Measuring the profound impact Goldman Union Camp Institute (GUCI) had on me is impossible. My first summer there was in 1985. I was twelve years old. Over the ensuing decade, I would be a camper, a song leader, a counselor, and a drama director. My long-time camp friends are still some of my closest friends. My best memories are still camp memories. And my most closely held values are still camp values. Below are a few scratchings from my notebook about how those camp values (especially related to leadership) have stuck with me.
Create the conditions for belonging and connection
One of the most important leadership skills (remember, skill = can be developed) is creating the conditions for belonging and connection. At summer camp we lived in cabins with a dozen or so other boys. We had to learn to live together and create a cabin culture.
Each cabin was a community within the broader communities of the camp units, defined by age groups, and the camp as a whole.
The best counselors and unit leaders created that feeling of belonging and connection–which is why I wanted to return to camp so many summers in a row, why I ran up my parents’ phone bills (in olden days, long-distance calls cost money) calling my friends all over the Midwest and Ontario, and why I cried harder than I’ve ever cried in my life when camp ended that first summer.
Belonging. Connection. Two currencies of culture that the best leaders learn how to invest for incredible returns.
If you kill it, you fill it.
If you took the last pizza bagel at lunch, get up off your behind, and bring the tray back to the kitchen to refill it for the table.
Of course, odds are you will fight for those pizza bagels like the armies of Sparta, as pizza bagels were the single most coveted lunch item at Goldman Union Camp Institute. Riots would break out when they were served.
But filling the tray if you took the last one was the right thing to do, despite the battle that would ensue. It was the other-oriented thing to do. It’s a lesson to take into any situation where you share space with other people. Like…all of life.
If you emptied the cold water from the bottle in the fridge, refill the darned thing and set it back in the fridge for the next person. If you used the last bits of toilet paper from the roll, change it for a new one.
Self-orientation erodes trust. “If you kill it, you fill it” works the muscle of others-orientation.
Play with your teammates
Eat with your team. Celebrate with your team. Sing and dance with your team–or whatever form of play is meaningful to you. These activities create bonds that facilitate deeper trust-building.
Embrace differences
Summer camp teaches you to live with people who are different from you.
That starts with acceptance, which evolves into trust and grows into love.
With relationships built on bonds of trust and love, communities can weather any inevitable storm.
Build leaders from within
Goldman Union Camp Institute was amazing at building leaders from within. Two full years between the time one was a camper and the time one was a full counselor were dedicated to training.
Year one was called “Avodah,” Hebrew for ‘work’, a work-study program designed to build a love of personal growth, community-building, and contributing to camp operations and culture. We washed dishes. We swept floors. We cleaned toilets. It was the best summer of my life.
Year two was called “Machon,” from the Hebrew root for ‘preparation.’ It was GUCI’s version of a counselor-in-training program. Whereas full counselors were with the cabin full time, participants in the Machon program were in the cabin for most of the day, with breaks for training, study, and community-building.
Not only did the vast majority of unit leaders and program directors come from the ranks of GUCI counselors who had been campers, and who had gone through those two years of training, but many of those senior camp leaders went on to become leaders in the broader Jewish community in North America.
At IGW, our motto is, “We build leaders who build leaders.” We stole that from one of my most important influences, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. GUCI embodied that motto.
I would love to hear from other GUCI alumni and really anyone who went to summer camp, about what you learned from that experience.
GUCI STRONG!!!
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