based almost solely on opinion and both had good points. The article arguing for not allowing dating stated that the staffers were there to serve and work, not date. It also said that having couples at the camp would draw focus away from the work and that Satan wanted to ruin the camps mission and that these couples were a perfect opportunity for this. The article arguing for allowing people to date stated that it as a natural thing and if known about could be watched over and fostered. The author stated that with the knowledge of who was dating, he was able to talk to them about it and to help is develop healthily. Both articles used the 1 Corinthians 7 verses about ministry being more effective when you are single, but I didn't think that either really relied on it.

I think that when it really comes down to the line, it is all really a matter of opinion. Here at Jenness Park we have a strict no dating policy, which I agree with full heartily. Not allowing dating helps us to keep our focus on our work here and on God. I firmly believe that many ministries, including that of the summer staffers here at camp, is better served when you are single and are not attached to someone else. I already see people here at camp who "like each other" and are being distracted by it. For me though, I think that the greatest reason for not allowing dating is that it alienates people. Either the two who are dating go off by themselves and no longer have fellowship with the rest of the group (effectively alienating themselves from the rest of the summer staff), or those who are around these people feel left out because the couple and being exclusive to each other. I do understand the other side of the story, in that it is a natural thing, but at the same time, people tend to put on a persona here at camp, and you only see what they want you to see. The camp is a closed community, separate from the rest of the world, which makes it almost impossible to see how a person would react to situations outside of camp. How well can you really know a person is such an environment?

Week 6

2008-06-29T21:49:00.001-07:00

This week has probably been the most eventful week since Pastor's Wives and the wedding we had back at the beginning of the summer. The reason for this commotion is the fact that District Camp is here. District Camp consists of the local SBC associations coming together to hold their big yearly camp and it plays havoc on the camp.

First off the whole week consists of actually 4 different camps, 2 of which share the camp at any given time. We have a 1+2 grade camp, two 3-6 grade camp, plus a youth camp. Taking the lead role in the children's camp, and the biggest pain to the camp is Julia. Unfortunately, District Camp is perhaps one of the worst camps that I have had the displeasure of working with. The camp is much more demanding than other camps and they think they rule this camp, which is only made worse by the fact that many of our staff attend these churches that are here, with some staff working as "counselors," which seems like a conflict of interests and places a heavier burden on the camp.

The largest cause of problems this week though was the coming in of the 2nd group of 3-6 graders and the youth camp. The two groups together were only suppose to have somewhere around 250 campers, but come registration there were well over 400 campers. This took our staff here by surprise and we were forced to work overtime trying to accommodate campers. This included putting mattress pads on the ground for kids to sleep on, which we had to get in a rush, and moving the Centrifuge staff out of their housing into a different house.

What seemed to be the biggest problem was the lack of communication from the District Camp staff to ours. On numerous occasions the guest service staff (of which I am a member) requested counts of the number of campers the camp expected, with each time Julia telling us that she didn't have one. It seemed that their registration process was rather flawed and disorganized. What also bothered me was the complete lack of preparation of the District camp staff for the onslaught of late comers and people who didn't register. From my understanding, the people were only charged a $10 late fee, which really isn't much of a deterrent. I think that a larger fee, maybe $50 or even $100 would prove to be a better way to get people to register early (or even on time). The whole thing just seemed poorly planned.

One other thing of note this week was the guest service schedule. We had received a schedule for the month of June, but the advent of Fuge, Barry gave us all a new schedule, one which overlapped with the old schedule. There were some conflicts within the two schedules which were easily ramified, but it seemed that some things were poorly planned. People were given days off on days that they probably should not have been given off (such as turnover day). Also, there were some conflicts within the recreation schedule, with people being given rec work on their days off. Though I understand that schedules between the departments don't always match up or that their isn't always proper communication between the departments, it just seems that we should be able to figure stuff out in advance rather than finding it out last minute. Barry said that I might be making some of the rec schedules for Fuge, so we'll see.

Week 5

2008-06-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

Not much else to report on this week. Been working almost everyday, sometimes PM shift and sometimes normal shifts. Last year I really liked PM shifts, just due to the nature of the work I did, but this year they're just ok. It's nice to be able to sleep in, but it gets pretty lonely and boring when you have to work until midnight by yourself. Last year I almost always had one of the other two summer staff girls on PM shift with me, but this year there isn't anybody else for me to work with, which makes it much more boring and dull.

We did do our first real turnover (entire camp cleaning) though. It went well enough I suppose. David, our accommodations leader, made me the leader of one of the two teams, with the other team being led by Anthony, who is the only summer staff who has been here longer than myself. For it being the first turnover, things went rather smoothly, except for a few slowdowns caused by some summer staff taking too long to finish menial tasks. I first talked with David about this issue, at which point he told me to talk to them about it and to also give them some sort of deadline, such as 10 minutes to finish cleaning sinks and mirrors. Unfortunately, I was unable to institute such a plan, because the nature of our turnover changed and the teams split up. Later, while cleaning a different style of cabin, it took the same summer staffers twice as long to do their job as it did myself and another summer staffer, at which point David came over and gave them a time limit on the next cabin, a limit they did not meet, which I learned by listening to the radio. I thought that the advice that David gave me on how to manage my team was good in all aspects except one. The team was being slowed by a couple of team members who were not meeting expectations, to which David had me talk to them about their performance and set standards that were to be met. This forced the team members to meet an achievable mark, which, when they did not reach the mark, the team members were talked to about what was wrong with the situation. The only problem I had with this course of action was the fact that David did not address the problem in person/privately at first. Rather he told them that they had not met the mark over the radios, which anyone could have been listening to. Overall though it was an excellent time for me to see some real leadership in action and learn how to deal with similar situations.

