March 2009
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March 31, 2009

Staff Assistant Retreat

So we had an incredible weekend!  Tom and Teri took the 2009 staff assistants up to a camp in the woods called Fairview Lake YMCA Camp.  Stu and I were there for support as well.  This retreat was their orientation for working at camp this summer.  For those of you who don't know about the staff assistants you can read all about them in the January/February issue of the Sundial here. 

The main goal of the Staff Assistant Retreat is for the SAs to learn to be a team and get to know each other in the process.  We kicked off with some get-to-know-you type icebreakers.  After that, we had lunch at Fairview Lake and then headed off to Blair Academy to give the SA's a tour of our awesome new facility.  We got to see the newly constructed (and finished) gymnasium and student center complex.   We did some Blair trivia in the auditorium.  Matt W. and Jibran played some Frisbee on the turf field and Mike P. ran around the track.  I think the Staff Assistants were pretty impressed.  During our tour, we scouted out new locations for announcements and CampStock.  There's so many great spots on the Blair campus.

We returned to Fairview Lake and continued our orientation in the nature lodge.  It was a quaint little cabin filled with lots of stuffed animals and animal bones used for nature study.  There was a wonderful little fire place and we enjoyed a fire that evening courtesy of Stu.  Throughout the evening, we stuffed our faces with snacks bought from the local Dale's Market and a giant Rice Krispy treat that Matt W. brought for us.

At night we slept in a rustic cabin.  I actually forgot my sleeping bag and slept in all the clothes I brought with me.  I'd brought the sleeping bag out to the car along with my other stuff but I took it out while I was rearranging stuff and accidentally left it in the garage.  I felt kind of silly.  Anyway, I managed to get a good night sleep somehow.  We had breakfast in the dining hall and continued our orientation at the nature lodge.  In the afternoon, one of the Fairview Lake directors came to us with a problem.  They needed to get one of their large 14 person "war canoes" across the lake.  Luckily, our staff assistants were up to the challenge and paddled the boat across.  It looked like fun!

It was a fantastic weekend!  The Staff Assistants worked hard and got a lot done!  I'm pretty sure they had a great time, too!  Kudos to Tom and Teri for planning such a terrific orientation!

See you in April,
Jeremy|
        

March 27, 2009

It's the end of March

I'm not one to do camp countdowns, but since the calendar page is about to turn to April, I'm getting really excited about camp.  It's springtime!  Still almost three months before the first campers step of the busses, but, hey, it's coming fast!

This weekend we've got our annual staff assistant spring orientation, which we are doing at Fairview Lake and Blair Academy.  We have 15 staff assistants -- rising high school juniors and seniors -- who all were CK-NJ campers and now are on our staff.  We'll doing lots of team building, learning about our jobs, getting acquainted with our amazing new site at Blair, answering tons of questions, playing games, having a bunk meeting and, always, having fun.  We've got a new CD mix -- a song from everyone who will be on this weekend -- that we'll be hearing for the first time.  There are 7 new "staffies" and 8 returners and we're really excited about the weekend.  Teri, Jeremy, Stu and I will be their leaders.

As you read last week, we attended the Tri-State Camp  Conference for a couple of days.  This is a good time for professional renewal and I always leave with lots of new ideas.  I attended one workshop on providing feedback to staff members.  It sounds obvious, that staff should get feedback about their jobs, but this workshop showed us some creative and constructive ways to do that.  Another session gave lots of new ideas for helping our counselors provide the most effective skill instruction possible during our activities -- sports and arts.  I really liked this workshop and have been using the information to come up with some improvements for camp activities.  I also attended a session on helping diabetic campers, the best session for camp directors on diabetes that I'd ever attended.  I learned a lot and have new information for our nurses and counselors to use at camp.  There were other sessions, too, but these were the ones I got the most from.

It's been a very busy week in the office.  Lots of enrollments have been coming in (yay for new campers!) and calls with questions about camp.  We're also busy talking to returning staff and staff applicants.  And we've been working on training ideas for our staff -- both online and for when they come to camp in June.  Of course, camp tours are always taking place on the weekends; I think we had more tours in March than we've ever had in a single month.  If you haven't come out to see Blair Academy yet, you've got to.  Give us a call to set up your tour.

Hope you're enjoying these first days of spring and getting really excited about camp!

Tom

March 20, 2009

Tri-State!

   If you called the office and got the voicemail during the last two days, you may have been wondering where the heck are Tom and Jeremy.  Well, Tom was itching to hit the slopes so we dropped everything and got on a plane headed for Park City, Utah.  Tom tore it up in the terrain park and I busted out some new moves on the half pipe.

