Safe & Stoked: 6-to-1 or Bust!
When shopping around for kids’ recreation programs, one of the first questions that parents should, and often do, ask is, “What is your ratio of campers to counselors?” Considering that, in enrolling one’s child in any program outside of the home, a parent is quite literally turning over their most prized possession in the universe to a group of strangers, this is an extremely legitimate inquiry. To compound things, given the seemingly unpredictable
environment of a program on the beach, the thought of letting your little one loose to an understaffed organization a mere one hundred feet from the Pacific Ocean is unnerving to say the least.
Lucky for us, we leap far beyond the industry standard in the ratio department, and proudly answer the above question with an emphatic “6-to-1!”
While we’d be lying if we said it’s not gratifying to hear the relief in a concerned parent’s voice when we tell them those numbers, that ratio is also the key to maintaining our success on a daily basis. For our purposes, success is being able to give a “YES” response to the following two self-check queries:
Are our campers safe?
Are our campers stoked?
Objectively, since our first day of camp in 2012, we’ve been in the business of keeping eighty plus kids per day safe on the beach, and here we are in 2017. Much to the help of our vital 6-to-1 ratio, the answer to the first question has been, "Yes" 100% of the time. If it wasn’t we wouldn’t still be here. That’s pretty much the end of that.
The second, more subjective, measure of our success deals with the degree to which our campers are pleased with the general goings-on at Champ Camp at any given point throughout the day. In other words, are we transmitting ample high fives & good fives such that they’re being received, felt, and internalized by every single kid in attendance that day? Admittedly, we’re not wizards, and of course a few campers out of the thousands of who have partied with us over the past five years weren’t fully exhilarated every moment they were with us-- it happens. However, you can bet your hiney that we give a maximal effort to meaningfully connect with each kid, and our glorious 6-to-1 ratio plays a big part in helping us achieve that.
So, next time you’re researching recreation programs for your kiddo, make sure you ask about ratios. And, in the likely chance that you come across a proportion that doesn’t sit well with you, feel free to share our contact info with that organization-- we’d be happy to guide them in the right direction :) .
PewPew,
-Trevor