Monday, March 31, 2008

Tours on the Weekends.

One of the most fun parts of getting ready for another camp summer is giving tours to prospective campers and their families.  Usually Stu or Tom is the leader on any given Saturday or Sunday.  We head up there with our little blue CK tour bag filled with photos, sample menus and schedules, sample summertime issues of the "Sundial" and spend an hour to an hour-and-a-half with each family.  It's pretty quiet and lonely on campus without all of our campers and staff (and Centenary is a very dead campus on the weekends) so we have to do a good job helping our guests imagine all the fun and activity that's part of our summer camp world.  We stand out at the sundial and talk about activities and camper choice (and snack, of course).  We talk about bunk groups and go into the dorm that camper would live it.  Everyone's always curious what a dorm room and the bathrooms look like.  We tour through the gym and the pool and go out to the athletics fields and explain where we have skate park and tennis and gymnastics.  Of course, we go up to the dining rooms and talk about what we serve at meals.  It's amazing that each tour (and we've given many hundreds by now) is completely different from all the others because each family has its own kinds of questions.  Some want to hear a lot of details about the activities, others are concerned if there will be enough choices of food, still others want to know how friendly the other campers are and how easy it is to make friends at camp.  Answering questions is the best part of the tours.  (We'll share some of our favorite questions in upcoming blogs.)  We do these tours the year-round: fall, winter and spring.  Sometimes we're lucky enough to have one of our counselors, staff assistants or even an older camper join us for a tour day in Hackettstown.

Tom

A quiet quad on a late March day.  The photographer stood
there for ten minutes and not a single Frisbee flew by!

The patio outside Tilly's.  No umbrellas, no water bottle
filling stations, no chess, no canteen snacks . . . until summer.

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Interesting people in the CK-NJ office: Jeremy, Tom and Chicken Dance Elmo.

You thought there were only two of us in the year-round office of Campus Kids-NJ?  Ah, but you are forgetting our ever-present friend, Chicken Dance Elmo.  Several years ago camper Sara G. presented him as a gift to us to commemorate our summertime weekly Chicken Dance frenzy in the younger campers' dining room.  Before lunch ends on Fridays, Linda (Sara's mom, who is in charge of the foodservice), her staff, our campers and our staff jump up to the beat of the boom box and do the Chicken Dance.  Linda found out years ago that she had to coerce some folks to dance, so she started handing out candy treats and, of course, that is now part of the tradition that will never die (and is probably the reason that campers from the big kids' dining room sneak on over for the dance).

Back to Chicken Dance Elmo, when you press his foot he sings the song and dances the dance.  I find that it's a great way to annoy Jeremy if I'm feeling mischievous.  Elmo comes with me to summer camp and stays in my office.  The senior girls in Van Winkle know this because they sometimes hear Elmo doing his song and dance as they pass by my office on their way to their upstairs dorm.  Next time you're in the Madison, NJ area, come on by our office and shake your butt with Elmo (and Jeremy and me).  Unless it's June, July or August, in which case you have to come to camp in Hackettstown, which is probably the best place to be in the summer anyway.

Tom

Tuesday, March 25, 2008

How to get a camp director to wear a jacket and tie.

Most camp directors have an extensive wardrobe of shorts and t-shirts.  Some (like yours truly) enjoy the fact that they don't often have to wear traditional "business attire".  It takes a lot to get me to don a jacket and tie and shoes that can be shined.  But that happened recently at the annual fundraising dinner for SCOPE, a foundation that raises money for kids to attend non-profit camps.   This fundraising effort makes it possible for thousands of kids to attend camp who otherwise couldn't afford it.  The non-profit camps these kids attend are all ACA-Accredited and provide some of the very best camp programs available.  So . . . about five hundred of us (including Jeremy and I) enjoyed a fun evening recently at the Tri-State Camp Conference in Atlantic City, where over $200,000 was raised for SCOPE.  This meant that Jeremy and I had to dress up!  We dusted off the fancy duds and made ourselves presentable for the evening.  You can see from the photo (Tom with CK-Minisink director Jani) that it is possible to get a camp director to wear a jacket and tie.  We're in the process of finding someone who might have snapped a shot of Jeremy in his outfit and we'll share that if we can track it down.

