Hello from New Brunswick, NJ, at an undisclosed location where the leadership team of 2009 got together for a day full of meetings. It is 5:30PM and we are headed to dinner in a nearby restaurant, but before we go I wanted to check in and say hello. Today’s meeting was so exciting and energizing. It’s great to get together with all of the head staff and talk “camp”. Some new ideas were exchanged, ways to enhance our programs were discussed, and overall it was a really fun time! Now a first for my blog- a guest blogger! Welcome Will Armon, Programming Coordinator to the blog…

What’s up, Canadensis!  Thanks for reading.  I’m sitting here with Forti in the hotel and he’s asked me to blog.  So, I’ve never done it before, but what the heck, here goes…

I had a great flight in from St. Louis on Friday night.  The plane was pretty empty so I had a row to myself.  Forti and Robin picked me up from the airport in Philly and we drove to the hotel in Newark.  We stopped along the way for a slice of pizza.  Eric was worried that it had been a whole three hours since I had eaten.  Let’s face it, sometimes he’s like a big Jewish mother!  So, in order to make Forti feel better, I forced down a slice of pie, and we were on our way.

After hanging out in the hotel last night and heading to our rooms around midnight, Forti and I met for a workout this morning.  Let me tell you something, you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen Eric Forti on an elliptical machine at eight in the morning!  He was, of course, wearing a Camp shirt, for easy identification.

So, starting this morning at around ten, a group of head staff met to discuss the upcoming summer.  While I can’t share all, or really any, of the details, I can assure you that we have some great things planned for the Summer of 2009.  It’s very interesting to sit at a table with so many people that love Canadensis and do nothing but discuss what a good summer should be.  There was plenty of laughter and many serious moments.  There were memorable stories and fascinating ideas.  (There was even an M&M or two thrown at Forti!) There was plenty of agreement, but disagreement as well.  There were even those moments when we raised our voices in that disagreement.  From an outsider looking in, those moments would look like the result of anger.  But they weren’t.  Instead they were the result of passion.  We all have such a passion for making Canadensis the greatest place to spend a summer.  And sure, when we have visions that aren’t the same at first, passion can erupt as we work out the differences.  But that’s what makes Canadensis so wonderful!  We have so many people that care so much.  And reaching the right balance is what makes Camp so perfect.  We’ll get it right.  We have amazing people that are so talented, and I can promise you all, we’ll create another magical summer in 2009!  So rest easy over the next five months, 2009 is going to be another perfect summer on top of the Poconos!

I’ll see you many of you tomorrow at the reunion.  I’m looking forward to a taste of Camp before I head back to St. Louis to continue counting down the days as I finish up the semester.  Take care, and I hope to write again soon.

Phew! A busy day, with so much to do, and so little time! First, I forgot to tell you yesterday that Jim Boyle (our contractor up at camp) called with a question for me regarding vents for the new canteen. I can’t spoil the surprise too much, so I will leave it at that, but it’s so exciting that they are getting a lot done up at camp.

Robin’s flight came in early last night, so we had time for dinner before watching Grey’s and ER! Commercials were spent checking in with Jaycal on our exciting video updates and a brief phone call regarding videos that we will be taking at the reunion.

Today the office is so busy. We are making last minute arrangements for the reunion (there is a lot that goes into planning these events) as well as finalizing our leadership meeting for the weekend.

Matt Unger and I are in my office and in between updating this blog, we are calling amusement parks, booking hotel rooms, restaurants, etc. for the Freshman/Senior trips. How does a trip to a pretzel factory in PA sound where each camper gets their own ball of dough and learns how to twist their own pretzel! One lucky division (can’t say which yet), will get to go there. The only clue for you is that the entire trip revolves around CHOCOLATE! I am sure you can figure out which division I am talking about.

Speaking of clues, I am gearing up for my around the world trip. Less than a week away, I have so much to do before then. I guess it will get done on Monday/Tuesday because for now, Forti OUT! I have to go pickup Will at the airport and then drive to the hotel in Jersey that we will be meeting at.

See many of you this weekend at the reunion. Keep the emails/comments coming.

Beginning January 28th, Eric Forti blogs from his adventures around the world!

Throughout the month of February expect to see different video’s from the many different locations Eric visits, along with pictures and messages from Eric! Eric will be providing video clues from each stop on his tour around the world and we are going to ask you to guess where the next stop is. There will be a very special prize for the staff member or camper who guesses the most number of stops correctly. All guesses must be emailed to editor@canadensis.com. Check back next week for more details.

It’s a beautiful Thursday here in Wyncote. It’s freezing, but the sun is shining and it’s been a real productive day. Phone rang at 9:02 AM and much to my delight it was Will Armon. Will was calling to check in, arrange his pickup tomorrow at Philly Airport (for our winter meeting- more on that below), and talk about a few camp related things, including a number of Color War team names he came up with. I can’t share any with you in case we use them, but if we decide not to, I will try to post a few on here.

