Summer Camp 2025

Creating Summer Camp has been an amazing experience, and Events Committee and I are already excited to plan next year’s! I want to wrap this post up with some final thoughts I had as the lead on this project:

1. Enthusiasm and simply showing up regularly go a long way– probably more than you think.

Speaking for myself, I’m endlessly inspired by the passion and drive of my fellow creatives, especially my fellow committee members. Their enthusiasm and presence makes this work a joy, and knowing that we’re working together to make some magic happen is incredibly rewarding at every stage of organizing. This only happens when people show up and share that joy and determination with others, and I think Events Committee shines because of that.

2. Folks appreciate an extended hand.

One thing I find to be true over and over in my committee work is that people really appreciate having someone to go to when they have questions. Knowing there’s a specific person who will be at a specific place at a specific time can help alleviate a lot of anxiety about figuring out where to go and who to turn to. There’s a lot of merit to the point that people need to volunteer themselves and their time when it comes to organizing, but there are also a lot of folks who need a helping hand in understanding how they can get involved and what’s needed, especially if they’re new to organizing and when joining an established group. Providing a landing zone with a friendly face goes far in encouraging people to get and stay involved.

3. Consistency helps build community.

This goes for both the organizers and the attendees. Creating a space, even just a casual one, where we can connect with each other regularly helps develop and deepen our bonds. Staying in touch, whether through committee meetings or casual hangouts, has helped us reach members in our Cooperative, share news, discuss important topics, and provide assistance when needed. Just being there regularly also helps establish a sense of trust over time.

4. People who like events, REALLY like events!

We had a consistent core group of attendees throughout Summer Camp, which was absolutely lovely! Many of these core group members also ended up joining committees at the end of Summer Camp, which is fantastic! Providing a space for people to acclimate to group dynamics and culture within an organization can be really helpful, and I think event-goers are already a pretty social group, even if they may not always consider themselves to be so at first.

5. People respond to a variety of options and accessibility tools.

In other words, water is wet, right? lol We’re an international organization with members all around the world, who all have their own unique schedules, deadlines, and other life chaos to contend with. We also wanted to have a mix of events for different types of attendees; some folks really thrive in situations with high energy and engagement, and others need a calmer, slower-paced, quieter environment to feel comfortable. Some folks don’t like being on mic, some love it. We had a lot of needs to take into consideration for our planning.

Having a variety of ways for people to participate was welcomed by our membership; here are some ways we tried to make Summer Camp accessible and appealing to as many as we could:

• We offered a variety of events in different time zones
• We recorded as many of our workshops as we could
• We archived the recorded events in our private Co-op library and some on our YouTube channel (when granted permission)
• We offered a number of ways for members to earn merit badges beyond just attendance, encouraging participation in committee tasks and helping their fellow Co-op members out as ways to earn the merit badges
• We provided recorded and non-recorded events where attendees could determine their level of comfort with engagement
• We had events with and without mics on to provide both quiet and chatter as options for focusing
• We of course provided captions and transcripts for almost all of our events (a few of our events did take place on Discord, which unfortunately doesn’t have captioning available, though we continue to try to find an accurate third party option for this; however, the vast majority of our events took place on Zoom to prioritize better accessibility)
• We offered events that had supplemental spaces (such as Milanote for Time to Make Your Comic!), where people who couldn’t always attend live were still able to participate and interact
• We recorded and distributed an orientation video to help folks understand the concept of Summer Camp and how they could participate
•  We provided regular reminders and roundups of events through Discord, newsletters, and social media posts
• We offered a variety of topics on different skills
• We offered a mix of casual events and learning-based events
• We used a very, very simple form to allow members to get their merit badges outside of event times 
• We welcomed members as they came into events, sharing any links to documents, merit badges, and more
• We solicited feedback for our events, encouraging folks to let us know anonymously if there were any issues, as well as encouraging them to consider hosting their own events in the future

And I’m sure I’m forgetting some things! But my point is, when people have more than one way of joining in on an event, they typically feel empowered to do so. It’s more work to provide this array of options, but I think the fact that every single one of our events had multiple people in attendance, regardless of time and topic, is a sign that we were successful in providing that option. And that makes it very worth it to us!

Lessons Learned

As with any new endeavor, we made plenty of mistakes along the way, and we got lots of helpful feedback and experience for helping us fine tune our next installment of Summer Camp! Here are some notes we’re bringing with us into our planning for next year:

• We’re reconsidering the length of time Summer Camp is held (if our team remains small, we’d like to downsize a bit next year)
• We’re actively seeking new committee members and co-facilitators for recurring events
• We’re reconsidering how we remind folks about the events they expressed interest in without numbing people to so many reminders
• We’re collaborating with WebDev to develop a new events page for even more accessibility options, especially for those who aren’t Discord users
• We’re planning improvements to our communications and promo schedule
• We’re planning our future events based around our bandwidth as organizers as opposed to overloading our plates a bit too much
• We’re going to institute limits on the number of events we ourselves host 
• We’re also planning to solicit more events for next year– we want more time zone variety, and we have a wishlist of event topics we’re interested in seeing
• We’re looking into ways we can incorporate elements of Summer Camp year-round

And more! We’re already looking forward to how our edits will improve things for everyone in 2026.