The HabForum

I hope if they end up combining weekends its held the august weekend. I just bought non refundable plane tickets a few days ago. if its not that weekend i'll have to cancel my camp reservation

It seems more likely that they would keep the one in June b/c of all the other things happening that weekend. It's too bad more people haven't signed up.

Of course at the same time if they cancel theaugust weekend and move it to june they will loste some people who cant go in june. I bought my plane tickets now becaus ehte cost is steadily going up on them and they are already expensive i cant afford to transfer them to another date not to mention my hotel reservation which i had a hard enough time getting at a decent price. Moving that to june would be even harder due to what will probably be a higher deman for that weekend. And i checked the prices that weekend and the hotel price where i'm staying jumps up quite a bit.

I am signed up for the June camp and have also purchased non-refundable plane tickets. June seems so far away right now. I am not going to the HOF dinner the night before because I don't want to take more time off of work then I already have to-since I have a week vacation at the end of June too-I already am going to be missing almost half of June...and I just started my job earlier this month. I will be staying at camp. Only $50 more for 3 nights, you can't find a hotel for that kind of rate!

I plan on talking about alumni sessions later tonight or tomorrow with my family.

I was wondering if any alumni who aren't on Hab1 or on myspace or who don't check the space camp website regularly know about the 25th anniversary events. I found out all about the alumni camps through alumni andi's myspace. But for all of the others, was there any kind of information sent out to them?

I have seen advertisements in magazines about Space Camp's 25th anniversary but not alumni specific. Ofcourse those ads encourage you to go to space camps website and look for more information.

There is not, imo, much of an effort to reach out to alumni, which seems strange. They finally started the online newsletter, and that's how I found out about hab1. (A long time ago they had a little print newsletter that came without any effort on my part, I was just on the mailing list-- since they have no mailing list it is hard to keep track).

I am sure there are other alumni, like myself, that haven't kept coming back for whatever reason (like money!), but still look fondly and recall vividly their space camp experience. I think they do themselves something of a disservice by not keeping track of us.

--des

I was fortunate enough to have Vincent e-mail me about something else and mention it in an e-mail. Otherwise, I wouldn't have known.

Yeah...if the alumni session numbers are really that bad I really don't think it has anything to do with lack of demand.

Everyone that "actively" thinks about going to camp as an adult "knows" that the adult camps are always in the Fall.

And I'm sure that there's a huge number amongst the less hardcore Space Campers that would have the impulse to go if they only knew.

But, how do you get the word out?

As Benji pointed out, word-of-mouth is a good way to go. I've been doing my fair share of harassing friends! And hopefully you have too!

I was thinking the could put some ads out in select magazines such as the Smithsonian Air & Space Magazine.

I even consider myself pretty hard core. Without this forum, I wouldn't know about it. I would not have considered SC this summer, as I went to The Space Educator's Conference. And although it was a bit disappointing, esp since I couldn't do the SCUBA dive thing, I would not have gone to SC. But knowing there is a 25th anniversary changes my mind. They don't have these every year.

I think they could/should advertise. I think Air and Space Smithsonian would be a good idea, and perhaps a science magazine like Discover. SC *used* to run ads. I don't think they normally need to, but something like this is different.

I think adults, unlike kids, have many different things in their radars and attentions. For instance, I love to snorkel, so I go and do that sometimes and totally fell in love with Key West. And this is just leisure stuff. I have work and summer school and all that. And some people have kids. So you have to get our attention, I think.

Space Camp loses track of their alumni who may have many other things going on.

--des

I know that I have many many financial responsibilities, but I started saving anything that I got for my birthday last year and for Christmas-any extra money that I got-especially for the 25th anniversary. As soon as I found out about it, I knew that I was going to go. When I left camp in 1998, I knew that I would go back someday...but I thought it would be when I had children and would do a parent/child camp. I had a talk with my fiance about going, and he was all for it. He even wants to go someday to see all that I've told him about. Probably after we have kids and we can all do the parent/child camp.

Amen re: financial responsibilities. I just payed IRS $1700! (I have still not gotten over this one!) I need $200 in car work and $200+ in dental work-- that doesn't count the crown which I am not doing this year. I don't even have kids. I just payed out $750 for a new swamp cooler (for those of you in humid states this is a cooler that cools by evaporation of water that is pumped into a giant sponge/pad. Anyway, mine was all rusted out.) I also need blinds in my house. I owe the second half of my property taxes. So as an adult these kind of things kind of come up.


I am a teacher and we don't make a lot of money (boy is this an understatement). I really need my summer work to make up for this and get a few things I want vs need.
Alas I am having the same problem that US Space Camp is having, but maybe more people will sign up at the last minute. I know most of the classes are not full. It's possible many more people will sign up closer to the date, just hope it is not too late for them. But I do think they should advertise. I also think that Google is a possibility? (Wish I had stock in that! )


I hope that you get to go to parent/child camp with your child. I haven't really heard about it but think it is a great idea.


