Last week, I had the joy of leading my first solo workshop at a national gathering. You may be wondering how that could be, given that I’ve been in camp and retreat leadership for 25 years and even co-chaired two national gatherings of United Methodist Camp & Retreat Leaders. It ultimately came down to the truest sense of vocation: my greatest passion intersecting with a greatest need.

My camping background is primarily rooted in programming and administration, so it might seem rather strange that my first workshop focused on maintenance, but stick with me.

Through a series of random circumstances, I found myself becoming “Maintenance Matt” for a time a few years back. I was seriously unprepared for the role, but there wasn’t much I could do about it except consult YouTube, Google, and multiple contacts in my phone and pray I’d survive the journey. This experience drove home for me how many of us in, or likely to someday be in, a position of oversight for maintenance are woefully unprepared for this responsibility. With that in mind, I decided I needed to put my proverbial money where my mouth was and do something to increase my colleagues’ knowledge and skill set.

I’m still not sure exactly where this journey will lead me, but it began with developing the workshop titled “Maintenance for Non-maintenance Staff.” I was excited when twice as many people showed up to the session in the last workshop slot of the last day of The Great Gathering. (And even more excited considering a transformer for Lake Junaluska and the surrounding neighborhood blew about half an hour before the scheduled start time!)

I set out to provide a general overview of maintenance for newbies in a nonjudgmental atmosphere, and I believe I made great strides toward that goal. One question from a participant really solidified for me the need for such a workshop: she wanted to know the differences between a Crescent wrench and Channellock pliers, as well as what each was typically used for. I’m planning to cover this topic in more detail in an upcoming post, but I was glad that two of the participants (with over 50 years of maintenance experience between them) backed me up on my first answer: as a makeshift hammer, of course! 

As I flipped the light switch off on my way out the door, a sense of relief washed over me. I had survived leading my first workshop and was leaving with a million ideas to improve and expand future ones. One of the ideas in that moment was to begin blogging about maintaining our beloved camp and retreat centers. Henceforth, this post.

I’d love to hear what maintenance topics you’d like to know more about. Leave a comment below or use the contact form to message me.