December So Far...

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