socials and coed interaction!

[camper]

loofa's comment about her kids at socials made me think of this, it's a question for coed or brother/sister camps...

how close are your boys' cabins/tents/bunks and your girls' cabins/tents/bunks? can they see each other from standing outside their cabin and if not how far do you have to go to see the boys/girls? do your campers have coed activities during the day? do they even see the boys at their activities during the day, even if they're not coed? what about at night? do they ever have organized socials? does the amount of coed activities at your camp increase w/age, or does it stay the same? how does supervision work when the boys and girls are together?

basically just a general overview of how the coed stuff works at your camp, here's mine, we're a brother/sister camp:

you can't see our boys' bunks from girls side, they're on the complete other side of the lake. you have to walk across a path around the lake and over a bridge to get to the other side. during the day, we have no coed activities at all (except for 2 hours 1 afternoon all summer, on carnival day haha). since we do share a few facilities, sometimes we have to go to boys side for an activity during the day and vice versa, so the girls see the boys in passing and maybe say "hi!" but thats it, then we move on...and that's only a couple of times a week. some of our evening activities are coed...most of the age groups' plays are coed starting w/the 11 year olds, so the boys and the girls watch the plays together, plus when we have outside entertainers. as the campers get older, their amount of evening activities w/the boys increases. the youngest kids have a regular social once every couple of weeks and on the off weeks they have something like a coed movie or coed sports night, plus the 2 major "dances" we have during the summer. the oldest girls have a couple of socials after non-coed evening activities per week, plus they go bowling in town w/the boys 1 night and have those 2 dances. all of our socials are in our canteen, on which they attached a great outdoor deck about 8 years ago. now, the kids can go outside and feel like they have freedom, but they can't leave the canteen b/c the deck has no steps and a counselor is guarding the front door. plus, the entrance to the porch is a sliding glass door so we can watch them.

that was long, but thats it so now share yours!

[who_stole_my_loofa]

We have 6 villages at camp. Starting at the begining of the road is Junior camp Village and it is coed- not the cabins. They spend all their time together. Behind Juniors is Pioneer Girl Hill. Near Pioneer Girl Hill is Senior Girl Hill and it literally is a big huge steep hill nowhere near the boys their age. Further down the road is Pioneer Boy Hill. Even further down is Senior Boy Hill and across the road from them is the oldest age group in "the village" which is coed (obviously the cabins are not). Campers are allowed to be on the roads and at the activities near the villages but you're not allowed to be in a different village unless you have been invited by a same sex sibling, cousin, friend etc. (meaning if you are a Pioneer Girl and have a Senior Boy brother you're not allowed on his hill and he's not allowed on yours but if you have a Senior Girl sister then you can both go to eachothers hill).

The daily schedules are completely separate for everyone but Juniors and Teen Village. Boys and Girls have separate dining halls. Everyone sees eachother during passing and during like twilight(free time). All areas of camp are coed except for the villages. In terms of coed programming- any all camp activity is coed which are usually about 5 times per session. The Pioneers get 2-4 coed evening programs per 4 week session and the Seniors get 2-4 coed evening programs per week. Sometimes we have like coed milk call or the Seniors will get like special dinner or skating trips sometimes. Pioneers get 1-2 socials (dances) per session and Seniors have them every Saturday night.

Loofa

[Dave]

We're a day camp so we don't have tents and the whole nine yards. At our camp, each age group is broken up into two divisions, which eight bunks in each division (4 boy bunks, 4 girl bunks). Each division has their own pavilion. Each pavilion has eight picnic-like tables, one for each bunk. The boys are on one side and the girls are on the other side.

As for coed activities, we don't have too many of them. Sometimes we'll have an activity with a girl bunk, but most of the time we're either by ourselves or with a boy bunk.