Speaking of supporting camps for needy kids, some of you may know that I was a counselor and camp director at Trail Blazers for over ten years (in the 70's and early 80's).  This is a serious outdoor camp in northwestern NJ where everyone lives in tents, tipis and covered wagons, grows vegetables in the garden, cooks their meals outdoors, swims in the lake and lots of other wilderness-type of activities.  It's an amazing experience that has a huge positive impact on the campers it serves.  These are kids who have a tough time finding the opportunities that many of take for granted and Trail Blazers builds them up as confident, capable young people who become happier, more successful adults because of their camp experiences.  Trail Blazers depends completely on donations.  Campus Kids is one of their many donors.  If you would like to help out this extremely worthwhile camp for disadvantaged children, please visit their website and make a gift: http://www.trailblazers.org/Donate.html .  It's a fantastic investment in the future of some wonderful kids.  I'd be glad to talk with you more about Trail Blazers at any time.

Tom

Friday, March 21, 2008

Global Rover 2008

Something mysterious happens at the CK-NJ office around this time of year: we plan next summer’s Global Rover!

This exciting event started two summers ago.  You can read about the first Global Rover (2006) here: http://www.campuskids.com/nj06/articles/Global%20Rover.htm  As you can see, it was born out of desperation to find a cooler place during one of the hottest weeks in memory.

Last summer (2007) we weren’t so desperate, but we wanted to recreate the surprise of a Global Rover for the whole camp, which you can see here: http://www.campuskids.com/nj07/Journals/global%20rover.htm

Debates are raging in the camp office these days about what the 2008 Global Rover should be.  The only thing we’ve agreed on so far is that it will take place sometime during the first two weeks of camp.  Other than that, we know that, once the decision has been made, the few who know will be sworn to secrecy.  The penalty for betraying that trust will be far more serious than enduring one of Ryan’s Choice of Very Bad Things (shudder!).

Why is this event called Global Rover?  Several people take credit for the naming, but Jeremy probably has the most accurate version.  Maybe we’ll get him to blog about that soon.

Tom

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Stu returns from CA with new pics of Charlie!

Those of you who keep up with "camp family news" know that Stu's first grandchild, Charlie, was born last September to Mike (Stu's older son and former CK-NJ counselor) and Paula in California.  This guarantees that Stu will be making regular trips out west.  He's just returned from a spring break visit bringing new pics of Charlie.  We share two of what are probably hundreds(!) with you here.  By the way, Mike is a writer (TV and movies) and Paula is an actress of both stage and screen.  Stu's younger son, Greg, is also out in California, also a writer.  For those of you who are just joining our camp family, Stu is the associate director and program director at CK-NJ, where he will be spending his 17th camp summer this year.  (We'll let Stu himself tell you how many previous summers he has spent at other camps.)  Many of you first met Stu when you took a tour of our Hackettstown camp; Stu gives many of our tours for prospective campers during the fall, winter and spring.  You'll see lots of Stu's camp photos on the website each summer, but he actually spends most of his time creating the daily program activity schedule at camp, which is based on the individual daily choices of every camper.  Yes, that IS complicated and yes, Stu's really talented.  Ask us to tell you the story sometime of the day Stu presented a workshop on our "camper choice" system to a group of directors from other camps (hint: they couldn't believe that we actually do this!).  You can keep in touch with Stu at stu@campuskids.com .

Tom

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Leadership Team Winter Meeting

Not everyone knows that our Leadership Team has an annual winter meeting to plan for camp.  This year we met on February 15-17 at a conference center at Rutgers University.  We had our four head counselors: Nikki (younger girls), Kali (older girls), Andy (younger boys) and Dave/"Heath" (older boys).  We also had our activity coordinators: Katie (fine arts), James (performing arts) and Donald (athletics).  Rounding out the team were Stu (program director), Jeremy (assistant director), Sara (office manager and evening programs/special events) and me.  People traveled in from Pennsylvania, Maryland, upstate NY, Rhode Island, NYC, NJ and Scotland (that was Katie).  If you can imagine cramming into 2 1/2 days a non-stop discussion about every aspect of camp, then you begin to get the idea of what this weekend is like.  It's both fun and exhausting.  Of course we manage to also have bunk meetings and play a few games (like shuffleboard, ping pong and jookie), so it's not all work.  But even when we are working we are having fun because it's all about camp!  Once again, I want to thank all the campers, parents and staff of Campus Kids - NJ who have taken the time this year to send in suggestions about camp; they become part of our plan for the summer.  Planning each summer is a year-long work of love and excitement, but I always feel like the winter planning retreat is like the official kick-off for the next summer.

Tom

Monday, March 17, 2008

Welcome to the CK-NJ Weblog!