The CILT Program

Overview

The Camper in Leadership Training (CILT) program is a leadership development and service program for older Cheley campers. You’ll still be a camper, but your summer will look different.

Rather than focusing solely on your own goals and experiences, you’ll be asked to think more often about what the people and community around you need. That might mean helping a younger camper feel at home, stepping into a leadership role at campfire, including someone who is on the outside, supporting your unit during a challenging moment, or simply noticing that something needs to be done and doing it without being asked.

Some of the most important CILT leadership happens in moments that aren’t particularly exciting or visible. You’ll be expected to learn from activities, challenges, feedback, mistakes, and everyday interactions while being supported by your unit’s Assistant Director, the CILT Coordinator, your Exchange AD, and other Cheley staff.

Being a CILT Comes With Trade-Offs

Choosing to be a CILT also means choosing a different camper experience! CILTs give significant time to leadership training, service, and Exchange. Because of those responsibilities, you will give up the opportunity to participate in many activities, like the 5-day backpack and certain EBs, and may miss other campfires, time with friends, or opportunities to complete certain patches and individual goals. Those aren’t scheduling inconveniences, they are part of the program. Leadership sometimes means giving up something you want in order to show up for someone else. We want prospective CILTs to understand those trade-offs and genuinely want the experience that comes with them.

Being a CILT should be something you choose because you want to learn, serve, and lead, not simply because it feels like the next step in your Cheley Experience. Returning for another summer simply as a camper can be an equally meaningful choice.

What It Means to Be a CILT

Being a CILT means stepping into a role model position for all campers, not just your closest friends or the people in your unit. It means learning how to lead, support, listen, and serve through actions both big and small.

You’ll build skills in:

• Teamwork & communication
• Responsibility & initiative
• Motivation & persistence
• Listening, observation & problem-solving
• Creativity & adaptability
• Inclusion & relationship building
• Service and putting the needs of a community ahead of your own

These skills are developed through workshops and structured activities, but even more importantly, through real-life leadership experiences. You might help develop the Code of Living, lead a campfire, support a homesick camper, help a younger camper through a difficult moment, sweep the basketball court without being asked, adjust your plans because your unit needs something different, or recognize a need in the community and act on it. You’ll be mentored by camp staff, including your unit’s Assistant Director, the CILT Coordinator, and your Exchange AD. Throughout the summer, you’ll receive feedback, reflect on your experiences, and complete self-evaluations. You will make mistakes. You’ll have moments when leadership feels natural and others when it doesn’t. CILT is a training program, and we don’t expect you to arrive as a finished leader. We do expect you to be open to feedback, willing to grow, and committed to the responsibilities you’ve accepted.

Working at Cheley in the Future

The leadership training provided through CILT can prepare you for leadership roles at Cheley and far beyond camp. However, completing the CILT program does not guarantee that you will be invited to apply for or offered a future staff position at Cheley. We are thrilled each summer when former CILTs who are ready for the responsibilities of staff return to work at Cheley. Others benefit from additional time and life experience before taking that step. The CILT program is not an audition for staff. Its purpose is to help you learn about leadership, service, yourself, and the way you contribute to a community.

What the CILT Program Is Not

Being a CILT is not a reward, status, or exclusive club. Being selected as a CILT doesn’t mean you are a better camper or leader than someone who wasn’t selected. It means you’ve been given a particular opportunity, and the additional responsibilities and expectations that come with it.

There are some fun CILT traditions and privileges, including yellow kerchiefs, hot beverages at meals, and opportunities to spend time together as a CILT group. Building relationships with your fellow CILTs is an important and fun part of the experience. Over the years, CILT groups have also created their own unofficial traditions, such as matching clothing, pre-planned skits, or other ways of distinguishing the CILT group. These are not traditions Cheley expects, organizes, or encourages as part of the program. We want CILTs to build community, not exclusivity.

Some of your closest friends may remain campers. Others may have applied for CILT and not been selected. A CILT’s responsibility is to strengthen those relationships and the larger community—not create a divide between those who are CILTs and those who aren’t. The best CILTs don’t need the title to demonstrate that they’re leaders. They stay humble, include others, accept feedback, do unnoticed work, and treat everyone with respect. Leadership at Cheley is about service, not status.

