Summer Camp is a Year-long project

It may be December 2025, but ETC's 2026 Summer Camps are already open for registration! We’re trying something different with our blog this time - Katie, Ashley, and Josh came together on Zoom to talk about camp planning!  You can watch the video or read the transcript below.  Let’s dive in!

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Katie: Alright, hi folks!

Ashley: Hello!

Josh: Hi.

Katie: So, before we get started, each introduce yourself. Ashley, why don't you go first?

Ashley: Okay, hi, I'm Ashley Hammond, I'm the Managing Director for ETC, and uh, I help oversee the executing of summer camps, in addition to a bunch of other programs.

Josh: And I'm Josh Rosenblum, Director of New Media for Educational Theatre Company, and also anything else that I need to do, which usually involves all of the internet things, like setting up our camp registration system, um, every year, and our website.

Katie: I am Katie McCreary, I'm our Director of Development and Director of Curriculum Development. I just want to chime in that Josh helps so much with the internet, because Josh is currently calling in from Florida, where we do not actively have programming, but where we do have a Josh.

Josh: Yeah.

Katie: So that's exciting. Alright, so it is the end of December in 2025, we are hurtling towards the end of the year, and we already are deep into camp planning for summer 2026. In fact, for the first time ever, camp registration is open already in December for the following year. So, my question for you, and you guys can decide who talks first, but um…when do you start camp planning? Like, when did you start planning for summer of 2026? Josh, when did you start planning for summer?

Josh: Oh, the hand raise thing worked, cool. Um…

Katie: I know!

Josh: I started planning summer of 2026 in May of 2025. So before camp even started in 2025, I was working on some things. Really sort of boring-to-talk-about things, but some back end, like, okay, here are the problems that we had with registration setup for 2025, here's all my notes for how to fix them for 2026. So it's, it's, it, yeah, I start planning before camp starts for the next year.

Ashley: Absolutely.

Katie: Well, yeah, because once the registration is open and, like, running that far in, like, by the time we hit May the planning part is kind of done for that year. It's all making it happen. Ashley, when do you start thinking of summer 2026?

Ashley: I don't think I ever stop. I think it is year-round, because as soon as our summer camp season ends, we, um… Josh also sets up some surveys, hopefully some of the people watching have filled out those surveys, and we take everybody's feedback, and we start making changes for the next year, and seeing what we want to try to change or adjust or do. And then, we are already talking to the county and to our private partners about locations and space and the calendar for the following year in, you know, September, October, and actually have to apply for space then, so it really is a year-round process, and it is our largest program, so we do put a lot of focus and time into those camps. And last year, we ran 37 camps. This year, I think it's 38 camps. We added one. So it's just a big, well-oiled machine that's always running year-round and we also have Linz Moore, who is our summer camp coordinator, and she does a lot of behind-the-scenes work, too, to apply for space and to talk to our staff and try to… we're already hiring staff for the summer now, too, so it really is a year-round program even though it's all summer.

Josh: Yeah, I want to mention, as well, that Linz does all of the on-the-ground, in-person stuff for camp that I can't do, and I do all of the on the computer from Florida things that she would never have time for, so she and I sort of work very hand in hand on getting camp functional.

Ashley: And one of the things, I just wanted to add this, one of the things that I think is… I'm really proud of that we do, but also adds some complication, and is what you were talking about with Linz and her role for summer camps. And some other people, we hire other people to do this to support her, sometimes, but, it’s that we have camps all over the area on purpose. Like, that's a choice that we make every year, instead of, you know, being just in North Arlington or just in South Arlington. We're also in Falls Church. We like it that way, even though it's harder to plan and organize and execute, because we are driving around a lot to multiple sites. But we like it that way because it makes us more accessible to different parts of the community, and we're making sure that we're taking the arts to all the community and not just focusing on one area. So, while it creates more work for us, it's actually… it's a feel-good thing that we do that for the community.

Katie: Well, and I think… I just had to highlight that the decision to bring on Linz as a full-time year-round, or full-year-round part-time employee, because…almost all of us are part-time, is…specifically for… as a summer camp coordinator, really just drives home the fact that we… we don't stop thinking about it, and it is our biggest program of the year, right? The fact that this is something that, you know, having an after-school coordinator, a director of after-school programming, who is a year-round employee makes sense, because there are 3 after-school sessions.  But summer, which is really only 10 or 11 weeks over the summer, it's not even a full 3 months has its own coordinator because of what a big program this is for us, and how much we're thinking about it.

