Hail Mary... Not as in "full of grace, the Lord is with thee" but as in "a Hail Mary pass is a very long forward pas in American football, made in desperation with only a small chance of success, especially at or near the end of a half." -Wikipedia
After weeks of sleepless nights and increasing anxiety, I met with the executive board committee last week for what I can only describe as my Hail Mary move at camp.
Camp tuition for 2014 is around $500 for a one week session. Compared to similar resident camps in the area, it is a very average price. The problem is that this camp is not competing with other resident camps, we are competing with other religious summer programs. And unfortunately, those programs average $250-$400.
I've been passionately optimistic for may years now- convinced that this would be the year that recruiting would snowball. But year after year, that just hasn't been the case. I think there are a lot of reasons for the lack of success- we're a niche market to begin with and without being part of the religious community, we are even more limited. A difficult past, a struggling economy, a changing industry... there are many reasons why, despite a lot of hard work and some real progress, we still haven't seen the growth we need.
I haven't given up- I plan to visit schools, call parents, distribute marketing materials, and try my hardest to get as many campers as I can. But I'm not optimistic. I don't think this year will be different than last year or the year before that or the year before that.
And so I came up with a Hail Mary move that might work... although if it doesn't work, it might be the final blow to my little camp. But the truth is, I am 100% at the point of feeling like, let's do this well or let's crash and burn, but we have to stop just hanging on by a thread.
I suggested to the committee that we drastically slash the price. It seems a little crazy considering that bringing in enough money is our number one problem. But maybe if it's cheaper we can draw in more kids. We could increase our number of campers by almost 25% without actually increasing the number of staff.
The executive committee agreed with my suggestion but all of us agreed that this is it- if it works, great, we'll keep going. If it doesn't, that's it- camp is over. I am surprisingly at peace with the situation. I am 50/50 whether I think it will work, but it's totally different than anything else we've tried, so I guess it's our best shot.