The Exchange Experience

CILT Exchange is often one of the most challenging and memorable parts of the program. During Exchange, you’ll leave your home unit and spend approximately a week living and working in a different Cheley unit. You’ll enter a community where you may not know the campers, routines, traditions, or staff nearly as well—and that is exactly the point. You’ll:

• Support and build relationships with a new group of campers
• Assist with activities and daily unit life
• Work alongside a different leadership team and adapt to their expectations
• Practice stepping outside your comfort zone
• Learn how to contribute when you aren’t surrounded by your closest friends
• Strengthen your ability to connect and lead throughout the Cheley community

Exchange asks a lot of CILTs! You may be homesick for your own unit, miss friends or activities, feel uncertain about your role, or encounter leadership situations you haven’t experienced before. You’ll have support throughout the experience, but you should enter the CILT program knowing that Exchange is an essential part of the program. It ends with a celebratory cookout and, for many CILTs, a much broader understanding of Cheley and of themselves as leaders.

The Application Process

The CILT program is for highly motivated campers who genuinely want to learn about leadership, serve their community, and take on the responsibilities and trade-offs described above. It is open to returning campers entering their junior or senior year of high school during the year they apply. Typically, this means you will be 16 or 17 when you apply and 17 or 18 during your CILT summer. You may be a CILT the summer before or after your senior year.

Being eligible for CILT doesn’t mean you have to apply. Some eligible campers choose another full summer as a camper because there are goals they still want to pursue, experiences they aren’t ready to give up, or simply because being a camper is how they want to spend their summer. We support that choice! Likewise, we encourage campers to apply because they genuinely want the CILT experience — not because their friends are applying, because it feels expected, or because they believe CILT is necessary to someday work at Cheley.

The Application

• Applications are distributed on the second Sunday of the term.
• Completed applications are due to the Assistant Director by the third Sunday of the term.

How CILTs Are Selected

CILT invitations are based on three factors:

• Camper and staff support
• Application responses
• Director observations and recommendations

We also consider readiness for the responsibilities of being a CILT and going on Exchange, unit dynamics, and available space. No single piece determines the decision on its own.

Camper & Staff Voting

Campers and counselors in the upper four units receive a ballot describing the qualities and characteristics we seek in prospective CILTs. Before voting, Directors discuss the responsibility that comes with participating in the process. Voters are asked to think beyond close friendships and consider who they believe is ready to serve, lead, include others, receive feedback, and positively contribute to the broader camp community. Camper and staff support matters because CILT leadership happens within a community. These results are considered alongside applications and the observations and recommendations of the Directors.

Space Is Limited

One of the hardest realities of the CILT program is that we cannot offer a place to every camper who applies or every camper we believe has leadership potential. To preserve the mentorship, Exchange opportunities, and individual attention that make the program meaningful, we limit the size of each CILT group. Typically, no more than eight CILTs are selected per unit, per term. That means some campers will not be selected on their first application. Others, particularly younger applicants, may be given the choice between CILT and another camper summer because we believe there could be real value in waiting.

Not being selected for CILT is not the end of someone’s leadership journey at Cheley. In fact, we’ve watched campers receive disappointing CILT news, return the following summer, and absolutely thrive. We won’t pretend that returning is always easy. It can be difficult to come back as a camper when friends or peers have become CILTs. There may be moments when that disappointment resurfaces. But another camper summer also comes with something valuable: freedom from the responsibilities and expectations of CILT. It can be a chance to pursue other activities, complete a patch, deepen friendships, connect with younger campers, become a leader within the unit, and simply enjoy being a camper. We’ve seen campers use that summer to grow tremendously, become some of the strongest leaders in their units, and return to the CILT application process the following year more confident and prepared.

There is no single “right” final chapter to your camper experience. CILT is one meaningful path. Returning as a camper is another. What matters most is how you choose to show up for the people and community around you!

Applying If You’re Not at Cheley This Summer

You do not need to be at Cheley the summer you apply for CILT! We know there are many reasons a returning camper may take a summer away from camp, and we still want you to have the opportunity to apply. If you’re not at Cheley during your application summer, the process looks slightly different. You’ll complete the CILT application remotely and submit a recommendation from an adult outside of your family who can speak to your character, leadership, responsibility, and how you contribute to a community.

Your application and recommendation are due by the third Sunday of the term in which you’d like to be considered. Your name will still be included on that term’s CILT ballot, allowing campers and staff who know you to provide their feedback and support just as they would for applicants who are currently at camp. We consider your application, recommendation, camper and staff support, and what we know from your previous summers at Cheley as part of the overall selection process.

If you know you’ll be away from Cheley during an eligible application summer and are interested in CILT, please contact us before or during your interested term so we can share the application, recommendation information, and deadline with you.