Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter |
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THANK YOU! Now on to the dinosaur car part
In 2016, a Dinosaur-themed monster truck tank drove into K&E and literally ate cars.
I wasn’t there yet, but as you can imagine, this moment is freaking legendary.
There’s video of it happening.
Kids screaming.
Cars getting crushed.
Megasaurus was Color War breakout that year, and it was absolutely insane.
See for yourself. It’s kinda hard to put into words.
And this hasn’t been the only big event. We do this every year.
Pulled a car from the lake.
Had a helicopter land.
And this past August, did a BMX breakout where kids got woken up by staff and herded to the gym for riders to perform tricks before announcing Color War.
My first summer at K&E, I got asked all the time, “What’s this year’s breakout going to be?”
There’s expectation it has to slap. Has to be a BIG deal. MUST be memorable.
But, like seriously, how do you follow a monster truck eating cars?
Do we fly fighter jets over in formation?
Roll tank through Evergreen?
See if Godzilla is available?
The pressure to keep escalating is real. And there’s real temptation to chase something that can’t be caught.
The Peak-End Rule
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath covers a lot of ground, but one thing they hit on is memories.
We don’t remember experiences like a video camera recording everything. Our brains are way more selective than that.
We tend to remember peak emotional moments and end moments. That’s it.
The Peak-End Rule.
Think about your own life.
First kiss.
Prom night.
The last night of camp when you were a kid (or an adult camp pro).
When I separated my AC-joint getting crushed under St Francis’s prop my sophomore year in rugby.
Those moments stick because they hit peak emotion or marked an ending.
Most of everything else? It fades.
This is why that monster truck moment is so legendary.
Pure peak emotion. Kids losing their minds in the best possible way.
But peak moments don’t have to involve machines throwing flames and gobbling up old Toyota pickups.
Big (and I mean BIG) moments can be counselors pulling kids aside to tell them they’re proud of how they handled a tough situation.
Or sitting on a bench in the Hollow watching the sunset with your bunkmates.
Or the moment the ultra quiet kid finally speaks up during the low ropes activity and solves the problem.
Peak moments happen when kids feel seen, valued, surprised, or way connected. Scale doesn’t determine the impact on memory.
Memory shapes identity.
And identity shapes confidence.
The moments that stick become part of how kids see themselves and what they believe they’re capable of.
Being Intentional About Memory-Making
Not gonna lie. We’re planning big stuff for Color War breakout again this year.
It’s tradition. It’s awesome. And it creates memories. No doubt.
But we’re going for Peak-End memories across the spectrum too. Confidence, connection, noticing when someone is going above and beyond, taking care of each other.
We don’t need to crush cars every summer to create peak moments. (And honestly, we can’t because Megasaurus is no longer in business. RIP Megasaurus.)
We just need to be intentional about those memories.
The best camps already do this naturally.
Torch Light at Camp Champions
Night games at Stomping Ground
Special wake-ups at Camp Augusta
Traditions create anticipation.
Moments that mark transitions.
Camp is perfect for this stuff.
The Real Work
Big moments happen in the big moments.
Big moments also happen in the small moments.
That’s the whole thing.
The pressure to top Megasaurus is real, but it might also be missing the point.
Megasaurus worked because it created legit, wide-eyed surprise and insane levels of screaming excitement. Not because it involved heavy machinery.
It wasn’t legendary because of the spectacle.
Go back and watch the video again.
Notice how close the kids are sitting together without being told to.
Notice how they turn to their friends to see reactions.
Notice how they hold on to each other when something awesome is happening.
Notice how they run around jumping and high-fiving when it’s over.
THOSE are the actual memories.
If they’d been watching Megasaurus alone, guaranteed it’s not a peak-end memory. It’s cool and weird, but there’d be no emotion. No connection.
We can create those same feelings without engineered events. It’s just about creating conditions where peak moments can happen naturally.
Quiet moments and loud moments are equally memorable.
Both are part of how kids remember camp.
You are doing this every summer. These memories matter. Thank you.
You got this,
Jack
PS: There are two more free spot available for the inclusion specialist training. Fill this out and spend 5 days with me learning how to make camp more accessible for neurodivergent kids.