About – Super Summer AR

About Super Summer

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1. Church and Camper Registration
2. Fee Structure
3. Camp Rules
4. Chaperone Requirements
5. An Adult’s First Day at Super Summer

6. Medical Release Forms
7. The Philosophy of Super Summer and an Adult’s Involvement
8. Faith Decisions, Your Role, and the Role of the Staffers
9. Church Group Time

Church & Camper Registration

Super Summer utilizes an online registration to get you, your students, and your adults registered for Super Summer. During the registration process, you’ll be using this system quite extensively as you prepare to bring your students. We are constantly working to improve our registration process to make it as quick and easy as possible, while maintaining a high standard for security and protecting personal data.

Managing Registration

CREATING AN ACCOUNT

If you are new to Super Summer, you must create an account. If you are returning, you can login with the credentials you used previously.

OPENING REGISTRATION

We allow for students to be registered in two ways: you can supply your own forms to your students and enter their information into our system or you can allow the students to register themselves directly from our website. Most churches choose to allow students to self-register.

As soon as you have created your account, and opened self-registration (if you choose to do so), we encourage you to go ahead and register yourself. A common mistake Youth Pastors make is not registering themselves, which creates major problems when the housing process has begun.

ADULT CAMPERS

Super Summer relies on adults and college staffers to help us execute the logistics of camp. We would love to encourage you and your adult chaperones to help us with the camp experience by being willing to volunteer. There are several ways you can get involved: be a dorm supervisor, run a game at recreation, security, etc. Complete descriptions of the areas we need to cover are available for review when you register for camp.

DURING THE REGISTRATION PERIOD

If you have chosen to allow your students to self-register, we encourage you to regularly login and review your student roster. Because you and your church will be responsible for registration and cancellation fees, please make sure you are looking for bogus registrations and cancel any student who cannot come as soon as possible.

CANCELLATIONS

If a student needs to cancel, he or she can cancel themselves or you can cancel him/her until the last cancel date, according to the fee structure. Please remember to check the fee structure, as any applicable late fees will be assessed and your church and the student will be responsible for making those payments.

If a student cancels his or her registration and circumstances change allowing him or her to come to camp, the student may be un-cancelled without penalty, provided space is available.

SUBSTITUTIONS

Once a camp is full, the only way to bring in additional students is through substituting a camper who wishes to cancel. The website will walk you through the process of cancelling the camper who can no longer attend and replacing him or her with the new camper. The cancelling camper will be responsible for any late fees assessed, and the new camper will be responsible for the registration fee at the time they register, based on the fee structure.

Example: A student registers during the Early Registration period, but needs to cancel during the Late Cancellation period. This camper is substituted with a new camper. In this case, the original camper will be refunded the Early Registration fee and charged a Late Cancellation Fee. The new camper will be charged the Late Registration fee, according to the fee structure.

HOUSING AND ROOMMATES

Because Super Summer understands housing is a critical component to the atmosphere and camp experience, we do our very best to accommodate roommate preferences as they have been supplied by the camper. You play a critical role in helping us understand who should be roomed together, because you have personal knowledge about the students who work well together and those who don’t. Please pay special attention to the role you play in housing students.

HOW IT WORKS

Super Summer does not allow co-ed housing, even for adults. We will house all of your students, by gender, in the same dorm. We make every effort to put all of your students in rooms adjacent to each other, but in some cases, students may be down the hall or on the floor above or below. All campers should plan on 3 individuals per room, and one of those campers should bring an air mattress, cot, or sleeping bag. Specific details about the housing arrangements will be made available to you when the housing process is complete a couple of weeks before camp.

ROOMMATE PAIRINGS

As soon as camp is full, we will ask you to pair your students based on the preferences they have given during the registration process.

Super Summer will give you a specific number of rooms based on the number of students you have, in each gender. You will need to pair the students in groups of 3, although based on the number of students attending, you may have a couple of rooms of 2. If you choose to not pair your students as they have requested, we encourage you to please make sure you have that conversation with the student campers. If you don’t, the students will see their roommates when it is publicly released by Super Summer, and we cannot accommodate roommate changes once all housing is complete.

Also, if circumstances allow, we encourage you to avoid housing one student with one adult.

ROOMMATE CHANGES

You will have a limited window in which you can make changes to campers and their roommates. After this window is closed, we will be unable to accommodate any roommate change requests.

SCHOOL AND PRIMETIME ASSIGNMENTS

All Senior High campers are assigned to Schools and all JV Campers are assigned to PrimeTimes. Within each School and PrimeTime, the students are assigned to a Family Group, led by a college staffer.

