Text Messages If you set up an account with EZ Texting, you'll be able to send mass text messages to your counselors from the computer. The cost is about 2.5 cents per message per person. This typically comes to $1-2 per message and is a worthwhile expense if you need to reach everyone immediately. Photos We recommend taking LOTS of photos and posting them during camp for campers' and counselors' families and friends to see. Two possible sites to upload your photos to are Flickr and Picasa. Flickr tends to be better at aesthetics whereas Picasa is better for pure simplicity. A cool feature that Picasa has is its Name Tagging capability, which can make it easier for people to find photos of their friends or relatives. Videos You can purchase an HD flipcam for less than $200 and take video footage that is HD quality and well-compressed. We recommend creating a YouTube channel for your content so that you can send people to youtube.com/yourcamp. Video footage will allow campers and counselors alike to enjoy camp throughout the Winter, Fall, and Spring. 1-800 Number (aka "Director hotline") You can set up an emergency number that will ring all directors' phones one of two ways. For $10 per month, you can set up an account with Grass Hopper. Alternatively, you could set up a free Google Voice account (presuming no directors already have a Google Voice account) using a vanity number and a local area code (i.e. 484-CALL-PALS). Camper & Counselor Applications & Forms You can create applications and forms for free using Google Forms, which is part of Google Docs. After people fill out your forms, their responses will be inputted into a Google Spreadsheet which you can share easily. Managing campers' and counselors' informations using a shared spreadsheet is strongly recommended so that everyone has the most up-to-date info. For actual content of these forms, see the Campers and Counselors section of this kit. Website To create a basic website, I recommend Google Sites. If you want yourcampname.org, you can purchase the domain name at GoDaddy and link that to your Google Site. Or, if you prefer, you can create a custom site on your own. Blog You can set up a blog using Blogger. A blog is a great way to communicate with people interested in learning more about your camp, without bugging everyone on your mailing list. Email accounts Once you have a website set up, you can set up custom email accounts at yourname@yourcamp.org. Google Apps for NonProfits offers a convenent way to do this, for free. From there, you can also set up mailing lists so that you can easily email groups like counselors@yourcamp.org. Sending Emails You can send emails using a mailing list created with Google Apps (see "Email Accounts" above), or you can use a more sophisticated email program like Mail Chimp. Mail Chimp has a handful of benefits, including the ability to design more colorful emails, mail-merge content (i.e. activity assignments) into an email, and see a history of past emails sent in an organized location. Mail Chimp has a per-email rate and a monthly rate, but it should cost you no more than $10 month total. |