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| This is the official Campus Kids-NJ Blog, where Tom and Jeremy write about what's going on at Campus Kids year round! Check back often. If you have questions, suggestions, ideas, requests or anything else, we'd love to hear from you: tom@campuskids.com or jeremy@campuskids.com | ||||
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December
2008 |
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December 31, 2008 Summer in December It really feels like summer
when camp people come over to visit. One of our final visits of the year
was from Paula and Stevey, who dropped by to talk about some new staff
positions we are creating for Summer ’09. We’ll be adding some support for
the activity coordinators in sports, aquatics, fine arts and performing arts
– to make our program activities even better than they have been.
We’ve had several other
visits during the month as we continue to prepare for our next spectacular
summer. Dave M. braved a really bad snowstorm to drive over and talk about
sports and other camp activities. Donald came on a much sunnier day, also
to talk sports as well as aquatics. Lauren B. and Alexa L. (former campers
and staff assistants) each came by to talk about being counselors next
summer (our kids are growing up!). We even had dinner this month with two
alumni -- Mel and Dani -- who are now attending one of our local
universities.
A Day At Blair Academy We had a busy day in Blairstown yesterday. Tom and I met up with Stu out in Parsippany and drove out to Blairstown to go through the dorms and get the information we needed to finalize some planning. Moving to Blair Academy is a big change. We need to figure out things like where and how our offices will be set up, which bunk group will be in which part of which building... that sort of thing.
After lunch, we went into town and Tom got the mail out of our new post office box in Blairstown (that's just for summer though, keep sending your mail to PO Box 8 in Madison for now!). As exciting as that sounds, the day got even better when we got to Blair Academy.
On that note, I'm leaving soon to go snowboarding for a few days. Everyone have a wonderful and safe holiday! ~Jeremy December 9, 2008 Reunion Fun!
We were taking everyone's suggestions for a bunk group theme and if you weren't at the reunion, you can submit your suggestions online here. We'll be announcing the theme very soon. It was great to see all of you! We took tons of pictures and will be putting up more throughout the week. If you have pics you'd like to contribute to the reunion photo galleries, email jeremy@campuskids.com or tom@campuskids.com. Write more soon, December 3, 2008
So we at the CK-NJ office had only a day to recover from the Thanksgiving weekend before we headed off to the annual ACA-NJ (American Camp Association) holiday dinner. And now it's time to get things ready for our big CAMP REUNION party this Sunday! The holiday dinner was actually pretty awesome. Teri and Vanessa joined me and Tom and we had a really great time. It's wonderful to get together with other camps and celebrate what we do. One of the
evening's highlights is a series of auctions that raise money for S.C.O.P.E.,
an organization that helps send economically
Before I go, I just want to point out a few things. First, it's not to late to RSVP for the reunion this Sunday. Reunion info can be found here. Also, the latest online photo game closed last week and the winning captions are posted here. Finally, we are taking suggestions for next summer's bunk group theme and all you have to do is click here to enter your suggestions! Enter as many as you like! I hope to see all of you on Sunday! Jeremy |
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December
2008 |
December
17, 2008
First off though, we got some lunch. We went to a diner and pizzeria
combo that is on Route 521 right off the exit from Interstate 80.
The Mediterranean is a great place with nice food and a friendly owner named Millie who has been teaching us a lot of stuff about Blairstown. 
There we met up with Dave, the facilities director. We chatted a bit
but quickly got down to the business of going through every dorm on campus
and systematically taking pictures of all the rooms. It took a
while but it was time well spent. We really have a full picture of the
layout now and can start fine-tuning our dorm decisions. Once we got
through the dorms, Dave took us inside the new gymnasium complex. We
got to see the performance gym, the field house, the squash courts, the new campus
center ("canteen") and
even the pool (which is SOOOO nice). 
It was a long day, but a good one. Every time we go up to Blair, the
people there are warm and friendly. It's a good feeling. We've
made a lot of friends there and everyone is excited that Campus Kids is
coming. 
The camp reunion was a huge
success! Over 300 campers, their families, and staff gathered in
Wayne, NJ at the Ice Vault for an unbelievable camp event. There was
ice skating, plenty of pizza and camp spirit everywhere you looked. It
was a really good time. I always enjoy seeing so many camp people all
in one place. Although I sometimes feel a little odd because this time
of year there isn't any frito pie... and it's too cold for shorts (except
for Mitch's dad, he's hard core)... and we go to school or work during the
day instead of going to activities... It quickly begins to feel like it was
just yesterday we were all at camp together. There is so much
excitement and so much to catch up on!
Party!
Party!
disadvantaged
children to camp. You can read a lot more about S.C.O.P.E. at their
website: 
A
highlight for us CKers was that Tom ran the announcements at the dinner.
He is the president of the ACA-NJ board of directors, so he was basically
the MC of the evening. Vanessa was very upset that the whole room
didn't bust out the announcement song. Oh well. If Donald were
there, I'm sure we'd have had the whole room singing and clapping.
Despite the announcements missing their introductory song, everyone
enjoyed the evening. It was a huge success. The food was good,
the auctions were fun, the announcements were brief and over $4100 dollars
was raised for S.C.O.P.E.!