2010 Work Trip Planning – New Process

While we have traditionally held a prolonged planning and voting process to determine our summer work trip location, we need to modify this process for 2010.

We need to change for a few reasons:

1) Our options of when to go are limited. Many students participate in summer school, and that really only leaves us a week or two from which to pick as work trip dates.

2) We’ve gotten bigger, which means we have to book earlier in the year. Many work trip locations, provided through various organizations, are already 100% filled for next summer, or have too few slots for our group.

3) It’s kind of a pain to vote… people don’t know if they’re going for sure or not… don’t really know what they’re voting for or not voting for… peer pressure plays a bigger role that actual evaluation of the options… takes multiple weeks to get votes from everyone…

The end result last year was that it took forever to get all the votes, and by the time we were ready to reserve our spot none of our top locations had availability for a group our size in the week we could go. So the election meant nothing in the end.

So, we have already conducted a survey of last year’s work trippers and their parents to understand their preferences (kind of trip, location, fund raising needs, etc.), and have taken those results as critical input to the decision process. We intend to use this process each year going forward, which allows us to reserve our spaces much earlier and with greater flexibility.

Stay tuned for more information about the trip, but be thinking about your attendance. The dates are set: We will leave July 31 and return on August 8. We’ve picked a location… but it’s a secret for now! We have 25 slots for youth reserved, and we can add some more if needed, so also be thinking about inviting a friend (or two). We expect the cost to be similar to previous years (contribution per youth attending ~$200-250, with scholarships available).

If you have questions… let me know.

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