Vacation work diaries: Eurocamp

Emily Mason, who studies French and German at Homerton College, tells us about her time working as a Fun Station Representative at Eurocamp last summer

I’m originally from Lancaster.

After spending most of my year abroad teaching English in a high school in France, I then spent the summer before my fourth year working for Eurocamp.

Working on a campsite was something I had wanted to do since hearing about how much fun my cousin had had when she worked for Eurocamp.

It seemed like a good way to gain experience working with kids, as well as being able to keep using my French. The job involved organising and running activities for the campsite’s kid’s club, according to Eurocamp’s specific activity plans. Ahead of starting work, I attended a week-long training course in Normandy, before being sent to my campsite in Brittany. Working in a team consisting of seven English staff and six French staff, we ran sessions in the morning and afternoon for kids of all ages and hosted a variety of different activities including sports and craft, as well as using equipment such as hoverboards and land zorbs.

I plan to take a gap year while I decide what my next steps are post-Cambridge

We were also involved in the evening entertainment, including running karaoke and dancing in shows.

Although most Fun Station Representative posts don’t require you to speak other languages, the team I worked on had a mix of French and English ‘animateurs’, who were responsible for all of the entertainment on the campsite. This was particularly challenging, as I was one of the only members of the team who could speak both French and English, but it meant that my communication skills in both languages improved a lot, as I was often responsible for translating.

‘spending a summer in sunny France is not to be sniffed at!’

A key aspect of the role is, of course, communicating with holidaymakers and parents of the children who attend the kids’ club.

I was able to develop my customer service skills, making sure that parents were happy and considered me to be a trustworthy, reliable person who could look after their child. Delivering a positive experience to customers was a really important part of the role, and could be challenging when things went wrong. For example, some families were understandably very disappointed by poor weather during their stay. When faced with these problems, I was able to stay optimistic and use my positive attitude to lighten the mood and remind customers that they could still enjoy their holiday.

Next year, I plan to take a gap year while I decide what my next steps are post-Cambridge.

I would like to work with children in the future, so my experiences working for Eurocamp are sure to be extremely useful. I am also considering a number of other options.

I’ll be going back to work for Eurocamp again this summer.

If there are any students seeking vacation work who are interested in working with children, I’d advise that Eurocamp is certainly a very good option. The opportunity to try out a range of activities with a range of age groups allows you to find areas that you like the most. Plus, spending a summer in sunny France is not to be sniffed at!

Not sorted out any vacation work for this year yet? Tap a keyword (for example, ‘summer’) into our Vacancies & Opportunities database to explore some options

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