Most groups take a while to become actual teams.

They go through the awkward phase. The part where nobody knows quite how to be, where the new person is still sitting back and watching, where the laughter is a little bit tentative. With kids (and even adults) that phase can last days. Sometimes weeks.

At camp, we need to go faster.

We have about 48 hours to make sure every camper feels included and can start having the time of their lives.

So we built a system for it. (Not a philosophy! An actual system.)

This is specific, numbered, and practiced. Seventeen things that every counselor at Camp Champions does in the first two days of a session, before a every camper has found their footing.

The reason is simple: we build a team in each cabin so campers can feel like they are a part of something bigger than themselves. That is a great launching point for a successful camp session.

Here is how we do it.

Opening Day

The first hour is all about names and being present.

Counselors greet every camper with genuine energy, introduce them to each other, and use their names. Repeatedly, throughout the day. Name repetition signals: “I know you and we are in this together.”

Then the cabin unpacks together. Setting up a shared space with a new group is the first part in feeling right at home.

Games start early, because games ease nerves and start friendships faster than almost any conversation can. (There’s a whole science to this also, but more on that another day).

Later in the day, every cabin makes and establishes rules together, as a group. The rules become theirs, not just the counselor’s. That collaboration matters.

And then there is the huddle up.

The Huddle Up

This one is my favorite item on the list.

A camp huddle-up routine is a something specific counselors create with their cabin. It might be a phrase or a count-off or a call-and-response. One counselor this year uses “Peanut Butter Monday.” The cabin responds “Everybody Happy.” Then they all come together.

The words 100% do not matter. What 100% matters is that by day two, every camper in that cabin knows something nobody else at camp knows. It’s the beginning of an in-group language and even a small reason to feel: I am part of this.

Producing that feeling, as fast as possible, is what the first 48 hours are designed to do.

The First Full Day

Counselors talk through the schedule so nothing comes as a surprise. They ask the campers what they will need for each activity so the campers can learn how to prepare. At meals, they rotate who they sit next to, so no one gets comfortable only sitting next to the person they already know.

And they practice the huddle up because when something is repeated, it stops being new and starts being yours.

The cabin rules come back up, too. This is important because the counselor kept a small promise: we said these things mattered, so we’re going to do them together.

By day two, returners and new campers are indistinguishable. The system works when you run it.

What Happens When Your Camper Arrives

Our staff already finished a two week training, which is the longest of any camp we know of.

Now they are out there doing it for real during our first session of the summer. Seventeen steps to creating a strong team and tight cabin bonds.

Three days in, we’ve already seen teams forming that will get stronger and stronger throughout the session.

That’s the first step to making sure that every camper feels they are a part of something awesome.

Erec Sir