I love coming here and chatting with other staff and ACA members. I have learned a lot about camps and received some great ideas here. I even just enjoy reading some of the stories.
I know I have been bad about being here a lot lately but was really sad to come back and not see any posts in a month. :(
I wish ACA would push the forums to its members. I think there is a lot of benefit to having these and its a resource that is being underutilized.
Are there any other groups like this one? I would love to find a group of like minded camp staff to get ideas from and just chat.
It's the reality of living in a Facebook world (along with Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and others). I've seen a number of discussion boards take a nose dive. And the boards that I frequent have not really found a home on Facebook.
There use to be a great Facebook group but sadly the owner shut it down. :(
I do think the main issue here is that ACA no longer even links to the message boards from their site. If you don't know about it you will never find it.
Luke-- its a part of promotion-- alot of people not knowing about it and many of the old timers not working at camp anymore so they dont sign in anymore. -- Look at the Fourm Stats-- this message board had a max of 241 people online at once back on 8/23/07( right after everyone got back from camp in 2007), now these boards are considered to be "busy" if there are 5 people on these boards at once.
Also over the past 10+ years since I been on these boards, there has been a steady decrease in the amount of people signing in and the amount of new members.
I used to be in charge of the camp buddies program and when I first started back in 2005 with the camp buddies program we had 40+ people signed up for it, and the last year that the program really ran, back in 2009 we had less then 5 people in it, and I stopped even asking because of a lack of interest.
Maybe we can have the international staffing agencies promote these boards as well as the ACA, and get it going again. These boards are a great resource.
Facebook may have played a part as well, and I do know another message board I belong to-- it is not a camp related one, but a board related to one of my hobbies , have the same problem, it is not really used as much in certain sections.
I do love the boards and am saddened by the lack of people on here. I joined in 07 so in the peak of its use, and could log off for an hour and come back to A LOT of posts!
For quite a few years after I joined I would tell people at the camps I worked at or post on the facebook page for the staff that summer about them but I didn't really get any response of wanting to join in. That coupled with the dwindling of posts on here made it not as much to tell people about. Yeah, this is a great forum but if they logged on and didn't see anything new ever...
I think bringing in new people is key since the oldies had kind of already discussed many things so there wasn't a need to ask the question again or anything. It's sad, but I never had much luck! I don't know how many counselors are ACA members, so to them it's just an association that comes to their camp every 3 years to accredit and that their directors might mention going on visits to other camps too. A lot of the people from way back became directors and still posted but are probably now further removed from the counselor thing.
If anyone has any ideas I might be able to help out in getting the boards going again. I suppose even just posting new topics or questions (even if I remember talking about them before.) we could post new threads or go back and find the ones from before if we want to be able to link back to all of the other fantastic ideas!
I was thinking maybe we make a Facebook group for people to post questions and get ideas. What dose everyone think about that? Anyone interested in working with me to help grow it?
I really think a place where staff can ask questions and get ideas is very important to help grow camping. I would love to help make a place like that.
As for this group I think the real issue is that the ACA hides the boards. I wish they would promote it to their members.
It has been interesting looking at the change in people who have come through the message boards. We used to have quite a few heated discussions and there would be many people who would love to stir up trouble.
I've been to quite a few ACA conferences and I know quite a few ACA people, and they don't even talk about the message boards. I don't think it's on the radar as being something "important." It's sad but true.
- Teenster
Teenster not only do they not talk about it they removed links to it on the ACA site. So unless you know where to look you wont find it. :(
There are other forums through ACA, not just the counselor board. I've looked at those and even posted some, but those were never as popular as this one.
- Teenster
Yeah I have been active on all of them. Really loved this group and wonder if we need to make a Facebook group like this.
It would be cool, though one nice thing for many is the anonymity of the boards. Facebook is so linked to everything in real life, though I suppose that's not as much of a concern now as society has gotten more and more into technology. There is barely any internet stranger danger anymore, but it's still nice to have the separate entities for other reasons (I promise, I'm not someone who creeps and uses anonymity for criminal purposes) like just not having to worry about asking silly questions or having it get back to people or show up on friend's news feeds, etc.
However, if someone started one I would let people know about it on my camp's staff facebook page and post on the group.
Yeah, I was around, just started actually, in 2007 at the peak of the boards, just after the spammers were stopped and everyone posted more than once a day or you came back to 200 posts to read. eek!
I went ahead and made a group. https://www.facebook.com/groups/campcounsellors/
If anyone wants to help admin it I would love some help. Also would love some help getting the word out there about the group.
I just joined in, but I don't at the moment have any extra time to do any admin things. I'll do my best to contribute and pass the group along though!
I will join the group next time I am on facebook and try to promote it to as many camp people I know
Yeah, I completely agree, these boards need more attention, I love reading about everybody's experiences and sharing my own as well. I just thought I would throw this out there: I came across this accidentally when I was searching for camp jobs. They really need to make these boards easily accessible. That would definitely help maybe a link or something to point people in this direction from the home page.
Maybe we should start a facebook page? I would totally do that.
It's been awhile since I've been on the boards but it's because I haven't done overnight camp in a few years but now I'm going back!
Luke-- Just to let you know I submitted my request today for the facebook group
Hey everyone I started a Facebook group that is just like this forums but on Facebook. Come help make it great! https://www.facebook.com/groups/campcounsellors