The only events that are organized by the camp are the evening dances. Orcas Summer Camp owns a modest sound system that is used at camp each year. The sound system does not have enough microphones, so Orcas Summer Camp would rent mics, mic stands, and mic cords from Bellingham Country Dance each year.

Each dance had a lead caller and lead musician. The lead caller is responsible for managing a sign-up sheet for all who wanted to call in an evening, and would step in to do the calling if no one was available. The lead musician is responsible for marshaling the musicians in an evening, choosing tune sets, and doing whatever else herding musicians require. There is also someone who manages the sound system during the evening.

A camp organizer would approach callers and musicians at camp and ask them to volunteer for one evening.

Dave Andrews and Sherrie Montgomery put together a tune book in 2013 that has been used by the musicians at Orcas Camp so that everyone would have access to a common set of tunes. There may be a later version of this tune book.

As a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, we file a Balance Sheet/Profit and Loss statement with CDSS each year. You can view the statements from 2014 to 2021 here. These are mainly useful for seeing what the camp expenses were each year. Note that two of the years had a negative net income because there were loan payments, not because camp expenses exceeded income.

We did not tightly budget our food and other purchases each year. Unlike most camps which have paid staff, our fixed costs are relatively low each year, about $1,000. This is about $10 per camper. All other costs for food and lodging were per camper. We paid Washington State Parks a fee per camper, and our food purchases were based on the number of campers attending.

We did have a rough idea of what was reasonable to plan for the camp menu that stayed within what we had done previous years. Washington State Parks would increase the overnight camper rate each year.

We would analyze at the end of camp where we ended up financially. When the net income for a year started dropping, we would raise the camp fee accordingly.

This might seem a bit risky, but since we held camp every year, and food costs and facility costs rose only modestly, this method worked well enough. However, we have now had a two year hiatus, and it seems necessary to draw up some kind of budget for the coming year or two, so that we can make a decent estimate of what the camper fee should be for this year.