SCHOOLS

All 9th-11th graders will be divided up into Schools designated by the colors Blue, Green, Orange, Red, and Yellow. All 12th graders will be in Camo. All students housed within the same room (not the same suite) will be assigned to the same color school–except for Camo students.

Students who are housed with only an adult in their room will be assigned to the same School as other students from your church.

Changes in School colors are only allowed during a limited change window AND only if an even swap can occur. After this window, we are unable to accommodate changes in School assignments.

PRIMETIMES

All 6th-8th graders will be divided up into PrimeTimes designated by the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. There are NO color affiliations with these numbers. All students housed within the same room (not the same suite) will be assigned to the same PrimeTime.

Students who are housed with only an adult in their room will be assigned to the same PrimeTime as other students from your church.

Changes in PrimeTimes are only allowed during a limited change window AND only if an even swap can occur. After this window, we are unable to accommodate changes in PrimeTime assignments.

FINAL REVIEW

After we release camp housing, roommate pairings, and School/PrimeTime assignments, we HIGHLY encourage you to contact us immediately with any discrepancies or issues. We will do our best to accommodate any emergency situations, but please be aware that any changes we make to your church will have a ripple impact to other churches. As a result, we may not be able to make any changes and appreciate your understanding and flexibility.

By reviewing all information prior to the week of camp, it will make your check-in and on-site experience a lot faster and smoother.

Fee Structure

Please click below to visit our registration site and view our current fee structure.

Camp Rules

We request and expect every camper to willingly abide by these rules for the safety, protection, and well-being of all campers–this includes adults. You can help us have a more effective camp if you can emphasize some of these rules beforehand.

Modesty

Please go over the dress code. This is one of our biggest trouble areas at camp. Our Super Summer team cannot monitor this, and it is our preference not to put our staffers in a situation where they are enforcing this rule. It is incumbent upon the individual churches to enforce the rules.

Attendance

We have a very effective way of determining if a student is where he/she should be during scheduled meetings. A student will not get away with staying in the dorm unattended nor switching any of the “groups” that they are assigned to. Our staffers are constantly taking attendance and reporting to security. Unfortunately, we will not be able to accommodate dorm or group changes unless there are extreme emergency situations.

Leaving Campus

Students are not allowed off campus. Being on a college campus is exciting, but with freedom comes responsibility. Stay on campus. No students riding in vehicles. No walking off campus. Even if some of the rules don’t seem appropriate for your group, please be consistent in helping us enforce. This helps unity among the camp.

Chaperone Requirements

Churches, regardless of number of campers, are required to have at least one male and one female chaperone (providing they have both male and female campers). We suggest that the larger the group, the more the chaperones. One chaperone for every 10 students per gender is a good suggested minimum.

An Adult's First Day
at Super Summer

When you arrive on campus, you will register your group at the OBU gym, otherwise known as the Sturgis Physical Education Center (SPEC). As you enter campus, several signs will point you toward registration, and you’ll be greeted by college staffers near the gym entrance.

Once parked, leave all items inside the vehicles and enter the gym. Students must enter the gym, along with chaperones, and sit in the stands as they wait on you to register the group. You, as the primary group contact, will come to the registration table in the gym lobby. At the table, you’ll check your group in, pay any outstanding fees, and advise us of any on-site cancellations. You will be assigned to a church group meeting spot on campus and you’ll find that location during check-in.

After leaving the registration table, take your group’s master list to the DJ at the center of the gym’s basketball court, then join your students in the stands. As space becomes available on the gym floor, the DJ will call churches down to go through the registration process.

When your church’s name is called, you and your students and adult chaperones will go to the nametag tables at the front of the gym. There are several staffers at these tables and will be handing out nametags alphabetically based on last name.

Once your nametag is received, they will go to their curriculum station. For JV students, these stations are designated by numbers 1 through 6. For Senior High students, these stations are designated by color. At the curriculum station, each person will receive a lanyard, curriculum and t-shirt. Lanyards will have nametags and keys and must be worn at all times. Their nametag is their entrance pass to meals, small groups, and worship services.

After receiving curriculum, they will go to the key line based on the dorm they are assigned to. Each student will receive a swipe card for entrance into the dorm and a key for entrance into their room. Some dorms will not have a physical key and will use a swipe card to get into the room, as well.

Once your students receive all their items, get your master list back from the DJ and take your group back to your vehicles. From there, you will unload your students at the assigned dorms.