The next few hours were boring, replying to emails, paying bills, etc. but B101 Radio saved the day with some Ace of Base “I Saw the Sign”. Aunt Terri, Brian, and I had a conference call to finalize our plans for the winter leadership retreat and reunion. This Saturday, our leadership team (Head Counselors, Programming, and Operations) will be getting together in a hotel for a day full of meetings, food, and of course fun. We will discuss the feedback that Brian and I received through the Senior Summit meetings we held, some new and exciting changes for the coming summer, and overall areas that we can improve. At night, we will be having a nice dinner and then it’s off to the reunion on Sunday morning. Cara and I will try to take some pictures for all of you to enjoy!

Eddie, our camp head chef stopped by the office for a meeting with myself, Matt, and Aunt Terri. We spoke about the kitchen staff for next summer and will be interviewing an additional cook next week. Don’t worry, Silas and Eddie will of course both be back!

That’s about it. I will be leaving in a little bit to pick up Robin Hasson from the airport. Will Armon will be flying in tomorrow night, and then off to NJ for our weekend of camp fun.

Today has been quite a busy day! Matt Unger and I have spent all morning trying to get my printer to behave, and we finally got it working, so I’m feeling quite relieved.  We’ve been printing pictures and letters for me to use on the sign in boards for the REUNION this weekend!

I need to stop and say that I am SO SO SO excited for the reunion. This is my FIRST Canadensis reunion because in previous years I’ve been at school in Vermont and can’t make it home, but this year I am so glad to be able to see you all! 

Anyways, Aunt Terri came in this morning and she brought me a Dunkin’ Donuts latte (I loooove them) and we watched the newest videos on the website. I hope you all enjoyed my tour of the winter office. I felt silly watching myself, but I think I did a pretty good job of showing you all around!

We decided to order in Pizzas for lunch, and we tried a place called “Apollo”, and I have to say it was REALLY good. I mean, nothing compares to good ole’ continental pizza at camp pizza parties, but this came pretty close…

So now I’m back to work, calling counselors and giving interviews, working on these beautiful boards for you all to write on, and enjoying my internet radio. My latest discovery is a website called “Pandora”, where you type in your favorite musical artist, and they create a radio station based on songs you like, and dislike. I really love it, because I get to find new artists all the time. I even used it to listen to Jesse Ruben, as recommended by Danielle Faden, and I’m loving it! I made a Vanessa Carlton station, and now I’m just waiting for “White Houses” to come on (Hi CITS 2008!)…

Alright. That’s it for today! Only a few days until we’re all together!!!

 

*UPDATE*- At 2:42pm “White Houses” came on my Pandora Radio!

Hello Canadensis!

Well since this is the middle of the week, I feel like it would be wrong to just pick today (Wednesday) to begin this blog. So I will begin with Monday. For most of our campers, Monday was a day off from school, Martin Luther King Jr. day, so the phones were busy with families calling with questions, etc. This is definitely one of the best parts of my job, because even though it “interrupts” my work, I am happy to have a chance to speak to parents and campers on the phone and help prepare them for the upcoming summer. Jaycal actually was in the area for a party he went to on Sunday, and so he stopped by the winter office for a brief tour and to produce a few 411s for us. It was his first time to the office and while it’s not that exciting of a place (to me), he was so excited to be there! We held a production meeting in the war room, aka “my office” where we discussed my upcoming Where in the World is Eric Forti segments. We started creating some clues for each of the locations as well as planned the logistics for how all of this would go down. I wish I took a pic of our meeting to share with you, but I forgot, sorry! Otherwise on Monday, I interviewed a candidate for a staff position, paid some bills, and then had a meeting in the late afternoon to discuss the possibility of moving our office. There is a chance that we will be moving to a different area within the Philly suburbs and so Matt Unger (Operations Manager) and I went to discuss the options. More on that another time.

Tuesday was busy with mail, meetings with Brian (he works from the NJ office, but visits us in Wyncote, PA weekly), and then a full winter staff meeting (Aunt Terri, Brian, Matt, Cara, and myself) to discuss our SENIOR TRIPS! We are of course going to the same cities as last year, but we are going to try and add additional new and fun things to each trip. I can’t give away too much just yet, but one trip will now be including a stop at a beach to see a nighttime fireworks show over the Atlantic- how cool is that! The other topics of our meeting included T-SHIRTS (a favorite of our campers) and we even mentioned the topic of COLOR WAR TEAM NAMES. We haven’t yet come up with them, but how cool would the Eric Forti Blue Blog vs. the Cara Corradetti Gold Blog be? Of course we know who would win, right? Matt was busy working on our laundry room. On the last day of postcamp (in late September) we actually had a small fire in our commercial laundry room. Thankfully nobody was in the building at the time so there were no injuries, but we caught it in time and Phoebe (shout out!) came to the rescue with an extinguisher. Anyway, 1 hour and 2 fire trucks later, the fire was out (it was small, I promise- its just that in the Poconos all the firemen respond for “fun”) and now we have to replace a few dryers in the laundry room! Matt is charged with the mission of finding energy efficient commercial dryers that will handle the amount of laundry we do on a daily basis. Below are three photos of the laundry room fire back in September. Never before seen by camp families…I hope I don’t get into too much trouble for posting these!

