TRIP LEADER DETAILS

Wildside has 425 spots available for students and Leaders in 2025. This does not include Staff or Workcrew. These are available on a "First come, first served" basis. Therefore, we encourage each group not to delay in registering.

Schedule for spots:

When you register and send in your deposit, you establish how many spots you are starting out with. This does not include Workcrew - only students and Leaders. Workcrew is not included in any of your spot totals until you are invoiced after Wildside. 

April 1 -  Drop-Down Date. 

You can drop spots without penalty. If you do drop spots on or before April 1, then your $100 deposits will be applied to your total invoice. After April 1, you will forfeit your $100 deposit for each spot you drop.

If you are dropping spots on April 1, we require that you send an email to communicate this: makeripplefx@gmail.com.  Texting or calling us is not sufficient. We require an email from you.

If you want to increase your spots after the drop down date, you can do so based upon availability.  This is also done via email. 

June 1 - Locked-In Date. 

We will need your total numbers and break down for guys/girls spots. This is the official student/leader total that you will be billed for. If your numbers decrease after June 1, you will be billed the full amount of any unused spots. 

We don't have many deadlines. However, make sure you are aware of when things are due. We suggest putting these in your calendar now.  Also, anytime we ask for something to be submitted or sent in, please send all info and forms to makeripplefx@gmail.com

April 1 - Spots Drop-Down Date

Send us an email and let us know if you are keeping all of the spots you originally registered for. After April 1 you lose your deposit, [$100] on any spots you drop. 

May 1 -  Workcrew Numbers Update

We need to know how many high school students you have lined up for Workcrew. This gives us time to make sure we will have enough.

June 1 - Locked In Date

We will need your total numbers and break down for guys/girls spots. This is the official student/leader total that you will be billed for.  

June 1 - EVERYTHING ELSE

June 1 is a big day. We basically need four things:

1. Final Number on Workcrew

We need your final number on Workcrew. This gives all of us time to recruit last minute people if we need to. 

2. Housing Form

We need you to fill out your group's housing form. Please completely fill it out. This is critical for us to assign lodging. This form includes not just students and leaders but Workcrew as well.

3. Dietary Needs Form

We can't order food if we don't know who has allergies, or how many vegetarians we have. Send us your form so your students can eat!

4.  Leader T-Shirt Order Form

Some groups like to order t-shirts for all of their Leaders or even students. If you'd like to do this for your Leaders and/or students, then we suggest doing this in advance. Ordering early lets us fill your orders and ensure you get all the correct sizes.  

We try to keep things simple at Wildside. There are a few guidelines that we have put in place over the years that have really helped Wildside be a great experience for everyone attending.

Electronics:  NO cell phones, tablets, etc. Just don’t bring them.  We don’t allow them at Wildside. Quite simply, students don’t need them and they are actually a distraction from interacting with friends and leaders and hearing from God, so we don’t allow them for any reason. However, we DO allow the adult Leaders to bring phones. We do not allow Workcrew to have phones. We DO NOT allow high school students who are student leaders to have phones.

Bathing Suits:

Guys - Boxer-like suits.

Girls - One-pieces or tankinis. If any of your students don't have a suit in that style, please have them bring an extra solid-color t-shirt or tank top to wear over their two piece suit.

Energy Drinks and Soda Policy: We don’t allow students to bring soda or energy drinks. They can purchase sodas one at a time at the snack bar, but we have found that excessive amounts of pop, candy and energy drinks before bed creates problems for students getting to sleep. Students are welcome to bring some snacks to share with their cabin. However, the soda and energy drinks need to be left at home.

Practical Jokes: For whatever reason, students like to plot to play practical jokes on other cabins when they are at camp. We get it. There is nothing like a good practical joke. Unfortunately, in the 25+ years we have been doing camps, we have never seen this go well. Ever. EVER. What generally happens is that practical jokes create frustration amongst campers, a Lose-Lose scenario for leaders. Spiritually, practical jokes become a distraction away from Jesus. In most other settings, we personally love practical jokes. However, we don't allow them at Wildside.

Student to Leader Ratio is 8:1.  

RippleFX suggests one (1) adult for every eight (8) students. We believe your group will be able to break up into small groups and connect with each other on a much deeper level with a student-to-leader ratio of no greater than 8:1.

