A new model for the old-school camp
Last year we bought an old school camp. I mean, why not?
It’s in Raglan, New Zealand, home of famous surf breaks and passionate people who give a damn about the planet. The camp itself is set on 100 acres of 100 year old native bush forest. It overlooks the surf breaks and the Tasman Sea and when you get here, you almost disappear into the fern fronds and the peace and tranquility under the maunga (mountain) Karioi.
The camp has been here for near 50 years, set up by some local teachers in the early 70’s to be a place for kids to come and reconnect with the natural world around them. Since then it has served the community in many forms, as a camp, a venue, a lodge and a surf school. Before the camp was even built the maunga has been a special and significant place for local iwi and hapu for hundreds of years. A place for people of all ages to come and connect with something special. An energy of sorts. Some say there is a giant crystal under the maunga, or it’s our tupuna or it’s just the good clear air and water. I don’t know what it is but I’ve noticed it. I feel better when I am here. I get perspective on things.
And so, 18 months ago when we were asked to come have a look, we did and we instantly knew this was the place for the next part of our mission with our charity — The Pam Fergusson Charitable Trust. We would revive the old school camp and turn it into something special with the purpose of teaching kids how to innovate with technology and invent a better future for us all.
We didn’t quite know what or how but we knew we had to do it. It was jokingly referred to as our “We Bought a Zoo” moment, in reference to the Matt Damon and Scarlett Johansson movie where a family buys an old run down zoo and then makes it something wonderful. We didn’t know what our kind of wonderful was yet, but yeah, it’s kinda like that movie but without the sick lion.
Connecting with the community
In February we asked 80 passionate educators, technologists, scientists, policy makers, locals and entrepreneurs along to the camp for a day, to help us brainstorm what we could do with the place. We thought 40 might turn up if we were lucky. 110 people turned up. It was an epic day.
We had people from all over, from Wellington to Northland. Rocket Lab, Xero, ATEED, Waikato District Council, Vend, Manta5, the Ministry of Education, NEXT Foundation, local iwi, hapu, Raglan locals and the neighbours over the fence. We filled sheets of butchers paper with sketches, post-its filled every surface available in the main hall. Ideas just flowed, and themes began to emerge. Themes around the environment, education and innovation. We wrapped the day up with The Time Travellers’ Convention, a party where we all came as a time traveller from a particular time and place. We had travellers from many timelines all travelling with the same message for each other. We need to care for our home, our planet. Some of the future timelines were not looking so good.
Since that day in February, we have been trying to distill the 100’s of ideas into one plan for the lodge and camp, and today I am very excited to let the world know what we are doing, and also give a very special invitation.
Today we are open as the Institute of Awesome, or In Awe for short — An enviro-tech camp and retreat and we are sharing our plan and ideas in the hope that others will follow suit and reboot camps all around the world with a similar model.
The school camp — rebooted.
Firstly, it’s a school camp. Our lodge and cabins sleeps up to 100, with room to add more. But to the kids it’s not a camp, it’s a top secret research facility. When they get here we tell them we are working on secret projects and if they want to help they can, but they can’t tell anyone. Not a soul 😉.
The secret projects are citizen science projects using technology. We give them a mystery to solve, and then arm them with some science, some technology as well as traditional tools to go and solve the mystery. Someone is polluting the harbour, and we don’t know who. Let’s get out there and solve the mystery. Think of it as a real life Scooby Doo episode.
While the teachers are there we show them how they can continue the experiments in their school for more kids to get involved. They can see if someone is polluting their local streams too. And so the learning continues when they leave the camp too. This is how we make the impact far wider than the number of kids who come to camp. By inspiring and teaching the teachers we arm them with new knowledge and ideas they can take back to the class.
Each school group that comes replicates the learnings to others in their school through the experiments they learn and the gadgets they build.
Our secret projects will change over time, next might be about solar and wind energy, growing food or managing pests. They will all use technology as part of the solution.
The idea is we demonstrate to kids how technology is going to play a part in the solutions to the worlds problems but technology alone is not the solution. Innovation, team work, science, experimentation, traditional knowledge and much more are all important ingredients to solve problems.
We can host 3,000 kids a year, and if each class goes back to their school and takes the projects with them, then 3,000 can easily become 30,000.
Funding it with help of innovative companies
The schools camp model everywhere is struggling. The costs of running a camp are increasing, lots of camps are closing and many communities just can’t afford to send kids to them. So we needed to come up with a way to make the camp accessible to all schools at a low cost.
We got feedback from those who visited along the lines of “This place is awesome, I’d love to stay here” or “how it would be cool to do a team retreat here?!”. So we decided, YES that would be cool and that would be a great way to engage with industry and the community too.
To help subsidise the camps for kids we make the lodge and camp available to corporate or community groups to book and use. And every time they do, every bed booked sponsors 2 kids on camp.
It keeps it simple. 1👨🏼🦰 + 2 👧🏾👦🏼
We also invite companies who are involved in science or technology to come and give back by helping us upgrade the camp, or donate old equipment or bring the latest ideas and technology they work with to help us come up with new secret projects for the kids to work on.
We can facilitate your retreats, bring speakers to inspire, who knows maybe I can help with that too, we can cater with our commercial kitchen and even help provide entertainment and activities. It is really a special venue.
We’re open now
As of September 2019 we are open for schools, communities and companies to come stay and start inspiring the next generation of future innovators. We are at humble beginnings but already schools and groups are already booking in for spring and summer.
We would love to see you here. We can’t make the camp work without you.
If you want to have a team retreat or offsite with a difference, then book in now and sponsor a bunch of kids on camp.
We’re open sourcing it
We are going to share our journey with the camp. We are at day 0 today. We have an old lodge and camp and it requires a lot of work and we will learn a lot as we go, so we are publishing our learnings on our blog, called We Bought a Camp. This is our first post of many more to come.
We will share ideas, plans, success and failures. We will share the workshops and know-how so other can pick them up and try them out at their camp, or in their classroom. If others have ideas to contribute then they can too.
For now, we have put all the “post-its” into a big Google sheet. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/11g50sgaXKb1eczPF4mZ6b2pJDQ3lGCvyw1TzmoSB35g/edit?usp=sharing
Finally, How can you help?
Firstly, the camp’s primary goal is to host schools on camp. If you know of a school who would like to go on camp, let them know about www.inawe.nz
Secondly, it is funded by companies wanting to support our goal by simply choosing In Awe as your next offsite or retreat venue. If you know a company who wants to have a team retreat or offsite somewhere where they can give back, and have an awesome stay, let them know about www.inawe.nz
If you are involved in science or technology and want to help us develop the camp with technology or just swing a hammer, get in touch.
Finally, we have some big projects lined up that we will need some support with. We are constructing a giant maker space and workshop for the kids to turn their ideas into things. We are taking the camp off-grid. And we need to build some new learning spaces. So if you can help with making any of this happen though sponsorship or grants, let us know or email me vaughan@inawe.co.nz.
Thank you to all those involved to date, there are hundreds of you out there and we really wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for your support and ideas. Thank you.
Mā te wā. See you in the ferns soon.
