Campus Kids New Jersey Weblog - Find out what's going on at the Weekday Sleep-Away Camp!

In my first blog ever, I thought I’d keep it simple and talk about the many “firsts” I had this week (and if you are a long-time Sundial reader, you’ll also recognize this as one of my favorite themes).

Let’s start with Monday… Monday was my first day being a full-time employee of Campus Kids! As an Assistant Director I now work year-round in the office with Tom and Jeremy. So next time you talk to one of us on the phone or Facebook and “say ‘hi’ to everyone in the office,” there are now two people that we have to say “hi” to for you.

As I walked into the office for the first time on Monday morning, Tom pointed to a tall Rubbermaid cabinet and said “This is your hazing--organizing the supply closet!” He laughed as he said this, in that funny way that makes his shoulders shudder, and with that good old Tom Riddleberger smile that you can’t help but smile, too. I laughed, too, because something I have been looking forward to doing is organizing the office! I didn’t get around to the closet until Thursday, but it really was a mess in there… I must have found 8 rolls of Campus Kids stickers mixed in with paper, folders, envelopes, and pens. At the school I used to work at, I was known for my organized desk, papers, and classroom. Taking paper clips and tape dispensers out of a closet and rearranging them turned out to be an easy, relaxing task instead of “hazing”. Hopefully, Tom and Jeremy see the good work I did there and will look forward to letting me organize the office area!

Over the week, I think Tom and Jeremy quickly adjusted to their new coworker! (They’ve actually been “waiting” for me to come and start work for about a year now!) When I arrived, they already had set up a third desk for me. We went over a list of some of the things that I could get started on, and I dug right in. My first official task was to read through and organize all the feedback and suggestions from the 2009 summer camp season from staff, campers, and parents. Phew! It was a lot of reading but I will tell you that I certainly learned a lot about all of the different points of view of the summer, and it got the creative gears spinning in my brain for what we can do next summer.

We also had our first official lunch out together as a team, and when we arrived at the local sushi restaurant that Tom and Jeremy frequently go to, the hostess commented “Oh! You brought a girl!” To which Tom replied, “Yes! We did! She works with us now!”

On Wednesday, I went to my first professional development session as a camp director! It’s called the NDO (New Director Orientation), and the purpose of it is to meet other new camp directors from New Jersey and get some training about running a camp. I met Scott and Mary from Gesher Day Camp, and they led the meeting. We did icebreakers, learned about everything from leadership to staff training to camper development, ate lunch together; it felt like a bunk group on the first day of camp! I made friends and got their contact information, and hopefully I’ll see them again at the next American Camp Association event in New Jersey.

Well it’s Friday. I can’t believe my first week of work is over! But I look forward to my second, third, fourth, and so on…

I promised you that we'd put up some CampStock 4 wallpapers up in the fall and I am happy to say that they are finally here! Click this link here or access them from the NJ page of our website.

The next thing I am working on is putting up this summer's Weekend Adventure pics. The gallery will be up by the end of the week. However, if you were on Weekend Adventure this summer and you haven't given me your pics yet, it's not too late to have them included! Email me (jeremy@campuskids.com) or put them up on a photo sharing website like Facebook, Flickr or Myspace and let me know where I can get them.

Campus Kids New Jersey on Facebook

By the way, did you know that you can become a fan of Campus Kids-NJ on Facebook? You can add a widget like this one (on the left) to your webpage or blog, too! There is also a smaller one available. We are having a lot of fun with the CK-NJ fan page. It's just another great way for CK'ers of every era to connect with each other, swap camp stories and post pics!

In other news, Tom, Stu and I had dinner last night in NYC with a bunch of CK-NJ Staff. It was a great mix of old timers and current staff. In attendance was Mark Malhan, Fabi Robles, Dave Heath, Dan Trotta, Donald Cleary, Cuong Nguy, Matt Lurrie, Jase Miles-Perez and Kali DiPippo. Fabi was the only one who brought a camera so I've written to her to get a picture of this momentous occasion. The out of towners were in the area for Kev Grimshaw's (another former CK-Staff member) wedding. It was great to see everyone and catch up. Stu and I headed out on the "early" train back to Jersey at 10:49. Tom however, stayed up to party into the wee hours of the morning. Okay, really he just took the 11:49 back with Donald. But I had you going there for a minute, right?

Anyway, thanks for reading! Lots more news to come over the coming weeks!

Jeremy

So I haven’t contributed to the blog in a LONG while. As you know, Tom takes over the blog during the summer as I am a bit stretched all over camp covering my responsibilities there. But I’ve been back for a while and it’s been a hectic fall. My wife and I have been house hunting since I got back from camp. This has been exciting, stressful, fun and annoying all at the same time. I will let you know when it’s all done. Right now we are looking at a house in Long Hill Township and waiting to hear back from the owners.

Other than that… When I got back from camp, Vanessa and I took some time off and visited with family and friends. We attended two weddings on the same weekend! On a Friday night we went to Teri’s wedding, which was absolutely wonderful. We had a great time, danced, had great food and got to catch up with Devon. Then, the next day, we went to the wedding of our good friends, Darren and Marilou. Funny thing about that wedding was that Matt C’s dad was the officiant at their wedding! He did a great job and it was an amazing ceremony. If anyone’s looking to get married, here’s his website: http://www.abeautifulaffairoftheheart.com/RevLouisConselatore.html.

Since I got back to the office, we’ve been very busy gearing up for 2010. You wouldn’t believe the amount of work we have to do for summer camp in September and October. Apart from the usual unpacking and setting up at the “winter office”, we’ve been busy working on the website and managing all the photos we took this summer. One project I was especially excited about was updating the Campus Kids New Jersey online tour. If you haven’t seen it already, please check it out HERE! We’ve given the tour a new look and will update it throughout the year with more and more pictures.

We’ve also been working on the September/October issue of the Sundial which will come out sometime this week. This issue will also include a Camp Food Survey and Questionnaire. We really want your feedback on the food at camp. Just tear the survey out of the Sundial, fill it out and return it to us by mail. Or if you’d rather , the survey is available online HERE. Just click the link and let us know what you think!

Also, for all you Facebook users out there, we’ve started an official Campus Kids New Jersey page and you can add yourself as a fan. If you have trouble finding the page, you can access through my profile (or Tom’s). You can also give a call or send us a message.