June 17, 2012

Father's Day Grinch?

Our formal staff orientation begins in a few hours and, of course, plenty of people are reminding me that this is Father's Day.  Being a father myself, I feel like it's not so bad that I "make" people work on Father's Day.  But I've been hearing some staff around camp today talking about how their families don't understand why they aren't home with their dads.

So let this be my formal apology to all the dads who wish their children who are camp counselors could be with them.  I miss my sons also (all the time, not just today), and I do understand how great it would be if your sons and daughters could be with you today.  Thank you for letting them be here without laying too much guilt on them. 

Maybe as partial compensation for their absence, you will accept my admiration for your children.  They have chosen to spend their summer in service to other children, those younger kids who will be our campers and who absolutely adore their counselors and look up to them and emulate them.  These counselors have learned a lot from you, their fathers (and mothers), and are helping to create a better future.  They could have chosen summer jobs that are a lot easier and pay more, but they have decided to make a difference in the world, the kind of difference that lasts a lifetime.

So, dads of the world, be proud of your sons and daughters who are camp counselors.  Know that they really wish they could be with you today, but that their demanding camp director just couldn't figure out how to get everyone to camp (from all over the world) and have a proper orientation without impinging on Father's Day.

Yes, I am the Father's Day Grinch, and I hope you'll forgive me.

Tom 

 June 15, 2012

The Calm Before the Fun

The busiest time of the year for those of us who work on camp all the time is actually NOT the summertime.  It's those final two months or so leading up to the arrival of our staff.  That's probably why our blogging has slacked off recently.

It feels like everything comes together all at once and everyone else in the world starts thinking about camp when the weather gets warm.  One of the changes in recent years is that an increasing number of families don't begin their camp selection process until the late spring, so we've learned to adjust to that and expect that we'll still be giving lots of camp tours in addition to our usual spring to-do list.

Since we don't live and work at our camp site during the school year, we make our annual move up to Blairstown as soon as the Blair Academy campus is ready to receive us, which is right after their alumni reunion.  As the Blair alumni leave, we roll in with our vans and start unloading everything from phones and computers to guitars, boxes of paint, tennis raquets and skate boards.  Once we get the basics going, we rent a couple of big trucks and our leadership team has the privilege of emptying out our big, local storage lockers and hauling out the skate park, tons of fans, the gaga court, the gymnastics floor and lots more.  Then we take our delivery of gymnastics equipment and the drums arrive and it starts to look like summer camp around here.

Camp people are excellent multi-taskers, so while all of this is going on we are also completing our final plans for staff orientation and learning all about our campers and what they are looking forward to doing this summer.

Right now I'm sitting in my office looking out at the bowl (and our sundial), listening to some leadership team members out in the Annie Hall lounge playing guitar and singing.  It's beautiful here in Blairstown, with the late afternoon sun making the grassy "bowl" almost glow.  The campus is very green and lush right now.  Even though we've been working hard this week, there is a sense of calm settling over the whole camp.

That won't last for long because tomorrow morning our returning counselors arrive and from that moment on this place will be alive with the energy and sounds that we all know mean "camp".  In the afternoon we will be picking up our staff who are flying in from different states and countries.  They will be very tired, but also very excited as this is the first time some of them have been to the U.S. (and the Garden State!).  The energy increases on Sunday when the rest of our counselors arrive and by 3:30 everyone is here and our week of staff orientation begins.  As staff, we are officially working, but we are actually having huge amounts of fun.  It's an energy level and momentum that's unstoppable and will roll right over into the eight weeks of summer with our campers.

I just took a break from writing this to have dinner with the leadership staff (and listen to Katrina praise chicken ranch pizza to the high heavens), spend some time working with our nurse team, and then have a bunk meeting with the leadership team.  This was our last formal gathering as a group before the rest of the staff joins us, so we took the opportunity to look back over the week and talk about the changes that had taken place in this short time.  Camp is rooted in tradition, but it's actually all about change, and change happens quickly.  We increase the bonds of friendship, trust and support, and we gain in confidence for the jobs that lie ahead of us.  This team has grown and changed remarkably this week.  It's tight and ready to go.  The summer is already awesome.

Stu took this photo tonight out on the turf field as the leadership team tried out a new game they've created for staff orientation.  I can't tell you the details because there's an element of surprise, so you'll have to wait for a future blog to undrstand what's going on here.

Night has fallen now over the campus.  It's quiet and peaceful.  It's the calm before the fun and I can't wait for the fun to begin.

Have a great summer.  I hope I'll be seeing you at camp.

Tom