--des

pilotgirl21 wrote:I know that I have many many financial responsibilities, but I started saving anything that I got for my birthday last year and for Christmas-any extra money that I got-especially for the 25th anniversary. As soon as I found out about it, I knew that I was going to go. When I left camp in 1998, I knew that I would go back someday...but I thought it would be when I had children and would do a parent/child camp. I had a talk with my fiance about going, and he was all for it. He even wants to go someday to see all that I've told him about. Probably after we have kids and we can all do the parent/child camp.

This was a long weekend b/c I am really missing camp right now. I hope to if I can make a alumni session later this week.

I am speaking for the mothership.

Camp has fail? Yes... I agree with all of you and I am a card carrying member of the mothership. But this summer is where it stops… If camp is going to fail us… then we need to say we want more. When you buy a ticket to Disney… you purchase a dream. You buy into the vision of Walt himself. Mickey and Minnie are etched in out psyche, why… but cause Walt didn’t give up. Von Braun wanted to inspire dreamers, and he did. The only difference between Walt and Werner is that Walt had an army of imaginers. Werner on the other hand was shipped off to DC. What did he tell us when he left Huntsville… DON’T HANG UP YOUR DANCING SLIPPERS!!!

Let’s dance this summer. We have to wake the sleeping giant! We have to shout! LET’S GO BLUE!

Well ib hate to possibly take away a person from the august campo but i have a job interview to work down thre this summer. If i get hired i'll be there for both anniversary weekend celebrations and then some but not as a camper.

I dont think space camp has done anything wrong, the fact that they have the myspace page and did the fan contest and offer alumni weekends alone shows how much they care, and how important every single one of the kids that go through the program are to them...

its not space camps fault that Alumni are not siging up..... My boss at the ice rink here in nashville is a space camp Alumni, and i make sure he knows i know his "dirty little secert"

He wont go to the 25th anny stuff cause he just does not care, IF he did, what is he going to do with his job, his wife, and his 2 very young girls???

25 years, that means the a HUGE portion of the target alumni are all in the same boat... Work, and Family........

we here on Hab are mostly college kids... we don have that kind of commitment....

I say the real reason why it seems like space camp has lost touch with their alumni is not cause they dont try hard or dont care, i think its because the "kids" grow up and grow out.....sadly I would feel safe in saying a large protion of the zealous kids that graduate from Space Camp lose their goals and dreams of space flight some where betwen HS grad and College Grad and marriage w/ childern.....

So I say thanks to Andi for her hard work, and Cheers to Space Camp...

I will be there for sure in June. I have plane tickets. And I can't get a refund on those.

I remember how I tried to keep in touch with the people I went to camp with. It seemed like nobody was interested. The first year I went, about a month after I came home, I went on another vacation and I sent postcards out to everybody. I only got one letter back. We wrote back and forth a few more times, but that ended.

The second year that I went, I had better luck keeping in touch with one of the other girls. I last heard from her about a year ago. But it has been 9 years. I will get an e-mail from her out of the blue. I found another guy on myspace from camp.

I think that once people leave camp, many of them don't think about it again until they go again. Sure, they get excited before they go, but they don't really keep in touch with other alumni. I know that if I did, I would have spread the word about the summer camps. It is very hard to keep in touch with others after a while, since people move, people go on to college, people get married and their names change. It would be hard for space camp to keep up with alumni. This site has helped a lot. Also, now with email and the internet, it is much easier to keep up with people. I didn't have email until i went to college, which was after I attended camp. I do know that high schools and colleges keep up with most of their alumni, so there is a way to do it. But the alumni also need to keep updating their addresses to keep things current. I don't think that space camp has done anything wrong. I think the alumni don't want to keep in touch. Maybe because it would be too sad to think that they may never go back again.

alumniandi wrote:LET’S GO BLUE!

What's Michigan got to do with it?

Space Camp was a lot more magical when it was actually about the dream -- and quality and learning; and less about revenue streams, throughput, and the whims of those too far from where the action happens.

Too many possible allies of Space Camp were also its former employees. And the USSRC has done a woeful job, in my opinion, of keeping these folks engaged, interested, and motivated about the future of any of the programs.

All alumni are in the position of being ambassadors for the program, spreading the Good Word. As-is, the creation and execution of the "alumni program" is a self-serving end to marketing boomerang visits, instead of being an actual community for alumni to reconnect.

(No, that's not a slam on Charity -- several of us tried to convince USSRC management to invest in a full-bore alumni program YEARS ago, like the one from the 1980s that disappeared in budget cuts, to no avail. Interesting how it turned into a reality once the Center had a potentially viable camp product to sell to alumni. Which, once again, demonstrates that it's about throughput, numbers, and revenue; and less about the community of campers in the world.)

I'd dearly love to attend some alumni events, and I'm strongly considering it -- but I know I feel less and less welcome as the years go on.