Summer camps are not only a revenue generator, they are also a marketing tool to attract new athletes to your club.

Let’s take a look at factors to consider when planning your club’s summer camps:

Budget and Staffing

In order to make sure your camps are profitable, create a camp budget that factors in costs such as facility rental/court time, staffing, and camp shirts. If you’re bringing in college coaches to run your camp, your staffing expenses will most likely be higher than if you are having your club coaches and staff run the camp. Alumni that are home for summer break make great coaches. They are looking for ways to make money in the short term and the perfect marketing asset for your club. If your camps run all day you need to factor in food for the coaches. Click here to view a Sample Budget.

If you’re running camps that are an entry point for youth and new players, try to keep summer camp prices low, typically around $10-$15 per hour, in order to make sure that cost is not a factor when parents are deciding on signing up or not. The cost can double or triple for older, more experienced athletes that expect a higher level of training.

Consider discounts or scholarships for registration fees if your budget allows. Providing a sibling discount for families with multiple children participating is a great way to encourage younger siblings to get involved. Scholarships can also be need-based, which allows athletes who may not normally be able to attend camps to participate in these lower cost, lower commitment opportunities. Older athletes could also be hired to help coach on younger courts, in exchange for credits toward their own camps.

Marketing

Know your target market when you’re creating your camp schedule. If your club’s primary market is semi-experienced 5th – 8th graders, make sure to have a number of different options for them throughout the summer. For your smaller audiences (boys, 1st – 3rd graders, high school elite, etc) consider only running one or two camps per month, so you are sure to get good registration numbers in the camps you do run.

When promoting your camps, it’s nice to offer an early bird special to entice parents to sign up early and commit to attending. Then, the players and parents typically spread the word and try to get friends to attend as well.

Camp Pass: If you have a lot of camp options and dates, your club can offer a camp pass that covers all camps for that athlete’s age.  Carolina Union has offered a Camp Pass for the past seven years.  The camp pass gets holders into any regular session camp during the course of four weeks (morning or evening session) for free. According to Brannon it has become pretty popular, and they cap it at around 75 passes. Last year they sold out of them by May 1.

The catch is, if the athletes sign up for a camp and don’t attend, they are still charged for that camp, because it costs the club money to keep a non-pass holder from attending. The value of the pass is around $1,000, and they sell them starting at $450. Most of the club’s camps run M-Th, and are between $100 and $185 each.  They go very quickly. Brannon feels it’s great for their club because it gives them reliable income numbers, and it’s beneficial for the athletes that want to train because they can be in the gym all day.

Include a t-shirt with every camp registration, to help get your club’s name and brand out in the community.
Consider running a free 90-minute camp in May to help promote the summer camps and get the word out to the schools. In general, coaches, parents and schools are more open to publicizing a free camp, so if you start with that, you can then promote your summer camps to all of those who attend or join your email distribution lists.
Type of Camp

There are variety of camps that a volleyball club can organize and run either at its own facility or at another facility such as a school, church or community center.

Satellite Camps:  These camps are typically two to four day camps that take place at a high school gym. The expenses are coaching staff, camper shirts (optional), gas, and lodging/meals if the camp is farther away. Munciana runs many Satellite Camps each summer in various states, and Camp Director Randy Gardner, stresses the importance of having good lead coaches.  You typically need one coach per court/team and want to keep the number of athletes on each court to 15 or less. In order to make it a profitable camp, it is recommended to place a 15 player minimum when scheduling a satellite camp.

Satellite Camps are typically tailored to the wants and needs of the Head Varsity and JV Coaches. Some coaches may want their team(s) to work more on offensive systems, while others may want to focus on building culture and training ball control. The high school coaches may be involved in running the drills, or they may simply sit back and observe as your camp staff trains their teams.

Team Camps: Most high school programs will look to attend one team camp each summer as an opportunity for team building and pre-season competition. Munciana runs Team Camps in June and July every summer and offers either a Monday through Wednesday or Thursday through Saturday option. Team Camps can be run for Varsity, JV and even Middle School programs.

Having multiple schools attend one team camp creates a lot of diversity for wash drills and match competition. The more teams that attend, the more a camp organizer can scale the costs associated with the camp (t-shirts and food will cost less with more athletes). Gardner recommends not having more than 15 athletes per court; 12 is an ideal number. Munciana has grown its Team Camp in Alabama to 140 teams last summer, a total of 50 schools that brought their Varsity and JV teams.

Short Skill Specific Camps: 60 to 90 minute camps that focus on skill development. Carolina Union Volleyball Club focuses its programming around training the athlete in the sport of volleyball.  They recognize, that most kids, especially middle school players, have difficulty staying focused for training exceeding 90 minutes. So, each day, they offer a morning and evening session. Each session has two camp options.  Club Director John Brannon says that breaking up the camps gives the athletes a mental reprieve, and allows both the coach and the athlete to remain focused on the camp’s purpose. A typical camp week might look something like this:

Monday – Thursday
9:00 – 10:15
MS Serve and Pass
HS Dig Your Guts Out

10:30 – 12:00
MS Ball Control Boot Camp
HS Competition and Games

5:30 – 6:45
MS Serving
MS Setting
HS Setters Academy

7:00 – 8:15
MS Competition and Games
HS Jump Serving

Elite Camp or Elite Academy: 3-5 hours long geared toward athletes competing for the top travel teams. CUVC’c Brannon realized that most of their elite level athletes don’t come to camps, unless they have something like an “Elite” Setters Academy that runs for 6-8 hours per day. So, the past two years they added in a Monday-Wednesday, 1:00 – 4:00pm Elite Training Academy. This is reserved for kids that played a 1’s, 2’s, or 3’s team the previous year, and is run like a College Prep Academy. Most of the club’s top kids participated in this camp the last two summers.

Now that spring is around the corner, families are beginning to plan for summer. The Academy’s goal is to have all of their camps set internally by February 1st and out to the public by February 15th. They have parents asking for the camp schedule in January! By early March, plan to have your camp offerings ready to promote for May and June. Then hit the ground running on marketing and promoting the camps to the youth sports market in your area.

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This article was a collaboration between several JVA member clubs including Carolina Union Volleyball Club (NC), The Academy Volleyball Club (IN), Munciana Volleyball (IN), and Michigan Elite Volleyball Academy (MI), and JVA Director of Marketing, Education and Partner Development, Briana Schunzel.