In Camp Shifts
Running the camp takes a lot of work, which we estimate to be about 12 hours per person during the week.
History of Shifts with the Turtles
The way shifts have been scheduled has been different from year to year.
2022 Pod Shifts
Camp was divided into pods of three campers and each pod was assigned four shifts to do during the week. Possible shifts were LNT, Lunch, Dinner, Desert HiiT, Party (first 3 hours), Party (second 3 hours), and Pillow Fort.
Food team (3 people) were not in pods.
Motivation:
- Put people in a pod with people they didn't know before the burn so they could make new friends working alongside them throughout the week
- Create accountability so that each pod would have motivation to get their own members to show up for work
Pros:
- People liked the pod concept and making friends
Cons:
- Accountability did not actually happen -- no shows were just no shows
- BORG's Arctica meltdown meant ice shifts took hours and the work balance didn't feel fair
2023 Signups
Huge change from 2022. There was a long list of potential work shifts that anyone could sign up for on a first-come, first-served basis.
Each shift got you a certain number of points based on how fun/hard they were: 3 points for food, 2 points for LNT, 2 points for Ice, 2 points for porto/shower cleanup, 2 points for keeping ice water and coffee and electrolytes stocked, 1 point for leading HIIT, 1 point for bartending or Ürkish Coffee, 2 points for camp infra, and 0 points for DJing.
You had to sign up for 11-12 points. Only returning campers had access to the sign up sheet; newbies had to work with a returning camper who helped them sign up and understand the commitment.
Pros:
- Point system felt super fair; we saw people sign up for shifts evenly instead of mobbing one category so there were no "good deals" or "bad deals"
- A sense of commitment since people signed themselves up
- Restricting sign up access to returning campers helped acculturation
Cons:
- No shows sometimes resulted in entire things not getting done
- Campers got to shifts and did not know what to do
2024 Work Teams
Huge change. Instead of signing up for shifts you joined a team that took responsibility for:
Food - 20 people
Dining Tent - 5 people
Drinks - 4 people
Gayflower - 4 people
LNT - 4 people
Infrastructure - 5 people
Each team then had it's own responsibility to just get everything in their area done. Each team had its own plan for who did what when. Staffing parties (DJing, bartending, etc) was thought to be "fun" and managed completely separately.
Pros:
- People identified with a team
- Team leaders had real ownership and always planned and brought cool things for their department in advance
Cons:
- Some chronic no-shows, so for example LNT was usually done by 1-2 people out of 4
- Some imbalance (food was felt to be too hard)
2025 Volunteer Shifts
We repeated the 2024 system, but merged Dining Tent and Food. An attempt was made to reduce the amount of work at food shifts by splitting up meals into "before" and "after".
Food - 26 people
Drinks - 4 people
Gayflower - 4 people
LNT - 3 people
Infrastructure - 5 people
Pros:
- Still mostly worked
Cons:
- Lots of no-shows. Small food team shifts meant a no show was a big burden (If you had a shift of 2 and one person doesn't show up, it sucks)