Weeks 3 & 4

2008-06-13T10:29:00.000-07:00

It's been almost 2 weeks since my last blog entry, so we'll just call this one weeks 3 & 4. The reason behind this is that there hasn't really been any new developments here at camp. Things continue to chug along; more summer staff have arrived, more missionaries have arrived, and we've had numerous camps in (but none really over 100 people).

One things of note is something that my RA, Anthony, said. We were talking about getting so many summer staff in at such sporadic times (compared to previous years when they almost all arrived at Jenness around the same date) and we realized that there probably won't be as much summer staff wide "team building" as there normally is. That was when Anthony thought of the idea of trying to plan on having summer staff events, such as a movie, bowling, or even just a trip into town, on days that we get new summer staff in. This really did seem like a brilliant idea. In places like this, where you have many young people living together for extended times, away from almost everything they know and are familiar with, having people around you who are your friends or that you are at least familiar with can be the decisive factor on whether or not you make it. It all runs along the same concept as orientation at school or before mission trips and the likes.

I also finished the first book that Barry had me read, "Christian Camping Today." It was a rather short book that tried to cover almost all the areas of Christian camp ministry, yet in the end it seemed to really focus on the counselor aspect. This seemed rather odd to me, in that this book assumed that the camp provided the counselor, and not the groups coming in (which is how we do it here at Jenness). It did give me a better perspective on what the counselors have to deal with, but at the moment the information seems rather irrelevant. The book also had 7 "Theorems" on camping, a couple of which seemed to be wrong to me. The first theorem states, " Camping is the church's most promising means for winning children and youth to Christ and guiding them toward spiritual growth." Though I do agree that camp ministry is a very good form of witnessing to children, to make a statement that is so all encompassing seems foolish. This reminded me of a time this past semester that I was talking with some other Christian Study majors and I had asked about a class they had taken and as to whether or not they had touched on camp ministry, to which they responded that they had touched on it, in that it is a not so prominent form of ministry, with camping being replaced with big conferences. I have also felt that, unlike what the theorem states, camp ministry is not a very effective form of discipleship, with that responsibility resting with the churches that these children come from.

I did completely agree with 2 of the other theorems though. one of which stated that the lifestyle of the staff is the most powerful witness at camps, and the second being that it's not the ideas that the campers are exposed to, but what they take away. To me, lifestyle evangelism is the most powerful form of evangelism the the Christian church has, one which we do not use enough. At camps this is of the utmost importance. Many of these kids come from families that are not Christian, and this camp is the only place where they will have any significant contact with Christians. The second theorem that I wholly agreed with seems to hold especially true to me as a college student. I take many classes, but in the end it's impossible to remember everything that I've head. In the end it comes down to what I took away from the class; what sort of ideologies, thoughts, or how it changed my world view. These are the things that will influence the ways that people act and live their lives.

Though there is a lot more that I could talk about in regards to the book, this will be it for now. Barry now has me listening to a lecture that was done at the Christian Camping and Conference Association conference on team building, which, due to me having a couple of PM shifts this week, I hope to get done with this week, and I will hopefully have something to say about come next weeks blog.

Week 2

2008-05-31T18:11:00.000-07:00

Another week has passed and camp is starting to take on the "feel" of summer. We've gotten in more summer staff and we started summer staff training this week, with emphasis on team building activities. We've also started the Truth Project as a weekly bible study.

One rather large thing of note this week was an incident on Thursday. We had 2 groups of gold prospecting kids coming into camp and Barry was gone and the other full time guest service guy was unavailable. As such it was only really myself and a new summer staff girl on duty. All at once both groups arrived at camp. Unfortunately I was unaware of the fact that there were in fact two camps, rather than one, and had no idea where they were staying (and they had no idea either). In the end we had a large traffic jam as one group tried to get to their cabins, going one direction, and the other trying to get to their cabins going the other, all on a one lane road. Beyond having to deal with the traffic problem, many of the parents were becoming frustrated at our lack of knowledge, and the gas line to the kitchen broke, pushing back dinner almost an hour. In the end, we resolved the problems (with the help of some other full time staff) and the camps finally settled in. The following day, as the guest service staff, we had a meeting to address the problems that arose the previous day. We talked about the lack of communication between our staff and the camps, the lack of internal communication amoung our staff, and went over protocol, which included how and where to get the information that would be needed to deal with a problem if no full time staff were available to help us.

Overall it was an excellent example of the sort of extreme circumstance that can be encountered at camp and we (as a guest service staff) were able to learn a lot. I was glad that it happened with a smaller camp rather than with a larger camp such as Centrifuge, and thbough I was rather frustrated at the time, I was able to learn more about what I needed to do in simular circumstances.

Week 1

2008-05-23T18:37:00.000-07:00

For it being my first week at Jenness Park it has been rather hectic and sporadic. I worked in the kitchen for the better part of the CSBC Pastors Wives Retreat, which seemed a lot like overkill to me. There was so much extra work to do, for so few people. With there only being somewhere around 170 women at the camp, I think I worked more than I ever have (including a 13 hour day). I've also worked 2 additional days in the kitchen (one being an AM shift), had two days off in a row (which threw me off), and a couple of normal Guest Service days.
It's amazing how things never really changed around camp. Though people get older, change positions, and others come and go, the camp still feels the same and functions the same. My RA and I talk a lot at night, and we discuss the days happenings and it just really hit me that no matter how much people try to act like things have changed, they really haven't.
I really can't wait for more summer staff to get here (we only have 4 now) and for our main camps to start so that there will be more consistency in my hours, days, and in what I do.