These starting suggestions are designed to serve as a guide to our massive email logs along with providing some general starting suggestions. So, here goes...

1. Use your intuition: We didn't have a guide, and this one certainly isn't complete. Your intuition is your best guide. You know what you're doing. Believe it.

2. Check the Sunday entries first: When going through the emails, the most useful emails are probably the ones logged under Sunday. We held (and possibly still hold) our weekly meetings on Sunday, so our meeting minutes are logged under Sunday. They might be a helpful guide for what to do every week, but there are also some weeks when we were very productive, and some things which stayed on the todo list for weeks at a time, so don't be overwhelmed (or underwhelmed I suppose) by what you see listed.

3. Check out your "competition": Find out if there are any groups similar to the one you're planning to start already existing on campus. Find out what makes them different from the one you plan to start. Decide if you really want to start yours. And if you still do, be ready to sell that difference to potential counselors and to administrators. (Co/Motion wasn't the only program of this sort which Swarthmore students could be counselors in at the time that it started, but it WAS the only program which worked with the Swarthmore community, both faculty and staff, and worked to bridge the gaps between races and economic backgrounds. Co/Motion, as a program that was starting, also offered potential counselors the opportunity to build the program into exactly what they wanted - the people who are eager for this challenge are the one's you'll need the first year, don't be afraid to advertise that they'll be building a program from the ground up. Many people told me there weren't enough students on campus to provide counselors for Co/Motion and the already existing program - turns out there were!)

4. Get the Admin on your side: Find out if there is a director of community service at your school, if there is, talk over your ideas with him/her. If there isn't, go to the next logical person - an education faculty member, a dean in charge of multicultural issues, a vice president - anyone you think would have good advice, knows the campus, and has some sort of power. (Co/Motion forgot this step at the beginning of the process and had to make up for it painfully later. It's possible to do later, but definitely NOT recommended!)

5. Use your people resources: Talk to anyone you can find who's started a new club, or a program like the one you plan to start, or ever been a camp counselor. They have something to teach you. (Co/Motion was lucky, we had SCLP counselors still in the area who talked to me and gave me some of their old files which, yeah, I still need to return...)

6. Find a buddy if possible: Find someone to help you start the program. They don't have to stick around for long or make any big commitment, but when you're setting up your first meetings with new potential counselors, doing those first meetings with administrators, etc, it's good to have someone to brainstorm and run meetings with. (Stefanie Fox '04 agreed to work with me until Co/Motion got off the ground. After about a month I had a core group of other dedicated counselors, and by the second semester Stefanie mostly stopped coming to meetings.)

7. Find out about liability/insurance issues early: Find the person at your school who knows about hold harmless forms and what issues you may face in terms of liability in running a camp. There are all sorts of things you may not think about that can determine what ends up being your long term plan, what curriculum you plan, etc. (Co/Motion was directed by past SCLP counselors to talk to Karen Mazza, now gone from Swarthmore. She was amazing and incredibly helpful. She helped us design hold harmless and medical release forms specific to the issues and needs of our camp. For example, since we discuss sex-ed we have a special presentation for the parents during the Spring and they sign off on the information that we'll be sharing with the campers. We also have to be careful of transportation - we can only take campers off campus to public places and on public transportation.)

There's lots more things you need to know of course... funding, curriculum, counselor group management, institutional support, parent support, etc. Just keep checking back with suggestion #1 for those, and if that doesn't work, please feel free to email comotion or email me directly.

Good luck!
Sorelle Friedler '04
(sorelle AT sccs.swarthmore.edu)