So, Josh, you already said, like, the first thing that you do is you start thinking of, like, the back-end logistics, right? The, like, what does registration look like, what didn't work in registration, what did, how can we make the internet experience and the registration experience smoother for families. And Ashley, you mentioned that you start with Location, location, location is the first thing you're looking at and putting in. So what's the next step? When do you start to, like…what things do you collaborate on, and what things do you pull in other voices? I know there's at least one, because I'm one of those rather vocal, other voices, and… what things, you know, what are the, like, finishing touches as well? Like, what's kind of beginning, middle, and end of the camp planning process for you?

Josh: So, middle is my favorite part. The middle is the fun part. It's when we decide what each camp is gonna be. And some camps are essentially the same, like our film programming doesn't change very much year to year, but we always reevaluate what the description looks like, and we talk to camp directors about if they want to change anything, etc. But really, it's the theming of our ETC Beginnings for preschoolers camps and our Creative Drama camps that I have the most fun sort of talking and hashing out with everyone and it is a long process, it's probably, like, the longest, and I say that, but it actually… Like, because everything is due to the county and to Falls Church by the end of October, we really have the end of August through the end of October to do it, so it takes a very little bit of time but we go back and forth on it a lot, I think it's fun.

Ashley: We do research, we research, 

Josh: Yeah.

Ashley: like, what are popular movies, or themes, or characters. That we might want to tie into for those themes…And then, what I think is always funny, and Josh and I have known each other and worked together for a long time, so we… we kind of do this efficiently and well, but the writing of these camp descriptions and the themes and these one-sentence, like pull you in and make you want to come to the camp sentences. We kind of do it in tandem sometimes and talk through it and spend a long time just on Zoom, like, going and reviewing things. And we always have a good time doing that, or thinking about.

Josh: Yeah, we laugh a lot during this process.

Ashley: Creative words. Yeah.

Ashley: Or like, let's look online, what's another word for this word? How can we make, like, what's an action word of what a jungle animal might do? Right? It's fun creativeness, or creative process for us, and I think we both like that.

Josh: Yeah, and to Ashley's point about research and, you know, trying to find what's popular with the kids, as they say. We also make sure to never, uh, use any IPs, um, for our camp titles, because it's not really…something you're supposed to do unless you're paying the people who own them and so we have a lot of fun with that aspect of it. 

It was like, okay, how can we make it clear that this is gonna maybe be about this, like, movie without saying the name of the movie or whatever, but also we like… we like doing it that way because it keeps the camp open-ended for the camp director to say, okay, I don't have to make it about that specific intellectual property, I can take that and we know that the kids attending camp might jump to that intellectual property if it's popular, and we're prepared for that, but we're not guiding camp towards that because as a process based company, it's all about what the kids create and invent, so we don't really want them to, like, be emulating or, copying what they saw in a movie or TV show. We want them to come up with their own things. And that's why we do the research and then adjust things so that it can stay really open-ended and creative for everyone involved, camp director and campers alike.

Katie: I will say that, like, from a camp director and from a parent standpoint, I think having… not crossing that copyright line is huge, too, because I can, you know, families can look at camp descriptions and if that's the week that works for them, and they know that they want their kiddo to take a Creative Drama or to try out theater, and this is the week that works, and that child hasn't seen movie X or TV show Y yet they aren't limited to coming to our camp, right? Like, you can do that camp without having seen X, Y, or Z, because that… we're not going to… that's not the story we're telling. We may use some of the characters from that story if that's what the students want to do and the campers are excited about, but we are not retelling a story that is copywritten and that has been told, and that is already a movie or a TV show, and we are not… and we're taking liberties with those ideas, or with the theme, and we… maybe we'll stick to the same moral, but add in other characters or whatever that is, and so there's… It makes it more accessible for the families as well, that you don't have to have watched X, Y, or Z. You don't have to have anymore, you don't have to have streaming service X, Y, or Z, to be able to come and join our camp. 

I'm just gonna go on record now, because you have both… we were saying before we started that we are, other than our co-founder, executive director, we are the three longest employees in the company, and now all of our staff meetings and a lot of the theming discussions happen on, like, a Google Drive doc or online. But I have joked for years - the reason that we have dinosaur camp is that I used to just yell over and over again in the staff meeting when we would be talking about themes in October, we would have our monthly staff meeting in October, I would say, what are the themes? And I would just say dinosaurs loudly, and getting progressively louder until one of you wrote it down.

And I think that people think I am joking.

Ashley: No.

