The HabForum

Pilotgirl..... It is hard to stay in touch with some alumni.... from my week that i went bakc in 99 i meet 14 other kids from around the world....

today jennifer *space Canada* and I talk daily, I have gone up to canada to visit her, and she is coming to the US to go see the launch of sts118 with me.... I always say i met my best friend at space camp... but honestly I have never heard anyone else have such luck as jennifer and I..

I also keep in touch with one other girl... i kept in touch with 2 others for about a year but slowly as time went jennifer and i lost contact with all the kids in the group, even after finding them on face book or myspace they still dont seem interested in talking again....

so if 15 kids cant keep in touch after living and "dieing" together for a week... then how likly is it really that Space Camp is going to be able to keep activily involved with 500,000 grads.....

So it seems like the over all thought here on hab1 is lets get an alumni community started.... are we just asking for Space camp and the USSRC to do it, or are we setting up an plan, and showing the big wigs that it would actually work???? In the working world i think its called a proposal... maybe if we can get a working model of the community with all the steps, all the anwsers and all the work basicilly done, and then assked them to implement it.. maybe it would be better recieved....

maybe if we can show them that there is a very big pool of Alumni that want to be truely involved then maybe we can see something different happen

How do we go about getting all the lost sheep back.. do they want to come back???

Joker wrote: (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'm going to disagree here on a point: They've always had a viable camp product to sell to alumni. Even as adults, engaged alumni are bound to be much more likely to send their own children to camp. That's the product even if there were no others.

Vincent wrote:I'm going to disagree here to a point. They've always had a viable camp product to sell to alumni. Even as adults, engaged alumni are bound to be much more likely to send their own children to camp. That's the product even if there were no others.

Feel free to disagree -- I used to sell that product, too.

Selling P/C to alumni is a second-generation upsell, not a result of specific marketing to alumni, or by bonding alumni for an experience.

If anything, it's a positive expression of remnant brand equity, assuming the parent happened to be an alumnus.

The benefit of an alumni program is to return the future goodwill, expertise, experience, and resources of the alumni to the original organization. This holds for business alumni, universities, social fraternities/sororities, you name any group with a formal alumni organization. Can you sell things to the alumni base? Sure -- anything is a market, it just depends on the product.

But what gets me is, instead of pursuing a genuine people-focused alumni organization in order to leverage the incredibly rich positives of the "future scientists, astronauts, and engineers" that have passed through the doors, the USSRC is attempting to create yet another qualified mailing list.

The AS/400 only holds good data for so many years -- after a while, your trainee address isn't valid anymore, you've moved on to other places. So even though they know you went to camp, they don't know how to find you.

Sure, we can send out e-mails, and I enjoy reading the newsletters (how many love connections are we writing about this time?) -- but I don't see the beginnings of an organized alumni association serving the good of the whole; the USSRC, the individual camp programs, past alumni, and future campers.

I was wondering...if we were to try and get some kind of alumni association set up, does space camp have records of everyone who ever attended? It would only be for their last known address, but that would be a start. I get a newsletter/magazine from both my high school and college 2 or 3 times a year. Even if alumni just got a paper update newsletter sent out to them every so often, then their address could be kept updated in a system, and the alumni can be informed of any events that are happening. I hadn't really given space camp much thought in years until last year when I joined myspace and decided to see if any other fellow campers were on it. I had no idea about the renovations or the plans for the Saturn V until recently. A yearly or twice yearly newsletter could keep alumni involved.

I would be interested in helping to get some sort of alumni assocation going. It would be great to be able to reconnect with some old friends on all of the fun times that we had, and I'm sure that others feel the same way.

Joker: I definitely agree with the points you just made as well. I was just pointing out the obvious because it seemed to me that it needed to be pointed out.

hey everyone.. finally just registered on here

I'm registered for the August session, and I know another girl that i met through myspace is also going in August. what's this about them maybe cancelling it? i havent bought my plane tickets yet so i guess i'll hold off?

oh and just skimming through the topic... space camp DOES have records of every camper that ever attended. when i called to book my trip for august she laughed b/c i had a number in the 5000's or something and she told me they're already up to 200k. it also had all the information i've ever given them.

so why is this so hard to actually spread the word about the alumni camps?!

OK so from the sound of it, this alumni thing is barely off the ground and the mothership is already getting shaky???

We have been needing/wanting an alumni organization of some sort for years. How can they wait until the last minute before the anniversary and expect an immediate payoff?? An alumni association is something that takes time for awareness to make it grow. Right now, there are so very few of us ex-Campers who are even aware that such a thing as an alumni organization even exists. I think they are doing a great job so far, but to expect a rapid influx of interest so soon from former Campers is pretty unrealistic. As more of us find out, the more it will grow.

Having listened to those of you who have graduated in recent months and years, it is obvious to me that the mothership needs to inform and raise awareness of an alumni "Life-After-Camp" program before you even get your Camp wings. Talk of alumni activities should not start months or years after graduating, it should be something that is brought up before you leave Huntsville at the end of your session. Having each other write down your addresses and exchanging them at the end of the week like we did back in my day is NOT an organization of any kind!

The mothership has the power to take a more active role in keeping up with alumni after Camp, and they should find a way to do that not only on a mothership-to-Camper basis, but on a teammate-to-teammate basis as well would be awesome. They could even include a "where is that counciler now?" spotlight. It should not just be about keeping the former Camper in-the-know about Space Camp and the rocket center, but also keeping the former Campers in touch with each other and what everyone is up to (kind of like a high school class reunion organization). Make it a social thing!

