As I speak to camp professionals across the country, I continue to hear incredible stories of impact from the summer. As campers and counselors formed friendships face to face and enjoyed fun and challenging activities, they were also building the exact skills that will be most crucial in their AI-driven futures. In so many ways, it was an excellent summer.
Of course, our national camp community continues to grieve for the camp tragedy in Texas. At ACA, we remain hard at work to support not only camps in Texas, but camps across the country, as we strive to distill what we can learn from this unimaginable tragedy to help us all keep our communities safe in the future.
As a result of the Texas flooding, media across the nation shone a spotlight on ACA accreditation. Through that media attention, we worked to help both parents and lawmakers understand that ACA accreditation is an incredibly important program that goes beyond state regulation to engage camps in a rigorous process, including a third-party review, of a wide range of health and safety standards. We continue to work hard to help parents understand what a useful tool accreditation can be in selecting a camp. And as you can imagine, the National Standards Commission will be considering the learnings from this tragedy and the impact they may have on our standards.
Another way ACA is working to support camps in light of this tragedy is by hosting our first-ever Climate Symposium. This virtual conference will be held March 30–31, 2026, and will feature specific education around emergency planning related to national disasters. More immediately, we will continue to provide educational resources to support camps in the review of their emergency plans and policies, including the article “Beyond the Drill: Building and Practicing a Crisis Plan at Camp,” in this magazine.
Beyond reviewing your emergency plans, I imagine that your planning for next summer is well underway. As we think about the future of our industry, building leaders of tomorrow is critical. We are only just beginning to understand how technology and AI are rapidly changing the shape of how we work and interact, which makes leadership that much more important.
In this issue of Camping Magazine, we focus on several aspects of leadership development, which we hope will help you on this journey. “Strategic Planning: A Window into Leadership Potential” connects your organization’s strategy to your leadership-development plans. We tackle the age-old consideration of power versus persuasion in the article “Influence Is the Real Gift of Leadership.” We additionally introduce a novel consideration regarding maximizing your potential as a leader in “The Leadership Skill You Never Knew You Needed: Managing Decision Fatigue.”
As always, this issue of Camping Magazine also contains other nuggets and bits of wisdom to help you on your journey. As we approach this holiday season, I am personally thankful for the opportunity to work in such an impactful industry.
And I continue to thank you for the hard but meaningful work you do every day. There is nothing more important.
