Hey guys and gals,

I was wondering if any Girl Scout camp staff are working at two camps this summer. I have found that since many counsels have merged, counsels have two camps they have to run. They run half the summer at one camp, and then move to the other camp half way through.

I was just curious of the transition process this takes. Do you have to completely open and close the camps or do troops use the properties when summer camp isn't running? Do some staff only work for half the summer at one camp?

I am just curious, as I have been looking at some local GS camps for programming ideas.

- Teenster

I have heard of this and it always makes me ask why not just bus the kids to the other camp. A lot of the cost of camps is in the facilities. Why not sell one off and put the money into the other one...

I know in the case of my previous camp, they did not want to sell the properties. Both camps in the newly merged counsel were given to the GS, and GS spent a lot of time, money, resources, etc. to make the camps what they needed for GS. In addition, both properties were used during the school year for troop camping and that brought in some income.

Also, both camps ran successful overnight and daycamp programs. Bussing day camp campers for 2-3 hours each day didn't make sense. In many cases the two camps are located in opposite directions of each other. Besides the day camp issues, many parents would not want their child to have to either ride a bus for that long or the parent wouldn't bring their child 2-3 hours for camp.

Many GS camps have a lower income demographic, so families cannot afford to add extra cost of bussing to the regular cost of camp.

- Teenster

In my area this has not been done yet- what they did is basically shut down one of the merged council's camp and just had one open for the summer

Families may not be able to drive to the other location but buses are a lot cheaper than running two camps. Just rent or buy a few buses and drive everyone over the the camp would be my suggestion.

You could have one supper camp compared to two average camps.

A GS camp I worked at maintained two camps, one camp was the summer residential program camp that was fully staffed, full dining, and planned weekly program. The other camp was the "mental rental" camp. Units would rent the facilities but were responsible for bringing their own staff, preparing their own food service, etc.

This hasn't happened at the GS camp I've worked at in the past yet. I have heard of it happening at others throughout my area though. I've heard they are using the staff at one camp for one half the summer and the other camp for the other half. I've also heard about two camps running simultaneously and having the same camp director that goes back and forth. I'm not sure how this is going because I haven't actually seen it in practice, just heard things were happening in other councils throughout the state.

I have heard that some camps have closed or some may rent out a campsite during the summer to outside organizations.

It is similar to the Easter Seals camp where I was at last summer-- the Easter seals. They can not make it for the summer with their own camps so they rent their campsite to some organizations like the MDA and my organization, and they also run a separate day camp no matter what camp is at the site-- the day camp is run by Easter Seals, not the organization renting the site. When the camp is being rented, during the summer, the campsite provides the following: food service personnel, a nurse ( the organization renting also provides some medical staff as volunteers), lifeguards, maybe a few counselors (depending on the year and staffing of Easter Seals) and some program staff for some items like horses and other programs.