[rockinsmiles]

You cant see the boys cabins from the girl side but they arent that far away. Basically you walk from the girls cabins to the middle of camp (rec. hall, dinning hall, and flag pole) which is um i dont know a 100 feet maybe. im really bad at measurments. anyways from middle camp you walk across a bridge that is about 5 feet long and vola! boys cabins! everything besides sleeping is done coed. we are always with the boys...we even come to each other's cabins (but not inside unless ur staff or are with a staff). since we have 100% supervision we dont really have any problems with a guy and a girl sneaking off to nowhere land. in fact the one of the oldest group's focus is outdoor living skills. they have 2 camp out days and they guys and girls sleep together during that. but the counselors lay between the two genders. it use to be that all ages did that on camp out but one year a girl made up a story that 2 counselors were having sex. and i was a CIT in her group! man did that piss the staff off.

[CAMPFRIEND]

I also work at a day camp. The kids get to choose what they want to do at camp. All our programs are co-ed. It was the same when I was at overnight camp.

[EchoLaker]

On our main village; the girls side of camp is on the other side of the flag pole - our campers know not to walk down the main path through that part of the village, but to stay on the sports pitch side of the bit of fencing, which represents a boundary.

For example if a guys group were playing baseball on our lower baseball diamond (on the girls village side), they would be fine to play there, but shouldn't cross the fence in case of a girls group getting back from say GS or taking showers.

Similarly with the girls if they were playing on our upper soccer fields, upper baseball, or on the roller hockey rink - all of which are located on the boys side of the flag pole.


In senior village, there is a boys side and a girls side; and there are paths that we as the boys in the SV take to avoid the girls bunk lines in a morning and during showers. But these are at specific times of the day where we know the rules.
There are no fences to guide us with this, it's largely a common sense issue and getting the guys and girls into routine.
The addition to the general rules - in the SV the girls can't sit on guys porches and guys on girls porches - obvious reasons when dealing with kids of a certain age.

[prettysocks]

I work at a co-ed camp, and everything is co-ed. The sleeping arrangements are as follows: 1 building, it's a long hallway, with single gender 'cabins' branching off the right side of the hallway. When you're in a cabin, you can't see into another cabin, but if you go out into the hallway, you can. And females work in boy's cabins, too.

There's never any problems; it's pretty cool.:D

[Flukie]

Hahaha... Okay, we're a GS camp, but I had to respond.

My director (who is also the site manager) lives on site full-time with her family. She has two teenage sons - the boys are going to be 14 and 15 this summer. Our girls think the boys are AMAZING. Lol. It's hysterical. They come to dinner - their whole family eats together. The older one thinks it is fantastic to live at GS camp, the younger thinks it's TERRIBLE.

The girls though think it is grand. They try to pass notes to the older one and talk about how cute he is. We try to squash it as much as possible - for his sake and his mom's. It's VERY amusing at times though.

[campCardinal]

We're very coed. You can see boys bunks from girls bunks and sometimes they are in the same building just on opposite sides. It's not a problem for us though. We have a large staff that moniters this sort of thing to make sure it's not out of hand-- and we have staff on night duty to prevent sneaking out and such.

Daily activities are also coed. Bunks travel in pairs, one boys bunk and one girls bunk together. Some activity areas are choice periods-- so counselors are just assigned to activities and the kids choose what to do.

We don't have very many problems with it either. We obviously have some of the little flirting and note writing back and forth. The biggest deal is the dance- some people want dates. Counselors encourage our campers to just go as a cabin because it's more fun than having to worry about boys and vice versa.

I think it's hysterical how all the girl campers have crushes on guys counselors. I know I did when I was a camper too. It's just so funny to me now because I know the staff members. But kids will pick activities based on which counselor is running it-- which is not the point of camp, and they eventually realize that.

[Sparkes]

Our boys line and girls line are on opposite sides of camp, relativly no where near each other. The opposing line is always off limits to the opposite sex - that includes counselors and campers. Being that the waterfront is on the girls side, the guys must stick to the path and not leave it. And when a girl is on boys line (I used to have to run down for random errands and stuff) the wholoe camp knows about it cause the campers are the first to sing out "girl on boys line". Once our campers are in the teens they can sit at the dining table with the opposite sex and have some activities that are co-ed. Our evening activities are always co-ed though for all ages, which includes dances.

We don't have problems, though the entire camp pairs off in couples, even the lower kids sometimes. And our kids have crushes on staff members too, and its so cute!