January 27, 2010

MAGIC!

   As most of you already know, the bunk group theme for the summer of 2010 is "Magic".  Some campers have already sent in their suggestions for bunk group names.  You can view the suggestions already sent in here.  My favorite suggestions so far are Alakazam and The Bippity Boppity Boops.  Keep 'em coming guys.  Send in as many suggestions as you like as often as you like.  You can send us yours through our website. 

   Other than that, I've been working away on getting the Weekend Adventures together.  Details on those trips should be out soon.  I am so excited about these trips.  We've got a few surprises in store you this summer.  Actually Tom had a great idea... I can't tell you everything right now, but one of the trips will involve an amazing scavenger hunt and New York City! 

~Jeremy

January 25, 2010

Rainy January Day

Other than watching the Jets lose to the Colts, what could you possibly want to do on a cold, gray, rainy day in January?  Well, if you're a camp director, the answer is easy.  You want to be at camp and you want to meet people who want to hear you talk endlessly about camp.  It was camp tour day!

As you probably know, on almost any Saturday and Sunday during the fall, winter and spring, one of the CK-NJ directors is on the Blair Academy campus to show prospective camper families around and tell them about camp.  We do lots of tours (Stu does the most) and you might think that they could start to get tedious after all this time (20 years of tours!).  On the contrary, each tour is very different from the others because each family has different questions, experiences and expectations.

Some kids ask lots and lots of questions, others hardly talk at all.  Some know a lot about camps, others have never been even to a day camp.  Some are so excited to come to camp they are practically jumping all over the place, while others are really nervous and a bit scared.  Some kids want to know the camp menus in detail while others just want to know if we serve cold cereal and plain pasta (we do) and how many ice cream flavors we have at one time (6).  We get sporty kids who can't believe how amazing the fields and courts and gyms and golf course are at camp.  And we get the performing arts kids whose jaws drop as they look at the magnificent theatre, dance studios and music rooms.  And, of course, the artists are amazed when they see the ceramics studio and all the other art facilities.  Most of the kids do activities in all of these areas and their smiles get bigger and bigger as we walk around the campus.  Before the tour is over they all want to see a dorm and (even if they don't admit it) what a bathroom looks like.  Some kids text their friends back home while they're taking the tour.

Moms, Dads and Grandparents come on tours too and they have their own sets of questions.  So we talk about how we pick our counselors, the health center and the nurses, what kids need to bring to camp, calling home, camp bus stops, and lots more.

Kids and parents are fascinated with our "camper choice" system of letting each camper choose his/her own activities every day.  And everyone likes to know when we get up in the morning (and if we blow a bugle -- we don't), when we eat, when is bedtime and if we make campers take showers and put on clean clothes every day (dirty, smelly campers?  oh no!).

Yesterday's tours took place in a cold misty rain, which normally you would think could spoil the tours.  But the Blair campus is so beautiful that it even looked great in that weather.  Sunday is the one day of the week that the Blair students don't have classes, so it was quieter than usual, but we found some friendly students (who are always interested to hear about the camp that uses their campus all summer) and they even let us show their rooms to our tour families.

Please tell your friends about camp tours.  Other than visiting during the summer itself, our weekend tours are one of the best ways to learn about camp.  And if you are already a camper or staffer or alum -- you can come on out for a tour too!  We love having CK-NJ friends join us to help tell the story of summer camp.  What could be more fun?

Let us know when you can come!
Tom  
 

January 12, 2010

Leadership Team Retreat

I worked for three days straight this weekend.  That’s right. You read it correctly.  Don’t you feel bad for me, working for three days in a row, all day each day with no break from the routine, and no going home?   Well you shouldn’t, because it was the best weekend I’ve had in a while!!
 

That’s because this past weekend, from Friday to Sunday, I was “working” at our Leadership Retreat!  I got to spend three days with 10 amazing people.  Tom, Jeremy and I hosted the retreat, and eight familiar CK-NJ faces came to join us to learn about what it takes to support the staff, the campers, and each other at Campus Kids New Jersey each summer.   We had a lot to accomplish on our list, but we got to everything we had planned.  It was definitely a success.
 

The Leadership Team is made up of the Head Counselors, Activity Coordinators, and the Directors of Campus Kids-NJ.  (All but one of us was able to be there—unfortunately for us, our Associate Director, Stu, was visiting his grandson Charlie over the weekend.  We missed you, Stu!)  The four Head Counselors and the four Activity Coordinators for CK-NJ 2010 traveled from far and wide to be with us.  Devon from Mississippi, Kim from Philadelphia, Abe from Colorado, Jase from New York City, Donald from… Maplewood, NJ (alright, so Donald didn’t really have to come from far or wide), Steph from upstate New York, Bex from Wales, and even Matt “Duncan” all the way from New Zealand joined us for the weekend.
 

We ate meals together, played games, and shared memories as well as brainstormed new ideas to make CK even better this summer.  We talked about how we all can, and will, support each other this summer; we shared what strengths each of us can offer to the team and also what we will need help with from the team.  We learned about the jobs we have as support staff, asked A LOT of questions and got plenty of answers, and even came up with our bunk group theme for the summer.  Are you ready?  Are you sure?  OK, well if you aren’t sure, you should stop reading now.  OK, if you are ready to know what this summer’s theme is… it’s… “Magic”!   I’m already super excited to see what bunk group names you’ll come up with.
 

Absolutely, without a doubt, the best part of the weekend was that we got to spend time together.  Everyone on the team is so fun to be with.  I laughed so hard that my throat hurt when I woke up on Sunday!  Seriously!  I thought I’d share with your something I wrote when I emailed my family about how the weekend went. “This is the closest/best team I've been on in my 6 summers of being on the Leadership Team at camp.  Everyone has experience and is really motivated to make some major changes to camp to make it better.  I think I laughed about half of the time we spent together.  Everyone is talented, friendly, funny, honest, and open.  It's really a great group of people.”
 

What more can I say than the truth?  If this is where we are starting for our 20^th summer of CK-NJ, the possibility of this being the best summer, the “summer of our lives,” is certain.
 

I want to thank everybody on the team for a memorable weekend that is just the beginning of our 2010 camp season, and I hope that all of our readers are as energized and excited as we are in the office for what’s in store this summer!

Teri
 

January 5, 2010

Good year so far!

New Year.  New Decade.  20th Summer of CK-NJ.

We're off to a good start for the year, as the phone calls, voicemails, e-mails, FB messages, texts and AIM chats (whew!) came alive at the end of the holiday break.  Parents, campers, staff and prospective staff contacted us to talk about camp.  What could be more fun?

I can answer that.  More fun is when people visit us in person!  And that's what happened on the first official CK office day of the new year when three of our former campers who were in the same bunk group together years ago came for lunch.  I snapped this pic in Teri's corner of our office.  Left to right are Jeremy (festive sweater!), Toni, Sasha, Teri (sitting in that famous chair) and Paula (organizer of this mini-reunion).  It's hard to believe that "our little campers" are growing up so fast.  Each of these ladies is now a freshman in college: Toni at Rice University, Sasha at SUNY-Cobleskill, and Paula at Ithaca (which always seems to have more than it's fair share of CK students).

We've been busy this week making final plans for our Leadership Team Planning Retreat, January 8-10 here in Madison.  11 of our senior staff members will be planning, sharing and learning as we continue plans for our most unforgettable summer yet.  Of course, we'll blog all about it here.

Hey, stay warm!  Remember this day when you're walking around camp next summer looking for a cool spot of shade.

Here's to the rest of this year being as great as the first five days.
Tom