Ever hear of Friendster? Its a social networking site like Myspace, but its only open to college students (which keeps the creeps and pretenders out). Well, Space Camp needs the same thing. An elite club you can only join if you are a bonafide alumni, where alumni can keep in touch with each other, and the mothership can as well. One big beehive, and Alumni Andi could be the Queen Bee! (sorta like Tom is on Myspace -a big queen- hahaha).

On that note, i will shut up now

Harmakis wrote: today jennifer *space Canada* and I talk daily, I have gone up to canada to visit her, and she is coming to the US to go see the launch of sts118 with me.... I always say i met my best friend at space camp... but honestly I have never heard anyone else have such luck as jennifer and I..

I can honestly say I met my best friend at Space Camp in 2001. We've talked weekly if not daily since we met and these days we go to the same University. I'd say there are actually plenty of examples of people meeting their best friends at Space Camp.

I didnt say that ther were not, just that i have not heard of anyone else....

So... all this chat about alumni losing interest over the years is so sad. I have had pictures of Space Camp as my computer backdrop since the moment I returned from ASA in 1998. (Okay, there have been a few other photos in there, but 95% Camp.) Right now, it is Pathfinder, last week was the MSFC Visitor Centre wall by the gift shop, and tomorrow I may change it to the Lunar Lander in Rocket Park or one of the aircraft at AC. Then again, I have a Space Camp obsession, I think about it every day, and I haven't yet sought help for it.

I agree that keeping an alumni assosiation is difficult, especially since team mates have troubles keeping in touch beyond camp. Space Camp is trying to set up alumni events, and hopefully they will work so we will see more of them in the future. Essentially, Hab1 is an alumni association of its own, and I still promote Camp to no end to anyone who will listen.

I could go on and on about adult commitments and such - family, mortgages, limited holiday time, but I think it has all been mentioned before. I wish the best fot alumni events this summer, and wish that I could attend, but I will be there in spirit.

Space Nerd wrote:
I can honestly say I met my best friend at Space Camp in 2001. We've talked weekly if not daily since we met and these days we go to the same University. I'd say there are actually plenty of examples of people meeting their best friends at Space Camp.

One of my very best friends I met at Camp in 1992. She lives pretty far away, but we have managed to meet up a few times after Camp. At one time we were emailing on a daily basis (she was the reason I got online in the first place back in the day!). Now due to our busy schedules we talk about once a month.

And I still get an email from a couple of other former teammates every so often...

I think it is mainly a PR issue. I don't think they really did enough to hit the main stream besides myspace and other such sources. I only time I ever heard about the Alumni stuff in the main stream media was when it was stated that William Shatner would be at the dinner and that was only via websites and newspapers. I am not saying they have to get high into pop culture they just need to use more sources to say they are still around and they have an anniversary coming up. I remember looking at old Boy’s Life issues and seeing SC and AC ads I am not sure if they still have ads in there. I remember someone saying that they saw an ad for SC in a NASCAR program which seems a little odd to me, they might want to have a better marketing strategy. One time I talked to a friend about SC and he thought it went out of business because the one in Florida had closed. I had to explain to him that no it was still around and not as expensive as it sounded. I don’t think that SC has done enough in general to say hey look we are still here and we are expanding.


Just my thoughts.

I don't know if boys life still has adds or not i assume it probably does because the magazine Scouter which is for adult leaders does have space camp ads in there. As for being in a NASCAR magazine lets keep in mind NASCAR has become a huge sport in this country and not just in the south anymore. Its fans are of all ages and backgrounds so it could get to alot of people that way.

42 days until I hop on a plane to Huntsville...I cannot wait!

Well, I guess I'll be there both weekends now, anyway, so woo for me, though I'll be working down at AC. Perhaps I'll see some of you if there are any activities down at AC during the alumni camp.

Then maybe I'll see you down there this summer!

I agree that it might be hard to keep track of alumni, esp. ones who are from as long ago as I was! My address has probably changed 5-6 times at least. I'm not sure they did try, but if they tried it would have been difficult.
And email addresses are worse than snail mail addresses as they tend to change even more. There was no email when I went there (try to imagine-- I don't know if you can ). And I also agree that for some sending their own children is the way they keep their interest going (kind of in watching their own kids do what they did), I would have a problem as I doubt they want my cat or dog children to attend.

I will definitely try to attend. It looks like at least for me I will get my first session of summer school.

--des

lord knows my physical address has changed about 12-13 times since the last time I attended Camp.

email is going to be the way to go. Before you leave Space Camp, you will get your own [email protected] email address. Move three or four times, your spacecamp.com address never changes. It will then be up to the mothership to provide enough interesting correspondance and other perks to make ex-Campers continue to use and check that email address. You would also need this special type of email address in order to be a part of the Friendster/Myspace spinoff that lets Campers keep in touch after Camp...but thats another story/idea of mine. All of this could at least be a start that is better than the old system of trying to keep track of physical addresses. Hey, who wouldn't want a [email protected] email address anyway?!?! Plus it would be cheap and easy for the mothership to implement this as part of your sign-up.

I like that idea, Hotdog... the only thing is they might not want to have to have a server that large chock full of email addresses, even if they were all redirects.

There really needs to be a Myspace/Friendster-esque spinoff, it's true. That would be quite nice.

I agree with hotdog's ideas. Those really sound like the way to go.

My family has been in the same house for over 20 years now, so I haven't moved since I was 6 years old. I lived in the dorms at college, but my family still got most of my mail at home. And I was only 45 minutes away, so I could go home and get my mail anytime I wanted to.

I didn't have e-mail when I went to camp. The last time I was at camp, I was starting college in a few months and that's when I first had internet access. I was able to email people that I had gone to camp with then. I don't change my email address at all since it's the only way people can get a hold of me if they wanted to.