We asked ourselves this for a long time. Why pay for an outside trainer? With trainers costing anywhere from $500-$4,000, a day. How can that much money be worth a day of training? I have heard a handful of decent reasons like, getting staff buy in, hearing new ideas, and giving staff new tools, but that is still a ton of money! You could buy a new canoe, lots of new archery supplies, or even a used car.
Scott Arizela, one of the best trainers in the business, gave us the best reasoning for hiring an outside trainer. If after a day of training, even one counselor is able to connect with just one more camper its easily worth it; in terms of impact and finically. And thats the bare minimum!
Laura leading a Training At YMCA Camp Seymour
I'm sure bringing in great trainers like Scott, Steve Maquire, Chris Thurber, Travis and Beth Allison, or others gives every staff member tools to connect with more than one camper.
If in one day a 5% of counselors can learn tools to turn one camper per summer from a one year camper to life time campers, 4000, 5000, maybe 6000 dollars would easily be worth it. More on the dollar values of retention. If trainers can have a positive effect on retention, which I believe each of the ones I mentioned can, is it finically irresponsible to not hire them?
-Jack