That was the message handed out on Monday by the consultants hired by the US Space & Rocket Center to figure out why camp attendance has declined steadily over the past few years.

For more than five hours Monday, the bosses of U.S. Space Camp heard what others think about their business. They listened as both in-house managers and hired consultants presented results and recommendations from recent surveys aimed at finding out how to reverse a decade-long decline in camp attendance.

The bottom line: Spend more money to spread the word about Space Camp and what it can mean to children.

The Huntsville Times has a wonderful piece of coverage on the results of the meetings as well as a rundown of the information the survey generated.

Read the whole thing here.

Personally, from the standpoint of a camper, I think the outcome is somewhat a mixed bag. On one hand, the USSRC will probably spend a great deal more on advertising in an effort to get word out about Space Camp (a long overdue measure). On the other hand, if they blindly follow what they think the results say, we’ll see a greater emphasis on shorter duration programs.

I’ll guess we’ll just have to sit back, watch, and hope for the best!

A big step in the effort to figure out how Space Camp officials can boost attendance and profits happened on Monday, as was pointed out by this (brief) story posted today at local Huntsville news station, WAFF.

The article:

Officials at the Space and Rocket Center are working together to come up with ideas on how to increase enrollment at the Center’s Space Camps.

Some space camp programs have seen a 1% decrease in enrollment over the last two years, but that’s enough to concern leaders.

They spent Monday learning about other successfull camps in the country. Marketing ideas were also discussed, hoping to make the difference.

A nice story was published in the Huntsville Times on Sunday stating that Space Camp will soon be holding a retreat to help them determine why Space Camp attendance has been declining for the past 10 years.

Space Camp has also hired an independent firm to help them gather statistics and opinions from those who have and have not attended Space Camp in an effort to help solve the problem.

The Alabama Space Science Exhibit Commission, the board that oversees the U.S. Space & Rocket Center, will be looking for answers at a retreat this month.

Are kids less interested in space? Are more interests and distractions such as the Internet and video games competing for attention? Do new school schedules and shorter summer vacations make Space Camp harder to fit in around family vacations, band camps and other activities?

Or is something else at work, something that is, as yet, unidentified?

The whole article can (and should) be read right here.

It was posted in the HabForum and I thought it was worth noting here that Joel Walsh (see here if you don’t know who I’m talking about) has left Space Camp!

Joel was truly an institution at camp! Virtually every time I went there, there was Joel. Yes, while Space Camp is an ever-changing machine, Joel was one of its constants.

Until now.

Best of luck to him in all of his future endeavors though!