Wednesday Schedule Descriptions
8:30 – 10:00 a.m.
10:15 – 10:45 a.m.
Breakfast Roundtables
During this breakfast, we encourage you to sit with attendees who aren’t from your camp. Each table will have 1-3 discussion points or questions to kickstart a conversation among the table mates about topical camping issues.
Wellness at Camp Roundtable
Join representatives from Camp Warwa, and Southern Alberta Bible Camp as they discuss how they respond to wellness at camp. Facilitated by Bradon Pihowich.
Camp Warwa
Burnout has always been a difficult obstacle to overcome in summer camp communities. With long days that are jam-packed with activities, and nights that can be tough for some campers, counsellors can easily get overwhelmed and worn out within the first couple weeks of summer. Our team realized that in order to provide the best experience for campers AND staff, we needed to make more space for mental and physical wellbeing in our programming and in our philosophy. The Health and Wellness Coordinator, a new position developed in Spring 2022, is a member of the lead team who is not focused on daily camp logistics and scheduling but rather on how the community is feeling. Warwa’s focus on wellness also incited change to our programming. To balance out the long days, we felt it was important to find more time for counsellors and campers to practice self-care and have more meaningful rest time. Warwa hopes to move forward with wellness as a top priority in order to create a well-balanced, compassionate, and fun environment for staff and campers to grow.
SABC
Info coming.
ABOUT SIGNAL
Isabel “Signal” Wynn has been working at Camp Warwa since 2018 and took on the role of camp’s first Health and Wellness Coordinator in spring 2022. They are in their third year of a biopsychology degree at Campus Saint-Jean, University of Alberta’s French campus. Signal is thrilled to be guiding staff and campers alike on their journey to connect and care for themselves, the natural world, and the camp community in their new role at Warwa.
ABOUT TONIA
Bio coming soon!
Breakout Sessions
1:15 – 2:45 p.m.
Enhancing nature connection for campers and staff
(Crossview Room)
Virtual Session
In this fast paced, technological world, we find ourselves relying on our sight and hearing – seeing and listening to the world through our glowing windows. In this workshop, you’ll be introduced to a whole suite of activities that will help you and your campers use your sight, hearing, feeling, smell and taste in unique ways to connect more deeply to the world. From exploring the beauty of the very small to learning how to be a bird whisperer; from drawing sound to creating beautiful nature sculptures, you’ll discover the beauty and magic of time spent in nature.
Faith based session
(3:16 Chapel)
Session info coming soon!
Building a Complete Preventative Maintenance System
(Loft)
How do you set up a preventative maintenance system when you’re working on a limited budget? Learn how SABC changed how they approached preventative maintenance and created a system without breaking the bank!
ABOUT JACOB
Jacob Rodenburg is an award-winning educator and Executive Director of Camp Kawartha – an outdoor, environment centre and camp. He teaches in environmental education at Trent University. Jacob has published a number of articles on nature education and is the co-author of the Big Book of Nature Activities (a best seller in Canada), and the author of The Book of Nature Connection – a guide to connecting to nature for all ages.
ABOUT
Speaker info coming soon
ABOUT JON
John Kehler has been at SABC in the Properties Manager position for 14 years. He lives at the camp with his wife and five children. Before the camp he was involved in the construction industry and owned a residential framing company.
Breakout Sessions
3:30 – 5:00 p.m.
Accreditation Orientation
(Lakeview Chapel)
This session will provide an overview of what to expect when you receive an accreditation visit and how to perform a visit as a volunteer. We will also look at any standard you might have questions about and review the Accreditation Process. This session is recommended for anyone planning to volunteer as a visitor for the first time and/or receiving an accreditation visit this summer.
Preventing Abuse at Camp
(Crossview Room)
Virtual Session
Many leaders in youth-serving organizations say the thing that keeps them awake at night is the risk that an incident of sexual abuse will happen in their organization. But can you prevent incidents from happening? The experts at Praesidium, an international leader in helping organizations prevent child sexual abuse, believe that with the right knowledge, tools, and culture, you can prevent abuse from happening in your organization. Review the fundamental principles that are critical to abuse prevention in any youth-serving organization, and will discuss tangible actions you can take to keep your campers safe. You will come away with best practices and resources you can take back to implement at your camp!
Share It!
(3:16 Chapel)
What is your big idea for staff training that was even greater than you dreamed? What ‘great’ idea for a wide game bombed this summer? What simple thing do you do that makes a big impact on your camp, culture, campers? Got the next amazing idea for next year already?
The Camp Industry is built on a sharing mentality – Let’s make it ALL better together!
Come with an open hand to share and snag ideas about training, culture, camper care, followup, fun, whatever and learn from each other!
**We will facilitate this as a group sharing session so please plan to share your idea in 5 minutes or less to make time and space for everyone and have shareable access to any files, printables or links that are connected to your idea.
Facilities Tour
(Shop)
Join SABC Property Manager, Jon Kehler, on a facility tour.
ABOUT KENDRA
Kendra grew up in Ontario and attended college in BC. She has been involved in camping all her life, beginning with her parents meeting at summer camp in the late ’70s. Kendra has worked at camps across the country, and is passionate about excellence in camping, and believes that being a part of the ACA is a way to engage with the broader camp community beyond Kuriakos, where she currently works as Program Director. Kendra has been involved with the Standards & Accreditation Committee since 2016, and on the board since 2017.
ABOUT KATIE
Katie is a Senior Risk Consultant at Praesidium and specializes in helping youth development organizations manage the risk of sexual abuse, including camps.
ABOUT CORTNEY & TONIA
Cort and Tonia share a passion for coffee, camp, creativity and the continuing leadership and faith development of young leaders. They believe in the collaboration of ideas and inspiration making all of us better for the sake of staff, campers and the Kingdom having been in camp and youth work for a combined 50+ years.
3:45 – 4:45 p.m.
7:00 – 7:45 p.m.
8:00 – 9:00 p.m.
KINDRED GROUPS
More info to come
ACA Awards
Join us after supper to celebrate winners of the ACA awards!
Social- Camp Movie Trivia
How well do you remember your favourite camp movies? Come to this social with your cell phones to battle it out over camp movie trivia!
THANK YOU TO OUR 2023 CONFERENCE SPONSORS!