 

 

Today is Wednesday and I actually took the morning off. I own my condo in Center City Philadelphia and with interest rates on the decline I decided to refinance my home. My closing went well this morning and then it was off to the office. I arrived in time for lunch (phew- what would I do if I had to miss lunch!) and then met with our accountant. This part of the job is boring for most camp directors, but I love dealing with the books. As a graduate from the Binghamton University School of Management and my experience at Ernst & Young, I enjoy being the controller and working on year-end journal entries with our accountant. I know, sounds boring, but the world of credits, debits, T-Accounts, and journal entries can actually be fun when they happen to “tick and tie” properly. I also spoke to Jim Price (Lake Director last summer) on the phone in Australia and he is doing well. Finally, one of my “Wall/Ropes” staff applicants accepted the job. His name is Andrew and he is from Pennsylvania and attends Penn State! A surprise phone call from Sam Ginsburg (the 3rd member of our Operations Team) rounded out the day and was a pleasant surprise! It’s always great to catch up with friends. Now I am home, eating dinner (Chinese is my favorite), and watching TV.

Tomorrow promises to be an exciting day as we are finalizing our winter head staff meeting (more on that tomorrow) as well as the upcoming Summer 2008 reunion!

Hi Canadensis Family!!!

I am so excited to get this blog started and tell you all about the great things happening here in the winter office as we get ready for summer 2009! I’ll be posting stories and updates on fun camp news, as well as sharing pictures, stories, and videos from all the fun times I spend with camp friends! So stay tuned and check back often!

Today in the office we’re getting ready for the reunion this weekend! I’ll be up to my elbows in glue soon, making the sign in boards, which is really exciting because I LOVE arts and crafts! I’m also getting ready for a two week road trip where I’ll be meeting lots of new staff members and spending LOTS of time talking about camp!

Well, that’s it for today! I’m really excited to get home tonight and watch the premier of LOST, which many of us having been anxiously awaiting! So for now I’ll leave you with a few pictures of my travels with camp friends over the past month!

See ya next time!
~Cara

 

 

Hi All!

Welcome to my Blog. This has been something I have been contemplating for a while now and when Cara announced that she would be starting a blog, I figured it would be the perfect time to push myself to do one as well. The main motivation for me to start this blog is the infamous question that all camp directors get- “You work full time for a camp…that’s awesome…but what do you do all year round?”. Now of course we are only 5 months away from camp as I write this, so you are only going to see half a year, but hopefully you will get the point! I certainly will admit that the fall is typically a little quiet. In October/November I usually take a 1 or 2 week vacation to clear my head from a long summer. What most of you see if a 7-week summer camp; however, Canadensis is open from May 1 through the end of September. That typically means I move up to camp mid-April and stay until late September- 5+ months, but who’s counting. Weekends during those 5+ months don’t exist, holidays such as Memorial day, July 4th, and Labor Day are perhaps busier than a typical day. So we camp directors feel we deserve a break after a long season! However, there is a lot that still goes on in the fall. Closing down camp, sending out contracts for our rental groups for the following year, payroll for our 6+ year round employees, budgeting/accounting, construction projects, beginning to hire our exceptional staff, and of course visiting many of our returning/new camp families are just some of the things we do. I hope that this blog provides insight in to the unique career I have chosen as a camp director. Do I love it? Absolutely…all of the decisions I make on a day to day basis are directly related to the both the safety and fun I know our campers will have during the summer. The saying “We live 10 months for 2” couldn’t be truer!

I hope this blog becomes an interactive experience. Through your comments to my posts (which you can add at the bottom of each blog entry), I hope that I can answer many of your questions and you can help shape the future of this blog! One thank you that is definitely overdue. A very special thank you to Jason Calabretta. Jason is responsible for about 75% of anything I do that would be classified as “creative”, including the title of this blog. Jason (or Jaycal as he is known at camp) has a passion and love for Canadensis and it shows in all the he does for me. He will be the administrator of the blog, editing videos and pictures for your entertainment along the way. So, thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoy what you are about to read and remember, please check back often!