Volunteer at this Year’s Conference ????

(Sign up Here): ACA New England: Camp Conference 2024

Sign up for as many slots as you’d like. We want you to be able to attend sessions and activities while also helping out, so many of the opportunities occur between or outside of session times. A few of the key opportunities with include:

• Greeters – Do you love to smile and engage with others? Help ensure attendees feel welcome and know where they are going between session blocks.

• Area room hosts – Leading up to each session, support our speakers by checking in with a few to make sure they have what they need (then, attend a session).

• Floating troubleshooters – Camp folks are problem solvers, so help us ensure things run smoothly by helping as needed during transition times (e.g. hanging up “room full” signs, requesting a refill on a water station, helping a speaker figure out adaptors).

• Kick-off/closing leaders – Lead brief 10-15 minutes of announcements and activities at the start of sessions 1, 2, and 7 (we will give you all the materials and instructions)!

• Session/activity assistants – Some of our programming requires an extra set of hands.

• Registration/speaker check-in

ACA, New England Board President

Meet & Greet ☕????

Stop by the CampEXPO between 10:15 AM – 11:00 AM on Friday, March 22 to say hello and connect with ACA, New England’s Board President, Ian Moorhouse while also grabbing coffee and a bagel and visiting with our vendors.

Kick-off your Conference Saturday with new ideas in a fun and fast-moving format known as ‘Powered by PechaKucha.’

The term “PechaKucha” derives from Japanese, meaning “chit chat.” PK represents storytelling that celebrates people, passion, and innovative thinking. The PK 20×20 presentation style involves a slideshow of 20 images, each progressing every 20 seconds.

Grab breakfast and coffee from 8 AM – 8:45 AM and then support your colleagues as they share “Innovations From Camp” that are inexpensive, replicable, and creative during our plenary that starts at 9 AM.

Presentations will include: Let’s Go Bananas; Boomerang Mentality: the Journey of Cohen Camps’ Kadima Teen Leadership; Environmental Sculpture: Using Art to Teach About Nature and Nature to Teach About Art; Axe Throwing; STEAM-Powered Stories: Teaching with LARP; Fish Painting; and Emerging Professionals Curriculum.

We were excited to share about our Camp Manch evening program on Thursday, March 21 and we have another fun element to add to the evening…Cell phones have become one of the biggest challenges for camp directors during the summer. How do we stop staff from using them? Can we find the sweet spot between giving our staff trust and freedom, while knowing they won’t be spending every spare second looking at their phone?

ACA, New England is excited to partner with Yondr to make part of our Camp Manch event a phone-free experience. At Camp Manch, we’ll have a reception area with a cash bar, a campfire, and high tops, along with activity rooms set up with a variety of things from bingo to giant Jenga to board games to arts and crafts. While the reception/bar area will be phone-friendly, we’ll have our friends at Yondr help us create a phone-free environment inside our activity areas – just like we all want to see at camp!

Yondr creates phone-free environments with their patented lockable phone pouches. They will have friendly staff stationed outside the activity rooms to help. Once inside the phone-free space, the pouch is locked. You will maintain possession of your phone at all times and can unlock your pouch at any time by exiting the gated space. Our goal is to create an evening of meaningful connection – not stop you from using your phone – so if you have need to use it, you can always go out to the reception area, or talk to one of the volunteers on site for help.

Conference Raffle ????

A fun part of our conference every year is our raffle, with funds raised going towards our Annual Fund. Be sure to buy some tickets on-site if you want to join in the fun.

We will have both a 50/50 cash raffle and prize baskets. You can buy tickets on-site in the Assembly area! Raffle items include event and attraction tickets, a lottery ticket tree, jewelry, outdoor gear, wine, state-specific goods from around New England, and more!

Also Check Out:

• ???? – Zoom Orientation for new attendees on Monday, March 18th from 11:00 AM – Noon EST.
• ???? – Pre-Conference (3/20), New Camp Director Workshop and Accreditation Process Workshop
• ???? – State Meetings & Socials on Fri., 3/22 (corrected date) (details to be posted in Guidebook app)
• ???? – Check out the great vendors who will be at our CampEXPO!
• ???? – Pickleball at the CampEXPO!
• ???? – EPIC, New England at the conference (click here to subscribe to the email list)
• ???? – Food at the conference: Hors d’oeuvres on Thursday afternoon, coffee & bagels on Friday mid-morning, and breakfast on Saturday are included with your conference registration. Lunches are on your own, but the hotel will have concessions available for purchase.