Katie: And so, I would like you to both… Tell the truth about whether or not, when you start camp themes, in your head, you just hear me yelling dinosaurs over and over again.

Josh: And then sometimes, since that, uh, we have two different dinosaur camps throughout the year for different age ranges, like we do this summer.

Ashley: Uh-huh.

Josh: Yeah, you win.

Katie: I did, I did win.

Ashley: You broke us down.

Josh: Can we fin… do you want to finish answering your original question?

Katie: Oh yeah, finished my dinosaur, proved me right.

Josh: The end part of the process, right, is, it's sort of, again, back and forth online, but not internally. Now we're dealing with our partners -

Ashley: Right.

Josh: Which is Arlington County, and Falls Church, the city of Falls Church, cause we've, at the end of October, we've sent them all of our fun themes that we have a blast creating, and then they come back to us and they say, “okay. Yes or no,” not to the themes, but to the dates and locations and things, and then we have a back and forth with them until the final touches are all of those things get finalized, we get locations from the county, we do have some locations with our partner sites as well, and Falls Church, and then…They have their brochure ready, we get our brochure ready, our physical one, and everything gets printed, and I would say our, like, cherry on top of the process is the January camp fair, the Arlington County Camp Fair. That's, like, our big reveal, sort of, even though registration's been open and our community knows.

Katie: Mm-hmm.

Josh: That's how we get out to the public, and we have all of our lovely, shiny printed materials to show everyone and say, this is what we're doing this year, and who we are. And that always feels like sort of the end of planning to me. Like, planning's done, it's all done, and here's the product.

Katie: So… now, camp… camp registration is open. We opened earlier this year than ever before. We opened in December. We know that January is when people tend to expect it to open, so maybe we'll, you know, start to see that. We know the summer camp fair is coming up January 14th for Arlington County, at least. And then, so what… what are you keeping an eye on? I already know this answer, but, like, as… over the next, let's say, January through April, or January through March. We know that when Arlington County opens up their registration through Parks and Rec, even though we are not through their website, it connects to us, and so we usually see a bump that day.  What I always tell, Ashley, to people is similar to what you're saying, but I always tell people that, like, when…

Ashley: Yeah.

Katie: we know that there have been times when, like, the queue for Parks and Rec for that registration has been really long, or has been blocked, or slows down, or has had issues.

Ashley: Right.

Katie: Our registration isn't through that website, so you can go and register for our camps on our website, you can even have two tabs open. You can be in the queue for Parks and Rec, and be over on our website, and be registering for us, see what you get.

Ashley: Perfect.

Katie: Have them open. I am a fan of lots of tabs, as anyone who's seen my screen share will tell you.

But what are you watching? What are you keeping an eye on over the next couple of months? Um, are we watching, like, are we comparing which camps do well? Does Josh perhaps have a…used to hope that film camp would sell first, so that he had bragging rights as… when he was running ETC-on-Film. Like, what, just hypothetically, what are you watching for?

Josh: Back to the “olden days” when we had in-person staff meetings, um… We used to compare numbers. Ashley would print out, or Elizabeth before her would print out, a… a sheet that is a report run from our registration system that has all the numbers for which camp is doing the best for registration. And we would absolutely rub it in each other's faces and brag that, like, “my camp is higher numbers than yours.” So, we still keep an eye on that, it's less competitive than it used to be, but it is something that we're always looking at, and that is one of the data points that we use when planning next year's camps. And we haven't talked about it all yet, but I'm also on the marketing team, and that's a big part of why we look at it. It's like, great, that camp's filling, we don't need to tell anyone about it so we're gonna focus on the one that maybe isn't as popular and try and figure out why.

Ashley: Well, and campers come to us, you know, maybe they like musicals, and they come to us for a musical camp, and then once they take our program and they enjoy it, they see that we have film camps, and we have, you know, playwriting camps, which we just added last year and did really well, by the way. So there are other topics, like, we're very specialized with our topics, so if they come to us in one type of theater, or one type of acting, or film, then they can also try something else out the next year, and grow with us, and take more, different topics. More topics.

Josh: Yeah, if you fast forward to camp already running, we're still looking at those data points, because we'll watch a kid who had never taken a program with us take a really early Creative Drama in the summer for 1 week, and then we look at their account and all of a sudden they're signed up for 5 more. And that's always really exciting, it's like, cool, this family was trying us out and loved it, and now they're here with us for, you know, more of the summer.

Ashley: The other big… oh, go ahead.