If you are new to Super Summer, we will assign a staffer to help you through this process! We want it to be fun and as easy as possible for you.

After unloading items at the dorms, feel free to head to the cafeteria for dinner. Following dinner, all campers will participate in a mandatory orientation in the Jones Performing Arts Center (JPAC). Adults will be released from this meeting for their own separate orientation. In this meeting, we will go over specifics of how camp runs and how you can be involved.

It will also help you to familiarize yourself with the camp schedules before you arrive. You can obtain these schedules from the Resources link on this website.

Medical Release Forms

Our online registration process includes a medical release for any emergencies that may happen at camp. We will have that information and release on file. If your church requires a medical release for you to have in your possession, you will need to provide that to your students.

The Philosophy of Super Summer & an Adult's Involvement

The beauty of Super Summer is found in its philosophy and structure. Our camp emphasizes evangelism and discipleship. Plenty of opportunities exist for students to hear the gospel and for believers’ relationship with Christ to be deepened.

Super Summer places students into 3 “meeting” times in order to accomplish this philosophy. Our worship service has all 1400 campers together under the teaching of our camp speaker and worship band. Students are also placed in “Primetimes” or colored “Schools” where selected, well-trained teachers take them through discipleship curriculum written by our Leadership Team. These Primetimes/Schools are made up of about 180 students. Lastly, your students are placed in “Family Groups” which are led by our trained staffers. Family Groups consist of 10-15 students and are used for making personal, practical application of the curriculum. In all of these “meetings,” trained college staffers will be with your students, guiding them along the way and making sure everyone is where they are supposed to be.

Adults have their own “school,” led by the camp speaker, which concentrates on encouragement, student ministry training, equipping for ministry, etc. During the afternoon, adults have free time to help with recreation and/or to check out what the students are learning in their Primetimes/Schools. Due to the specific dynamic of Family Groups, we do not allow adults to participate in the Family Group time with students and their staffer.

Churches are housed together, according to gender, in dorms which allows for relationship building. Additionally, daily church group meetings and meal times allow for authentic bonding. In the dorms, churches are responsible to “police” their students and help with “lights out” and “rise and shine.”

Students housed in the same room will be in the same Primetimes/Schools. However, your entire group will not all have the same Primetimes/Schools. Over the years, we have found this to be an excellent way for students to meet new people and form friendships that last well past camp.

Faith Decisions, Your Role, and the Role of Staffers

Most worship services–whether in the PrimeTime/School meeting or in Jones Performing Arts Center (JPAC) for evening worship–will have an invitation. Since students are sitting within their PrimeTimes/Schools and not with your church, it will be difficult for you to see if your students are responding. (Several reasons exist for seating them within their Primetimes/Schools including schedule flow, relationship building, attendance monitoring, etc.) Our trained staffers will move to the lobby of JPAC at the close of services to await those that are making decisions. If you would like, you are invited to join us in the lobby during this wonderful time of prayer and connection.

Staffers will be watching for students from their small groups and are fully prepared to walk with them through any decision. However, we recognize and honor your role as their shepherd. Please feel free to handle decision counseling for your students, even if it means kindly interrupting a conversation that has already started with their staffers. If you do choose to do that, we ask that you fill out the decision guides so that we have records of whatever decision is made.

It is a mission of Super Summer to equip and empower a generation of ministers, our staffers. We give our staffers opportunities to be involved in invitations and to lead small groups so that they have the experience of leading people to Christ and to lead in discipleship. We feel that this is crucial to raising up a generation of who have a passion for evangelism and discipleship. For 30 years, the staffing experience at Super Summer has translated into ministries across our state and the world. You will find the energy, enthusiasm, and investment of our staffers to be the heart of Super Summer.

Please pray and support them as they invest in your students.

Church Group Time

At registration you will be given a place on campus to meet with your group. The goal is to find a spot in a building to provide shelter and air conditioning. Sometimes, this will put your group in close proximity to other groups. And due to space constraints, this may mean a hallway, lobby, or table in the cafeteria with several other groups. However, if you choose, you can meet outside to give you more room and privacy.

Most groups use church group time to share personal decisions and celebrate, to allow students share time of what they are learning, to foster accountability, and to make practical application to their ministry.

Please communicate to your students where you will be meeting. A group text message seems to be a great way of getting the word out so that it will be remembered. Also, OBU closes some of its facilities at certain times in accordance with our contract. Please be mindful of the schedule in your meeting.