Launching a holiday camp is a hundred small tasks with a hard deadline: day one. This checklist covers the lot — venue, safeguarding, staff, money, and the week-one logistics that separate smooth camps from chaotic ones.
Use it eight weeks out. Adapt freely; skip nothing in the safeguarding section.
8 weeks out: foundations
- [ ] Venue confirmed in writing — dates, times, access hours, wet-weather indoor option
- [ ] Public liability insurance covering camp activities and dates
- [ ] Pricing set per week and per day (see how to price a summer camp)
- [ ] Sibling discount policy written (use the discount policy template)
- [ ] Sessions created with capacity per week — in a booking system, not a spreadsheet, so availability is live and overbooking is impossible
6 weeks out: safeguarding and staff
- [ ] Staff ratios planned per week (follow your governing body's ratios; younger age groups need more)
- [ ] Background checks/safeguarding certification current for every staff member — no exceptions, no "pending"
- [ ] First aid coverage confirmed — at least one qualified first aider per site, per session
- [ ] Staff hired for week one — with a named deputy for every lead
- [ ] Emergency procedures documented: fire, injury, missing child, severe weather — with assembly points and the person responsible for each
- [ ] Incident report process defined (paper or digital), and staff know where it lives
4 weeks out: registration opens
- [ ] Registration form collects the safety data: medical conditions, allergies (flag anaphylaxis explicitly), dietary needs, two emergency contacts with relationships, pickup authorizations, photo consent
- [ ] Payment taken at booking (or deposit) — "pay later" registrations are week-one no-shows in waiting
- [ ] Waitlists enabled for every week — sold-out weeks capture demand instead of losing it
- [ ] Booking confirmations automated — every family gets session details, what to bring, and site contact info instantly
- [ ] Invoices automatic with payment references — so matching camp-week payments takes a glance at your bank statement instead of becoming a July spreadsheet project
2 weeks out: parent communication
- [ ] Welcome email scheduled to every registered family: dates, times, sign-in/sign-out process, what to bring, medical/medication handover procedure
- [ ] Sign-in system chosen — rosters on phones beat paper at the gate, especially with medical flags attached
- [ ] Staff roster published — who leads which group, per day
- [ ] Equipment check against the program — per activity, per week
- [ ] Weather plan ready — the wet-weather schedule and the message template that tells 80 parents about it in one send
Week one: daily rhythm
- [ ] Morning: rosters live on staff phones (attendance + medical flags), sign-in at the gate, medication handover logged
- [ ] Midday: spot-check attendance vs. bookings — discrepancies found at lunch, not at pickup
- [ ] End of day: attendance marked, incidents logged, no-shows noted for same-evening follow-up
- [ ] Evening: payments check — anything unpaid since booking gets a friendly reminder (templates here)
The forget-me-nots (the ones that bite)
- Late pickups: policy stated at booking, staffed at close, fee defined in writing
- Allergy cross-contact at snack/lunch: seating or table plan if severe allergies are present
- The unbooked sibling who turns up Monday: your capacity system is the source of truth — have a "book on the spot" flow ready
- Refund/transfer requests: one policy, one person deciding, applied consistently
- Next-year data: fill rates, waitlist depth, and no-shows per week — captured now, priced against next summer
Why system-run camps feel different
Every checklist item above is doable manually — that's how camps have always done it. The difference at scale is that each manual step becomes a failure point exactly when volume peaks: registration day, week-one Monday morning, the rainy Thursday.
Camps running on Club Term collapse this checklist considerably: holiday-club programs with per-session capacity, a parent portal with self-service booking, automatic invoicing with the invoice number as the payment reference, sibling discounts applied at booking, coach rosters with medical info on every phone, and a waitlist that shows you exactly who to call when a spot opens.
Set up your camp → — and good luck with the launch. The camps that fill fastest are the ones where booking takes parents ninety seconds. Once launch week is behind you, keeping every session filled is the revenue game.