Katie: Yeah, I feel…I feel like we see that so much, with the preschool camps, with the ETC Beginnings camps, and I… not just because I teach them, but, like, so… not just because I'm watching those, but um…

Ashley: Yeah.

Katie: I think that we… we see that so much because preschoolers… preschool families don't always need a full day. Like, they don't always need a camp to… they already have some other child care need in place, and so it's a chance for, like, how is my kiddo going to do in a social setting, or in a setting that's not their preschool that they're used to, or what is that? And so… having a zero… a week 0 or week 1 preschool camp, we very often see those kids suddenly, they're gonna pop back up week 4, and week 9, and week 10, because now they… now we're a known quantity, and they really enjoyed it.

Ashley: I think that happens for a lot of campers,

Josh: Yeah.

Katie: Mm-hmm.

Ashley: Because, you know, they're trying out so many activities, and I think our camp directors and our staff do a really good job of having a large group of kids, but still being able to give individualized attention, you know, to what the camper actually needs. So I think it can be a good option for a kid that's really creative or, you know, wants to be silly and to try it out, even if they haven't done theater camp before. They normally come back and want to take more weeks after they do one for sure.

Josh: Yeah…

Ashley: I was just gonna say… oh, sorry, I'm switching to staffing, because that's what I…

Josh: Oh, good.

Katie: Okay. That's what I was going to ask for, about… yeah.

Josh: I was gonna bring up staffing, too.

Ashley: How can we not talk about staffing in January?

Katie: That was the next question, so go for it, dive right in!

Ashley: So, Linz and I staff all of these 38 camps,and we're watching the numbers to see how many camp staff we need. So, on average, we hire over 40 people, camp directors, professional assistant camp directors who are… everyone's a professional in the field, by the way, that we hire them for. A lot of working actors, and Katie's a lighting designer, and, right, these people are working year-round in the industry, and then teach for us as well. So we hire those camp directors, we hire assistant camp directors sometimes, we hire counselors who are college students. We hire counselors that are high school students who… a lot of them have… and a lot of those people have worked for us before, and they return year after year, or they took our programs. I think there were, like, 13 people last year that we… is that the number, Josh? I think?

Josh: It was… it was a high number, I can't remember, but…

Ashley: Yeah, I think it was 13 people who had been campers with us, and then were now working for us. So that's something that takes up a lot of Linz’s in my time, and is a large process and a big puzzle piece of, should they work here, should they do here, they're available here. And so anyone who's interested in working for us, we have a little application online, so we can set up an interview. We also go to, like, a teen expo, the teen expo for Arlington later in the spring, and so that's a good way to get involved. And what I think is cool about that is that if you're going on vacation, or, you know, you are doing some other things during the summer, we can slot you in, and you can work, you know, 2 weeks, or you can work 8 weeks, and we can make that happen.

So, that's where we're headed next. Linz is about to reach out to our returning staff and see what their availability is, because everyone's thinking about summer like we are, aren't they? No. And so, we'll start to plug people in and see what their availability is, and go from there.

Josh: And you said 40, if…That's not just because we allow people to take weeks off and things through the summer, it's also to maintain our ratio of staff to student, so that each student gets that personalized, like, one-on-one attention, and I think that's one of the things that sort of sets us apart, that we really do have those connections with each camper through the summer.

Katie: So actually, if a teen is interested in working for us and has not worked for us before, when in the year do you start to make those decisions? Like, should they, you know, if they haven't reached out to you by February, has that ship sailed? Like, what's the best way…when should they start to contact us, and… and when it's too late, right? Like, if they reach out to you in May, is it like, sorry, we're already hired, like, what makes the most sense?

Ashley: Yeah, May's a little late. We…well, it takes a long time. I'm always like, we're gonna get it done in February, and that's just not possible, because we're watching camp numbers, and then we have to add more people, because we're growing. So, I'd say February, start to reach out on that form. It'll take us a few weeks to get back to you and to set up an interview. We'll do Zoom interviews, and then there'll be a pause, you know, where we're looking at all these people that we've… we're looking to hire. I will say, the sooner the better, just so that we… we have your information, because when we go to that teen expo, we get a lot of interest from teens, and I think… I mean, we had maybe 50 people apply last year, so it was a great pool of people, so the sooner you can get reached out to us and connected, the better. And you can find all of that on our website.

Anytime you email the website, it comes to Josh and to me, by the way, so we will get your emails, even if it's to our info email that you can find on our website.

