Labor of Love

I write this as we come to the end of Labor Day weekend, the final official holiday of the summer and the unofficial end of the summer vacation season. Most of our campers start back to school this week, an exciting time to see friends and renew their "work" as students. Despite their protestations, I think that most students look forward to the start of a new school year.

It's also the start of a new camp year. Most people who aren't camp directors don't realize this. They are more focused on the fact that camp just ended and they pretty much stop thinking about camp for a while. From their perspective, there's camp time in the summer and after that it's just "the rest of the year".

Well, for me it's more like New Year's Eve and the feeling that we're launching something new and wonderful: Summer Camp 2012. You know how you sometimes make New Year's Resolutions? Well, here at Campus Kids-NJ we've made sort of the same thing, except we call it our "year-round office calendar", which is in a blue loose-leaf binder. Jeremy, Teri and I created it over the previous year because we wanted to be better organized about the work we want to accomplish month-by-month. What we do "the rest of the year" -- September to June -- makes or breaks the summer, so we've got to get it right.

We've divided our tasks into six major areas: Campers & Families, Program & Operations, Staff Recruitment, Staff Training, Marketing, and Miscellaneous Administration (also known as "other"). In any given month we can look at each of these categories and know what needs to be done.

For instance, we are beginning to read the many, many types of feedback we received about this summer, along with our own notes, and compiling all of this into a format we can use to make decisions about next summer. We'll be answering the questions, "How did we do?" and "What went well?" and "What can we do better?" and "What are the best new ideas for 2012?" We're also starting our 2012 staff hiring by updating our website, assessing staff performance for 2011, deciding what openings we have and if we want to change any jobs or job descriptions, and planning what recruitment we want to do through colleges or websites or international agencies. Of course, the fall is also when we do our staff assistant hiring as well as when we put together our leadership team. And we set up our weekend tours (starting again Sept. 24 and 25), speak to families who ask about our camp, prepare the next "Sundial" . . . you get the idea.

This is our work, our labor. I think of it as our "Labor of Love " because we love what we do so much. Camp directors are some of the luckiest people in the world. Not only do we have the most amazing experiences at camp every summer, but we get to spend the whole year getting ready for the next awesome summer. What could be better?

So as you head off to school or back to work, we'll be doing the same thing here at Campus Kids-NJ. I hope that you love your work as much as we do.

Tom

P.S. -- If you'd like to be a guest blogger, please let me know. Campers, staff, alumni or parents are welcome to share their personal perspective on camp.