This is the official Campus Kids-NJ Blog, where Tom and Jeremy write about what's going on at Campus Kids year round! Check back often. If you have questions, suggestions, ideas, requests or anything else, we'd love to hear from you: tom@campuskids.com or jeremy@campuskids.com . Guest bloggers are welcome!
As days pass and holidays creep ever closer, you’d think things would be settling down in our little “winter” office. The opposite is true. After the reunion we dove right into some other projects.
First, we’ve been working with our leadership team in order to prepare for the leadership retreat. The leadership team consists of our four head counselors, the five activity counselors and the directors. Every year we kick off the season with a weekend training retreat. We utilize an online forum to organize our work (both before and after the retreat itself). People can post any ideas they have for camp and everyone is able to read and respond. The leadership team’s first assignment was to post the goals that they had for the upcoming retreat. Everyone contributed lots of amazing ideas. Tom and I have been busy taking the teams goals and using them to design the content of the retreat. We will be discussing things like: the responsibilities and priorities of the leadership team; giving the counselors the best possible support; the camper support coordinator position (which was introduced this year) and how it will evolve; brainstorming new art projects; and planning the staff orientation. The retreat is just a couple weeks away and we’ve still got a bit of work to do beforehand. It’s always great to see everyone in person. Although, we will be working hard but it flies by. Everyone loves talking about camp and the retreat just gets everyone more excited for the next summer.
Earlier this week we had to make some of the toughest decisions of the year. It was time to pick who would become staff assistants for the summer of 2012. We had almost 30 former campers apply for the job and we only had 11 spots available. When it came down to it, we had lots of qualified applicants and not enough jobs to give out. We did our best to create a team whose members complement each other with their strengths and skills. We strive to build a team will work well together and do an awesome job. I wish we could have all of you who applied on our staff and we hope that you keep in touch. I’m sure we’ll see some of you back as counselors some day. Congratulations to those that got the job and I look forward to working with you!
As many of you know, we announced that the bunk group theme for next summer will be “Dr. Suess”. Weadded a link here where you can send us your suggestions for bunk group names. When we get to camp, the counselors pick the names of their bunk groups from the list of names submitted by the campers. We’ve already gotten several suggestions: Kittens with Mittens, Green Eggs and Ham, One-Fish-Two-Fish-Red-Fish-Blue-Fish, Barbaloot Suits, Cindy Loo Woo Crew, Star Belly Sneetches, Colliding Collusions, Pocket Wockets, and many, many more. Send us yours today!
Well that’s it for this week. Coming next week, holiday lunches!
~Jeremy
With dark winter days settling upon us and the final leaves falling from the trees, it was time for something to brighten our world and for CK-NJ folks that moment was our 21st Annual Camp Reunion on December 4th. Although I always know that the reunion will be fun, I'm still blown away by how much fun it really is. As each camper and staffer entered the Ice Vault (our reunion venue), the smiles increased, the noise level rose and the energy spiraled upward until we had created the perfect "camp storm". We laughed (and some of us screamed), we hugged, we skated, we consumed many pizzas, we shouted our birthday chant to two campers, we learned who won Zach B.'s mystery photo prize, we found out what the bunk group theme is for 2012 (see below) and we all got very cool CK wrist bands.
The crowd was too big for an accurate head count, but our official estimate is that at least 350 people were at the reunion. Thanks to everyone for coming out, especially to those staff members who had to make big efforts to travel and miss some precious time away from college papers and exam studying.
If you haven't found them yet, here's the reunion photo gallery.
Now back to that theme. As most of you know, our camp chooses to change the names of our four divisions and 22 bunk groups each year. We do that by picking an overall theme, after which the head counselors, counselors and campers pick their individual division and bunk group names. The bunk group theme for 2012 is . . . Dr. Seuss! That got a pretty good cheer when we announced it at the reunion, so I think we've got a winner. It's time now to ask you all to submit your suggestions for bunk group names. You can do this by visiting this web page and submitting ideas as many times as you wish. We'll share your ideas with the staff and they will pick the names from your suggestion list. Ready, set, go!
This cold weather makes some of want to hibernate, but we can't do that in the camp world because we have an exciting summer to plan, so the beat goes on here at the CK-NJ office. Our leadership team has begun using its online forum to make plans for next summer, and the whole team will be together in early January for a "planning retreat". We received many applications for staff assistants and have been conducting interviews. We'll be ready to announce our 2012 staff assistants in less than two weeks. The counselor hiring/re-hiring season is also underway and we're already excited about our new and returning counselors. If you know someone who has completed at least a year of college and would make a terrific counselor (must be able to teach one or more camp activities), now is the time for them to visit the staff information page of our website and submit their application.
Of course, we've also been speaking to families about camp, giving tours and receiving enrollments. We've also been updating our brochure and getting ready for camps fairs in January and February. January is when lots of new families start selecting camps, so we urge our returning folks to send in their enrollments, if you haven't already.
Well, I've got several interviews coming up this evening, so I'll sign off now. Hope you're having a fun (if cold and rainy) week. Talk to you soon.
Tom