Katie: I do think one of the things that both, to steal Josh's language sets us apart, but also, actually, I think one of the reasons we are so popular at the Teen Expo…and this is not why we did this, but in 2021, when we moved back to in-person camps, oddly enough, we weren't in-person in 2020, we…we made the decision, as a staff, we made the decision at the highest level to do away with unpaid internships, so even our first year counselors, our first-year teens that are working with us for the first time that summer are paid. And so, I think that helps… I think that makes us very fancy at the teen expo. I think that gets us a lot of attention. That is not why we did it. We did it for equity reasons.

But Ashley, do you want to talk… can you talk a little bit about, like, if, you know, if I'm… if I'm a teenager, I say this is the oldest person on this call, and I come to you, like, what… if I…you know, what can I expect, if not a dollar amount, like, what can I expect the first summer, and then if I return the following summer working for you and I return it, like. Is there… is there room for growth there?

Ashley: There is, there absolutely is. So we start out with a stipend for our youngest staff. We hire people 15 and up, so that's… the lowest we'll hire is 15, and we generally staff the youngest kids at our youngest camps. So they'll work a half-day preschool camp with Katie, normally, and then they'll work their way up to full day. A lot of times we'll have teens do Extended Day when they get a little older, or college students. And if they have, you know, an interest in film or an interest in musical theater, we try to place them someplace that they feel comfortable and will really excel as much as possible. And, you know, sometimes people enjoy working with younger kids, sometimes they want, you know, kids a little bit older. They can also put that in their information. That's it, and then once you return, if you return a second year, and, you know, it was a good working relationship with both of us, we would start to give you, like, an hourly rate, and bump up your pay a little bit more, and, and give you, like, a different employee contract to elevate you within the company, so that's kind of the first year to the second year, and then a lot of people continue to just come back year after year and work with us. So…

Josh: And it's, it's not just our high school or college students for the first time who have that room for growth. It's everybody.

Ashley: That's right.

Katie: Yeah, even camp directors, if you come back the following year, you get an additional, you get a pay increase to a certain point, but we do, we do try to be, you know, recognize growth and loyalty within the company.

So, I'm gonna give you each… I'll give you each a chance to say, like, final…camp planning thought as we wrap up 2025 and are already looking at our camp numbers for 2026, but we just heard a report out on them in a staff meeting this morning. So Ashley, a final camp planning thought, or summer camp thought, or “yay” camp thought.

Ashley: No, I just love… so I get to take photos sometimes at camps. I just love when I get to stop by and see everybody in action. It's such a fun thing to see behind the scenes, and to see the kids having a blast, and laughing, and getting to know each other, and our staff having a great time, so it just… it makes all this year-round work worth it when you show up and watch a sharing with the little performances that we do, we call them sharings. Sometimes they're longer, if it's a Shakespeare camp, it's more of a performance, but most of it's kid-created, and I think, going back to the theme thing, when you… when we're picking these themes, and then when we see the final sharing, we're like, “that is a hilarious story they just made up that I had no clue that's where they were gonna take that theme. That's amazing.”

So it's fun to have… to see the final, you know, outcomes of these camps, and to see what creativity comes out of it, and be able to see that.

Ashley: So that's what I'm looking forward to.

Katie: Josh, final comment?

Josh: I mean, I think the most impactful part of the summer for me, not being in person, not directing camps anymore, is how much I still get to connect with the community. I, because as Ashley said, I'm answering emails a lot, and then I'll get an email and be like, I know that name and I'll look and I'll be like, oh yeah, I taught that kid, like, you know, however many years ago, and, you know, now they're teaching for us. Or, oh, that's their, that's a parent that now has a younger kid again, and is back with us, things like that. So I have a lot of, like, good moments for myself over the summer , where I get to, like, be really personal in an email from the company that's really from me, and I'm like, yeah, like, “hey, it's great to hear from you” kind of thing and that's, that's sort of my, yeah, favorite part of the process of summer, and then seeing the photos and videos that come out of things.

Because it's the same thing, even if I didn't talk to them via email or whatever, I see faces and I'm like, wow, okay, I remember you.

Katie: Okay.

Josh: Yeah.

Katie: My final camp thought is my always camp thought, which is, of course, yay dinosaurs! So, I'm going to end us here! With my voice, yelling dinosaurs, as always.

Your donations provide scholarships for all of our camps (not just the dinosaur-themed ones), ensuring that all students can come, no matter their family’s situation.  And you don’t even have to wait until camp registration opens up each year - just like our camp planning, you can give year-round by becoming a monthly donor or give whenever you feel inspired!  Will you give to keep camps going year after year?