Tracks | Topic | Leader | Description |
Adventure Rec | Trainings for Ropes, Rec and Adventure | Reece Phillips | Learn to create effective training programs for ropes, recreation, and adventure activities in camp settings. Topics include planning paperwork, using icebreakers, structuring sessions, and understanding teaching styles. Discover strategies to keep trainings engaging, ensuring staff retention and skill development. Leave with practical tools for impactful training experiences. |
Tracks | Topic | Leader | Description |
Business Admin | An Innovation Model for Christian Camping | Jim Blake | Discover six proven protocols for innovation in Christian camping, practiced successfully at Alliance Redwoods. This hands-on workshop includes an exercise to assess your camp's current needs and real-world examples of successes and challenges. Leave with a blueprint to guide your camp's innovation journey, engaging your board, donors, and stakeholders in this faith-driven adventure. |
Business Admin | The Seven Disciplines of a Highly Effective Board | Ron Frey | Learn what effective boards do in and out of meetings, their roles, and how members can achieve more while staying in their lanes. This seminar covers board leadership in vision casting, governance, and fundraising, providing a framework for board members and executive directors to work as a unified team. |
Business Admin | Evaluation of Ministry | Rob Ribbe, Ph. D. | How do you know you are accomplishing your mission? Do you have a program evaluation? Is it effective at measuring the impact of your ministry? How can you use an effective evaluation process to develop a growing/change-oriented organization? |
Tracks | Topic | Leader | Description |
Food Service | Kitchen Tour | Ricardo Silvestre | A Tour of the Alliance Redwoods kitchen and an explanation of different positions and stations. |
Food Service | Culinary Interns and Hiring the Right People | Ricardo Silvestre | This topic highlights the mutual benefits of culinary internships for both interns and employers. Internships offer aspiring chefs real-world experience and provide businesses with fresh perspectives, cost-effective support, and a talent pipeline. Emphasizing mentorship, professional growth, and leadership in culinary education, structured internships help employers invest in the industry's future and boost team productivity and morale. |
Tracks | Topic | Leader | Description |
Leadership | Faith-Based Hiring | Jarrod Coburn and Kayla Williams | In an industry with seemingly declining numbers, it's hard to be sure we'll have the staff to faithfully serve our campers. Can we afford to look for ministry partners rather than just employees? We can! God has the desire to bless us with servant-hearted applicants who are passionate about the work they're doing! We must trust Him with every part of the application and hiring process. Pulling from the Word and practical ministry experience, we hope to encourage leaders to not compromise the integrity of their ministry for the sake of the ministry. |
Leadership | Lead Yourself | Penny Hunter | One of the hardest leadership challenges you will ever face is leading yourself. Everything will seem to conspire against you, focusing on the most important things. Learn why you never seem to have enough time and why you may be sabotaging yourself. Discover tips to make you a better leader of yourself and others. |
Leadership | Year Round Staff Development | Rob Ribbe, Ph. D. | Models for discipleship and development of year-round/multi-year impact on your summer staff. |
Tracks | Topic | Leader | Description |
Marketing | Retail Panel: The Why, What, and How to Make Retail Work at Your Camp | Jon Mahony, Jenna Gould, Elizabeth Cummings, and Ty Flora | This is a retail panel that will cover the core competencies of retail operations in the camp setting and then focus on specific challenges and roadblocks of seminar attendees. The topics will include: |
Marketing | Gathering and Telling Good Stories | Penny Hunter | What makes a compelling story? How can you take a decent camper story and make it stronger, and then how do you tell it as a blog post, a social media post, and a fund-raising letter? This is a hands-on workshop where you will write and tell stories and learn how to get better at it. |
Tracks | Topic | Leader | Description |
Program | Cliff Jumping Changed My Life | Andy Warken | Description Coming |
Program | Designing Programs Backwards | Joshua Kerr | Learn how to design impactful experiences for campers and staff using "backwards design." This workshop will introduce tools to align program goals with details, fostering creativity and coherence. Discover how to generate innovative ideas that advance your program's mission. |
Tracks | Topic | Leader | Description |
Site & Facilities | Alliance Tour and Route 66 Reflection | Brandy Wilson Gunderson | Experience God's self-revelation through creation with Alliance Redwoods' treetop journey. Inspired by Psalm 19, this tour features Scripture on Route 66-style signs, encouraging visitors to reflect on their faith. Join us for a tour of our facilities and a self-guided scriptural journey. |
Site & Facilities | The Camp Health Center | Erin Flora | Discuss the camp Health Center and what needs to be done to provide excellent care to campers. Discuss legal requirements, best practices, and policy/procedure formation and maintenance. Provide information on working with a Medical Director and hiring/training nurses. |
Site & Facilities | Maintenance/Facilities Challenges | Josh Anacker | The goal is to discuss some of the most common challenges that we face as the folks responsible for keeping our infrastructure up and running or affecting our departments. We will share some of the issues we face and the things that have worked or didn't work. Then, we will put our heads together as a group and come up with some helpful ideas and solutions. |
Tracks | Topic | Leader | Description |
Current Issues | Steward Yourself: Personal Wellness Through a Biblical Lens | Cody Galbraith | Explore how God's design for spiritual, emotional, and relational wellbeing forms the foundation for physical wellness. Dive into ways to steward your body through fitness, nutrition, and sleep, all to the glory of God and the benefit of others. Questions and discussions are encouraged! |
Current Issues | Wildland Fire Mitigation and Preparation | Bud Englund | Resource camp leadership with information and tools to help prepare and mitigate wildland fire risk for camp facilities. |
Current Issues | Camp as a Catalyst for Family Faith Formation | Rob Ribbe, Ph. D. | Update on Rhythms of Faith Research project on how to extend the impact of youth camps beyond camp into the home and church. |
Current Issues | Between the Flags - Collaborations Supporting Immersive Experiences and Divine Encounters | Adam Peacock | The Camino de Sonoma has used a creative approach to ministry, utilizing the natural environment, historical context, an immersive walking experience, and collaboration with other organizations to offer something truly unique in the Bay Area. The core elements of this approach are highly valued by many in the hospitality and tourism industry and are effective for drawing unchurched people. The goal is to provoke the audience to consider how they can utilize some of these same "ingredients" available to them to tell the story of God at work in the world in fresh ways. |
Current Issues | The Unstoppable “Softwarevolution” | MJ Stanley | Technology and software innovation is now evolving at an unprecedented speed. We need to come together to ensure that the camping community doesn’t get left behind! |
This is a tentative listing of seminars, and availability may change.
Look for more to be added as the conference approaches.
