the weekly VC meeting

I've written here before about the weekly program meeting of the village chiefs. In precisely the same format, this remarkable confabulation--operating very much like a bazaar in which program staff are the vendors and VCs are the chaotic buyers of services, spaces and equipment--has been taking place weekly in the summers since 1976, Yes, the format is exactly the same as it was 34 years ago. This video was shot just after the round of long announcements ended, just as the VCs jumped up and began rushing to sign up program areas and program people. You'll see the manager of the theater space show us his already filled-up calendar. You'll hear the assistant program director remind everyone to make suggestions for Olympic coaches. Etc. If you've ever attended one of these meetings in the past, I think you'll be so struck by the similarity here to your own experience that the nostalgia will flow. Things are getting done. Through the chaos is a great deal of charm.

If you're not aware of the history of the way we manage our program schedule, please read this full description.

kill the cat and other lost games

Above (click on image for larger view) is the first page of a 15-page manual of games compiled by the Village Chiefs during staff training, 1977.

specialty

On the first day of every session, all day long, villages meet the program staff at the Olympic Circle for what's called (I think) specialty split-up or specialty sign-up. It's quite a system. One program staff person from each specialty area steps forward, in turn, and presents (in excited terms--"ballyhoo") what fun you will have at this or that particular program area. Then the kids decide which activity to choose, whereupon they go every day for four or five days.

VC meetings: a history, the present

The particular mode of our programming - I mean, its current state - was established in 1976. To be specific: for sessions 3 and 4 of '76. Halbe Brown and Bill Hettler (both Camp Fitch guys from way back) pushed it on me as Program Director, insisting that we make a big shift in our program philosophy, and after a few days of their hard lobbying, I embraced and then began to plan the change. I took the Fitch model and did a good deal of tweaking and Frost Valley-izing it. I am referring to the whole structure of the village-centered weekly schedule: conceived by each VC but fitting into a basic 4-by-4 grid (to minimize conflicts). This big change required that we meet weekly to do our programs. Thus the now-famous "VC meeting," a name that is a misnomer. It's really the weekly program meeting. No matter. By now it's such an established tradition that folks don't much think that this was a conscious choice we made to decentralize and put (once again) the village at the center of the operation, and the VC at the center of the planning for his or her group. At such a large place, that's the way it ought to be. Anyway, the reason for these musings: on Monday evening I attended this summer's first such meeting. Years ago they were in the Castle living room. Now in a more functional space (and more centrally located) - the bottom floor of Quirk Lodge (Victoria Hall). A real conference room with chairs and tables, a kitchenette, some meetings spaces for the invariable side-meetings of brother/sister VCs and the two camps. The meeting is chaired by the Program Director, who always gets the last word. In '75, '76, '77, and '78 that was me, and (though it was huge hard work) I enjoyed every moment. (In '75, as you know from the above, we were in a different mode - the "master schedule" - but that was, if anything, harder on the Program Director.) Above is a photo I took of Monday's meeting. All the former VCs reading this blog post will get a shiver of recognition, I'll bet. Send your VC meeting memories to me at afilreis AT gmail DOT com. Do you remember the wonderfully collegial chaos?

the village schedule

Since the middle of the summer of 1976, each week the village chief of every village has created a weekly program schedule for the village. From '72 or so through the end of July '76 program activities were centralized - the famous "Master Schedule." Yes, all 5 activity periods were organized and managed and rostered by the Program Director(s). What a huge job that was. The advantages of the Master Schedule were obvious: campers had a huge diversity of choice. There were standard activities (crafts, basketball, etc.) as well as unusual ones (unicycles, learning Farsi) and there were at least 40 choices every period! The MS took advantage of the size of FV's staff and the range of talents. The down sides were enormous - two main ones: first, there was little to no accounting for where the campers were at any time; second, all the work had to be done by the Program Director and a few people who helped him or her. In all this, the importance of the village chief waned. By early '76 the VC was reduced to supervising the village staff at meals, rest hour, and evenings; scheduling CQ and days' off; some ongoing training; creating evening programs on nights when they were run by the village; handling overnights; being a super-counselor within the village. But the VCs didn't have authority and the uniqueness of the villages lessened.

I was the Program Director in August '75 and again was to be in August '76. (I was CIT Director in July '76. John Wellington Jr., who has been mentioned in these entries, was one of my CITs.) Just days before session 3 began, I was summoned by Halbe Brown and Bill Hettler to Halbe's office and was told to fix the problem with the program. "Create a system whereby we will know where every camper is at any time, and so that the villages will once again be the focal point of the campers' experiences." And Halbe handed me a model he'd used back at Camp Fitch, where he began in camping. I adapted this model quite a bit. I created a four-by-four grid. running alongside one edge of the grid were four groups of villages ("brother and sister" villages). Running down the other axis were four broad types of activities: 1) waterfront, 2) sports & games, 3) feeling good (wellness), 4) specialties. This would cover 4 periods every day and the 5th was reserved for a one-period version of the Master Schedule at the end of the day.

I called a meeting of all VCs and program staff for the Sunday night of the beginning of session 3. We met in the Castle living room. I brought mimeograph "stencil" sheets. I explained the new system to the VCs, who were dumbstruck. I told them that they would be creating one week's schedule and would have to do so with their brother or sister VC. They would also have to coordinate use of facilities, spaces, equipment through a system of sign-out sheets. We went around the room and each program area director described what was available that week. I asked them to insert all-camp programs. They blocked in their overnights, scheduled by Out-trip. I described the "specialty" options. They blocked in waterfront every day. The rest was up to them.

It took until well after midnight but they did it. I told them they would be mini-program directors and to make my point I asked Chuck White to come to the Castle at the end of the meeting and dramatically hand out BCB keys on nylon cord to each VC. Now each of them would be able to open the areas they were now responsible for - archery range, athletic shack, etc.

Within a few years we switched to photocopying the schedules, but very quickly they became elaborate. The first ones were rough blocked-out guides.

In the summer of '77 we began with the new programming format from the start and it seemed to work very well. The villages were back! The VCs were back in their central role. We continued to meet once a week and those meetings took on a great deal of general importance.

The system is in place today - almost exactly as it was back then. This coming summer it'll have been 32 years since that big change.

This morning I found one of the first schedules created - printed in purple ink by a mimeograph machine - for the first week of session 1 in the summer of '77. The VC was, I think, a guy named Gunnar. He was always the first one done with his schedule. (His one-week schedule took up two pages - he wrote large and fit only three days per side. As I say, we got better at this later.)

Click here for a much larger image and you can read it in detail. Below is a blow-up of one activity block: "NEW GAMES" were big then. "Everyone is a winner at Frost Valley. Gumbo!"