Educo Adventure School

• Relevant Link: BC School District #27, Cariboo Chilcotin
• Relevant Link: Educo Canada’s Facebook page
• Educo Canada’s website
• Relevant Link: Stuart Clark at LinkedIn
• Photo gallery of Educo images from flickr.com

Educo encourages individuals and groups to:

• Engage in experiences that challenge and stretch self-limitations
• Recognize and appreciate the unique qualities of every individual
• Assume personal responsibility
• Foster the development of decision-making, communication, teamwork and group interaction skills.
• Foster respect, understanding and awe for the natural world and our place in the circle of life.

Educo seeks to ensure that all levels of the school operate on the principles of respect, integrity, honesty, tenacity and fortitude.

Educo was founded in 1969 by Geoff Tisch, a New Zealander living in British Columbia, Canada. In 1988, the second Educo Adventure School was started in the United States in Colorado, and now there are Educo organizations in South Africa, Bulgaria, Brazil, and Germany.

The two men in the photo are Stuart Clark and Brodie Drake.  This year, they’re heading up the staff team at Educo Canada, near 100 Mile House, BC.  Two years ago our son invited me to participate in an Educo course that he was co-leading.  It was a very significant experience for me.  I’ve watched him and our daughter grow, struggle, thrive and develop there, first as campers, now as staff.  

Did you know the program staff, responsible for the lives of about 3 dozen children and youth each week, are paid less than the person who serves McMeals or pours coffee at Tim Hortons?  And yet Educo staff pursue training in the off-season so their certifications will be current when summer comes and survive on student loans, returning to Educo because their lives are changed there each year and they know the campers’ lives are changed as well.  And they don’t want to miss out being part of that miraculous experience.  

This blog post is my effort to let you know that the world is a better place and will continue to be a better place because committed people like these care enough to intentionally affect the lives of youth with integrity.  These are young leaders who will continue to be leaders and challenge others to be people of integrity.  

Here’s a link where you can make a donation if you’d like.  Increased support will enable them to consider things like program development, wage scales, equipment replacement and a myriad of other things required when running a good camp program.  A monthly commitment is probably is most helpful.  Educo doesn’t have a funding parent organization.  They need us on the team and quite frankly, we need them.  

Lodge at Twin Creeks - How’s it going?

I’m working on SEO, social media style and traditional, logo design, business cards, rack cards, website with CMS and online B&B registration for the Lodge at Twin Creeks.  

The project is good because it’s varied, stays interesting, and Peggy and Pat Wiens, the Lodge owners carry their vision of this new venture with so much enthusiasm and courage.  This energy is infectious.  This energy plus the obvious urgency to have guests register is motivating and I like it. 

The logo design was accomplished quickly because it was a collaborative effort with Matthijs at Exit170.  Matthijs has a critical design eye that complements my concept-broad perspective.  This moved us directly to business card and rack card design.  The business card print job is sourced to Print100.com.  I’m also considering VistaPrint and will probably try a small run of the rack cards first to check quality before committing.  Print100.com costs more but ensures and in my experience, delivers excellent quality product.

For online registration we’re considering a 3rd party provider, probably an embedded product from RezOvation.   The website content management system will be the all-new Breeze version of Abendago Media Works’ Trewform CMS.  This new release is fast, less expensive enabling us to keep our development costs down and shares the same, great user interface as the full Trewform CMS.

The excellent Google Places listing tool for business placement on Google Maps helps tremendously with search returns.  The free photo placement and detailed info input tool is great.  It should be used by every business, website or no website.  Yelp.ca is another one of these great, free resources.

So, time to stop writing about it and finish working the rack card proof.  Website design comps for approval after that and it’s off to the races, so to speak.   

What’s the plan?

So, you have a Facebook page.  And Twitter? Are you tweeting as well?  How’s that going for you?  

I’m seeing many Facebook pages and Twitter feeds that although cute and sometimes interesting, don’t appear to be moving in any particular direction.  We’ve all heard the reminder;

   “Aim at nothing and that’s exactly what you’ll hit!”

But do we run our organizations with that in mind?  

What is your goal?  What is Facebook’s unique role in this?  What is Twitter’s unique role?  How are they different?

The Simplify Company will set up your Facebook page but more importantly, we will guide you in forming a plan that is specifically for you and your organization.  Same with Twitter.  Same with Yelp.  

The set-up month costs about $400 or so and monthly guidance and/or maintenance of your online social network is about 1/2 as much per month.  Or, you can take it over yourself at any time and carry on.  

And why bother with Facebook and Twitter and Yelp?  Well, your customer is already there, and Google is checking to see if you are.