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Let me run down the Twin Creeks Family Camp schedule for this year and compare it to 20 years ago. Lake in the afternoon. Creek walk in the evening. Campfire. Archery, Mountain biking, Climbing wall. Pool open around 5. Tennis courts available. Pet the horses if you walk by. Three meals. Go home. Now, double-checking the schedule from two decades ago. Checks notes. It’s exactly the same. Why We Don’t Change ItEvery year, Amy and I look at the Family Camp schedule, thinking we might change something. Then we don’t. Because families love it exactly as it is. Some parents attack the schedule with zeal, hitting every activity, packing in everything they can. Some sit by the pool and read while their kid runs around with new friends. Both approaches work. The schedule is suggested, not mandatory. We host a bunch of families. Each family gets their own cabin. We barely even have a discussion about changing it. They love this, so we roll with it again. Twin Creeks Hasn’t Changed EitherHere’s the bigger point. Family Camp hasn’t changed because Twin Creeks itself hasn’t changed. The core programming remains the same. The cabins are the same. Kids live in the same spots. They move in the same way through their days. The structure of staffing hasn’t changed. Everything we built, we built early. But mostly since then it’s only been improving and tightening up what already works. If some person from 2005 walked around Twin Creeks today, they probably wouldn’t notice a whole lot of a difference. And that’s a great thing. It’s what makes summer camps special places. The bones rarely change. An eighth grader knows what next year is going to look like. And that predictability is exactly why they come back. What HAS ChangedWe do add things. The additions are just deliberately small. Ping pong tables. Frisbee golf. New basketball backboards. New life jackets. Via ferrata trip for ninth graders. That’s an Italian climbing system with clip-in heights at NRocks in West Virginia. Older kids get progression, not just repetition. These are sprinkles, not overhauls. Kids don’t come back for the newest equipment or the flashiest programs. They come back for the environment. They come back for the friends. They come back for the feeling, not the things. Why Simplicity WorksSimplicity is the sell. The schedule works. The experience works. The simplicity is intentional. We’re not on a treadmill trying to top last year. No escalation for escalation’s sake. No pressure to make everything bigger and louder and more elaborate just because it’s a new summer and because kids need constant entertainment (they don’t by the way). The question we keep asking ourselves is: why change it? Balance matters. Predictability with small improvements. But the foundation stays solid. As the world outside camp gets more complex, more accelerated, more overwhelming, the simplicity gap keeps widening. That gap is 100% the value. Come See It YourselfFamily Camp helps grownups (and kids too) understand Twin Creeks so well. It’s 24 hours during the second weekend in June. So many of the same activities we’ve run for decades. Same experience your kid gets all summer, just compressed into one weekend. You’ll see exactly what your child experiences here. And you’ll 100% get why we don’t bother to change it. Family Camp is one of our favorite weekends of the year. The team, Amy, I and love hosting. If you’re considering Twin Creeks for your family, this is the best way to see what we’re about. Family Camp hasn’t changed because Twin Creeks hasn’t changed. And Twin Creeks hasn’t changed because it works. Simple, predictable, and intentional. Come see for yourself. Best wishes, Iain |
Notification text everyone wants to enjoy the good parts. We’ll throw some old gray clouds in here just sneaking around and having fun.
Minnehaha Springs, WV
Since 1944
