Our favorite question!
Once we get through the holidays, we become keenly aware of the new summer season ahead. The days seem a bit brighter, and we are working hard to check off our to-do list. The goal that is always ahead of us is to do our jobs better with each passing day, week, and year. The off-season gives us the nine months we need to prepare for the nine weeks you are with us.
In the early fall, we take a couple of days and go through the past summer in great detail. The entire leadership team takes part: myself, Jazz, Izzy, Jessica, Nurse Eleanor, Stacey, and Catherine. We make our list of successes, our areas for improvement, and our wish list of repairs and new construction. We mark our calendars and identify times to do “Deep Dives” into our bigger items for discussion. Just this week, we have spent several hours on our high school leadership program, and this afternoon, food service and the dining hall will be discussed. This will bring us to completion on 10 of the 13 topics we identified in the fall as those needing thorough consideration. Only 3 to go in the next 3 months!
Izzy Hall led us in the Leadership Program discussion. We will be providing more information to parents and eligible campers on the structure of the program and the selection process. Parents can look for a Zoom meeting later in the spring. When you live so closely with a camp program, it is easy to think it is understood. We will be approaching the Leadership Program with much more intentionality this year. We realize the most difficult year is the transition from Aide to CIT; after years of having all of the camp details handled by your parents, you are now a camp employee with so many forms to fill out! We want to do a better job of assisting with this change.
As you can imagine, the dining hall and camp kitchen are key in the success of a summer. We are excited to have Melleesa and Ana leading us in the kitchen for another summer. We also expect to have a couple more of our staff from last year return. With the new dining hall space, we will be able to eat as one group in one room together for the first time since Covid. We can’t wait! We will be working our way through new table arrangements and our menus. The new space is a great opportunity for spreading out service areas so we can have less waiting time. We want to make sure you have plenty of choices at each meal, and we will have the space to make that happen.
Work on the seating at our new campfire space is underway. Woohoo! Another bit of post-Covid progress…no more sitting on the Green. We all feel the location on the paddling lake will be inspiring. The big question, though, is bark boats. Stay at the paddling lake or return to the swimming lake?
In spite of bitter cold weather, work at camp and on camp continues. We are looking forward to the best summer ever in 2024!