Student Leaders

Student Leaders are high school students who are learning about leadership and ministry and are engaged with middle school students in a leadership role. High school students can attend Wildside as Students Leaders. They must be paired with an adult leader. Student Leaders can not lead a cabin of students by themselves. They have to have an adult with them. There must be at least one adult in each cabin. 

Background Checks

Each adult must successfully complete a background check before attending Wildside. At minimum, RippleFX requires a 'National Criminal and Sex Offender' background check. This is something that each participating group does for their leaders prior to arriving.

Workcrew is a leadership and service opportunity for college and high school students. Workcrew (WC) is literally the backbone of our camp. Without WC, Wildside could not happen. Our WC sets up, helps facilitate, tears down, and cleans up after all of our major program activities. They also help run our waterfronts, facilitate meals, and do a 1000 other tasks behind the scenes 

We encourage you as a Trip Leader to use WC as a way to develop your own students as servants and leaders.

Requirements:

This year, we will need each church to provide 1 WC person for every 10 people they are bringing. So if your group size is 20, you’re responsible for 2 WC. We round down, not up. So 25 group members  is still 2 Workcrew. WC members can be high school or college students. If you have a few more  people interested in WC than your allotted amount, that’s awesome! Just let us know how many you plan on bringing. 

We will need to know how many Workcrew spots you will be filling by May 1. 

If you are unable to fill your allotted WC spots, we ask that you cover the financial cost for them of $335/person. 

Workcrew members come to Wildside one day early to help set up camp.  Their 2025 arrival date is June 14. We ask that all WC arrive no later than 10 AM on June 14. 

We provide medical release forms that cover RippleFX, Round Lake, and partnering churches. You have to use this med form for Wildside. There is both a PDF version and a Doc that will be emailed to you once you register your group. You can edit the Doc by adding your own church's name if you so desire, but DO NOT edit any of the other wording or delete any content. This is one way to make paperwork less complicated. If your church has its' own standard medical form, you can have students complete both your own church's form and then also our form if you so desire.

If your church does online registration with electronic signatures, please be sure to use the exact legal wording on our form with whatever you do online. 

When you arrive at Wildside, you should have two copies of our medical release form for each person coming with your group. One copy to immediately hand in to our camp nurse and a second copy for you to keep and have for your drive home. 

Do not forget to send your Workcrew member's forms with them as they come a day earlier than the rest of your group. 

Dodgeball Tournament - We have the most exciting annual dodgeball tournament that your students will ever experience. Cabins dress up in uniforms and compete with their fellow campers. It's a great way to build cabin unity and get bragging rights for a few days. 

Theme Night - Each Wildside, we have a theme night which changes year to year. Students and Leaders get dressed up, have a fun dinner, and do some crazy activities built around the theme. The theme for Wildside 2025 is Country Western! All things cowboys and cowgirls!

Color War - The Color War is always a memory maker for students and leaders alike. All you'll need for this is a white  t-shirt. Be sure to put an extra white t-shirt on your students' packing list.

Auction - We will auction off all sorts of items that students can bid on individually, as a cabin, or as a group It is a lot of fun and students love bidding on the crazy stuff we offer. Each year, we donate the proceeds of the auction to support and bless a non-profit ministry. Students typically bring $10-$25 for the auction.

Snack Bar - We recommend students bring $45-$55 if they wish to buy both snacks and merchandise at the snack bar. For just snacks, $15-$20 will be sufficient.

Once you register your group for Wildside, we will send you an email with everything you need to promote Wildside. 

Promotional Videos

We provide a promo video. 

Sample Brochures

Each group develops their own brochure. However, we do have some samples that you can adapt or steal verbiage from.  

Sample Parent Letters

We have a sample parent letter for you to edit for your own needs. This is a letter that RiverTree sends out a couple weeks before Wildside. It is a summary of a bunch of details for parents. So feel free to use this how you want and edit it to meet your needs.

We post photos and updates several times daily for parents to see the amazing experience their kids are having.   

We ask that you share our Facebook page with everyone who is coming so they can enjoy the updates. Here's the link:

https://www.facebook.com/makeripplefx/

This takes pressure off of you to takes photos and make posts so you can be present with students. A professional photographer is with us the entire week. He takes amazing pictures which you can download when you get home.