   Actually... no, just kidding...  We actually went down to the American Camp Association Tri-State Camp Conference held in Atlantic City like we do almost every spring.  It's a huge event.  Camp professionals from all over come together to share ideas with each other and get training from experts in fields of youth development, camp health & safety, staff training and much more.  There's a huge exhibit hall where many different vendors sell their goods and services to camps.  Although, Tom and I always enjoy Tri-State, there was something else that made it even more special for us this year.  Paula Clarkson, former camper turned staff assistant and current Arts Logistics Assistant (okay the title is still in the works), attended the conference with us as a participant in a new program called LEAD.  LEAD or Lead, Excel and Develop, was developed by the ACA-NJ professional development committee.  The purpose of this program was to take a group of exceptional young camp staffers and introduce them to professional side of the summer camp industry.  The LEADers had an amazing two days of sessions and programs presented by the best of best in the camp world.  Topics ranged from possible career paths in camping to team building to supervising and supporting co-workers.  It was a great time.  I was at most of the sessions as I am on the committee that helped develop the program.  I couldn't believe how dedicated these amazing speakers were to the LEAD program. Paula said she will write an article about the LEAD program for the next issue of the "Sundial".  Be sure to check it out.

   We got to have some fun too.  We hung out with lots of other camp people.  Paula and I had dinner at the Melting Pot while Tom attended the S.C.O.P.E banquet which helps raise money to send underprivileged and at-risk kids to camp.  You can read more about S.C.O.P.E in the blog entry we wrote about it last year by clicking here.

   Well, I am off to the slopes of Okemo for a weekend of Vermont Spring Skiing.  See you all soon.

~Jeremy

March 16, 2009

Final Snow, First Snowdrops

We have had an unusually busy month of tours up at camp.  Many families have visited each Saturday and Sunday, a time during which we saw the last few patches of snow melt away and, finally this past weekend, the very first flowers blooming on campus (appropriately named snowdrops).

The campus is very quiet while the Blair students are on their spring break for a couple of weeks, but the relatively warm weather this past weekend brought out some folks to play tennis, jog around the track and, of course, throw Frisbees to their dogs.  We even saw some early golfers out on the course.

Stu and I are the regular tour guides, but we've had much-appreciated assistance from Adam B., Stevey and Paula.  While young at heart, Stu and I find it helpful to have a younger member of our staff along who can answer questions closer to the perspective of a camper.  It's been fun to meet new families and start to know some of our new campers and learn about their interests.  Most have never been to sleep-away camp before, but a fair number have.  Some are very excited to get involved in drama, music or dance, while others will be spending lots of time in the ceramics shop or the art studios.  Then, of course, there are a wide variety of interests in the sports, whether the traditional team sports such as basketball, soccer or softball, or individual sports like tennis, archery, skateboarding or gymnastics.  Of course, everyone's eyes light up when we talk about ga-ga, dodgeball, capture the flag and gladiator.  And then there's the ultimate sport: Ultimate Frisbee (without the dogs).

Sharon, our summer camp office manager, also was able to visit camp this weekend with her daughter Lisa (former camper and staff assistant).  Sharon, Adam and the staff assistants of Team B take care of all the communications and administrative operations during the summer, so their headquarters in Annie Hall is a busy place.

Looking at the tour appointment book, it looks like we'll be busy with tours for a while.  We'll share photos with you as we see more signs of spring.

This week is the big regional conference for camp professionals down in Atlantic City.  Jeremy and I will be attending on Wednesday and Thursday and Paula will be there too for a special program that we'll tell you about in a future blog.

Talk to you soon,
Tom

March 4, 2009

Okay, So It's Been A While...

It's been super busy in the CK office and as soon as I opened up the blog page I realized a few things...

First off, the last time I blogged I was about to leave for a week's vacation in Banff, Canada and I promised to share some pictures when I got back.  Well, for those of you that were waiting patiently, I am sorry for the delay.  I've posted up a few of my favorites here (click on the thumbnail to see a full sized version of the pic).  Vanessa and I had a wonderful time.  Banff is a huge Canadian national park with so much to see and do.  We went snowboarding most of the time, along with a friend from the area named Brent.  We went swimming in the natural hot springs.  Went on some awesome nature walks and a hike up to a frozen waterfall.  The rest of the time was spent relaxing in the hot tub or shopping in the town of Banff.  It was all really fantastic.
             

Next up, the 2009 Weekend Adventures for this summer have been announced!  Please go check that out here.  Also, while you're there please read up about the Week 9 Adventure Road trip program!  Ryan and I are really pumped about it.  Please call the office or email me (jeremy@campuskids.com) if you have any questions.  We still need a few more early sign ups to meet our minimums for the trip so sign up today!

Third on my list...  The winning captions have been announced in the current online photo game (click here).  So many funny entries.  Thank you all for participating!  Another game will go up soon. 

Finally, Tom and I just finished editing and printing the March issue of The Sundial.  It will go online tonight.  Cheryl came over to help us collate and staple the paper version.  In fact I've got to go over and help her out as soon as I am done blogging!  If you currently don't have access to read the Sundial online you can find out how here.

Really, really, really, really busy!  I can't wait!  Just a few more months and we'll be out at camp having fun!

See you sooner than you think,

Jeremy

P.S.  For you CK Blog fanatics... This month marks the one year anniversary of the Campus Kids - New Jersey Weblog!  I can't believe that we've been at it for a whole year already!  If you've never looked back, check out our archive and read the early posts!

March 2009
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