Camp Life Continues After Summer
What happens at Camp Tekoa when summer has come and gone? At Camp Tekoa, the “off-season” doesn’t exist. We continue throughout the year by giving people the opportunities to host special events and retreats, as well as host several year-round programs.
Here’s what happens after our summer programs end.
1. Special Events and Retreats
Aside from summer camp, retreats and special events make up the bread and butter of the off-season for camps. By offering opportunities for corporate teams to come together outside of their comfort zones and grow together in new ways.
Some of the benefits of retreats include:
- Encourage Unity in Teams - Especially in the corporate world, it is important to build around a unifying theme. Often this is a set of core values and a mission statement. Retreats can allow each person on the team to feel important as an individual and as a team member. By reinforcing this attention away from the pressures of a normal environment, retreats can offer opportunities to build on that mission.
- Reduce Stress - Retreats are a good way to provide time to step away from the pressures of everyday life. By giving opportunities to experience a change of pace and fresh air, groups can recuperate and breathe before getting back to reality.
- Personal and Professional Development - Let's face it, sometimes it is hard to build up those around you when everyone is in the thick of it. But by taking time to get away, people can focus inward and learn more about themselves.
Some camps allow for faith-based organizations such as churches, mosques, and other groups to utilize camp facilities for special events and retreats. This gives organizations freedom to move around and grow as a community while coming together for religious services on-site as well.
For Camp Tekoa, retreats are typically weekend-long events but can also be as short as a single day. These events can cover anything from team building, planning exercises, or skill acquisition. By escaping the day-to-day, it is easier to focus on the tasks and hand without the distractions of everyday life.
2. Time Off
The offseason brings some freedom for the year-round staff to take some time off from the go-go-go of summer camp season. Most people do not realize all that goes on behind the scenes of a summer camp and the stress that goes along with it.
Staff having time to take a vacation and spend extra time with family can bring rejuvenation and focus when they get back on site. This is a must when preparing for the upcoming season.
3. Planning and Marketing
Throughout the off-season, year-round camp staffers are typically busy preparing for the upcoming summer season. It takes a ton of work to put on summer camp, from safety meetings to marketing to potential campers. Many camps will put on marketing events and outreach programs to introduce their facilities and camps to a broader audience.
Because many summer camps utilize seasonal staff, recruiting and hiring is a year-round process and is an important part of the off-season. Also, the offseason is a time for planning new programs and replacing equipment that may have been damaged during the main camp season.
Year-Round “Camp” Programs
In some cases, camps will offer year-round programming for local youth. Camp Tekoa has three of these year-round programs that are massively impactful to the local community.
We offer afterschool and homeschool programming for our local community that includes programs such as outdoor education, STEM, crafting, and good old-fashioned camp fun.
Offering programs such as this in the offseason allow camps to make good on their commitment to giving back to their local community. Programs like these can help with enrichment and socializing your child in a setting outside of their typical home/school cycle.
Some camps will host mini - “Break Camps” that essentially bring summer camp to breaks throughout the school year. Camp Tekoa currently offers both a fall and spring break camp that runs from 8:00 am - 6:00 pm and is themed!
While not always quite year-round programming, family camps are great ways for campers to share their summer camp experiences with their family. At camp Tekoa, we offer the best of Tekoa in a 4-day, 3-night experience where families can explore camp life without the regimented structure of summer camp programs.
Camps such as Camp Tekoa are not limited to just a single season. Camps are buzzing with activity year-round. Camp Tekoa is not only just a wonderful summer camp but also a perfect venue for opportunities for the rest of the year. For more information about Camp Tekoa, contact us today!