Hello Canadensis…

We here at camp wanted to reach out to our camp family and make sure that you are all doing well after the events of the storm we experienced earlier this week.  If there is anything we might be able to do to help, please let us know. We understand that many of our camp families are without power.  We just wanted to let you know that our thoughts are with our Canadensis Families and Staff.  We wish a speedy recovery to anyone affected by the storm.

In areas that are still celebrating Halloween, we wish you a safe and Happy Halloween!  Here is some cool Halloween stuff I found for you to enjoy.

Some really cool Halloween pumpkin carvings…

Halloween Light Show – Gangnam Style…

Haunted Halloween Light Show…

Crazy Halloween Prank…

Have a great day!

-Brian

I got to spend some time up at camp last weekend…and Camp Canadensis is beautiful no matter the season!  I’m sure a lot of you have never seen camp at this time of year, so I snapped a few photos to share with you.

First of all, Barrett Township (a group of 5 villages that includes Canadensis) is transformed during the month of October into “Scarecrowville”.  The town signs are all transformed, and Aunt Terri told me that even the post offices change their stamping machines to say Scarecrowville! 

(Mountainhome is a town right next to Canadensis)

Most of the homes and business in town were decorated – including a personal favorite…Callies Candy Kitchen!!!  Callies makes the most amazing sweet treats – it’s a great place to stop for last minute visiting day candy, or to visit after a tour of camp.  Our campers have the chance to win a trip to Callies during the summer if they keep their bunk the cleanest all summer!

Annie had a great time up at camp – it was a perfect day!  She missed all of you down by the lake…One of my last stops up in the Poconos was at a farm stand to pick out my pumpkin!  My neighborhood has a pumpkin carving contest each year, so I wanted to make sure I found a great canvas to work on.  I will be carving over the weekend (can’t wait for the pumpkin seeds!) and I’ll post photos of the finished product!Finally…last week while the Canadensis Crew was answering phones at the NPR Pledge Drive in Philadelphia, I got to meet Terri Gross from “Fresh Air“!  It’s a radio program that has been on NPR for more than 25 years and is broadcast nationally.  I listen to Terri’s show everyday on my drive home from work, and she’s the most incredible interviewer.  She’s talked to nearly every celebrity, and she explores great topics daily…she’s the radio version of Oprah!  Listening to her daily has really helped me get comfortable with interviewing people…which is something I do quite a lot in the winter office…we do have around 220 staff members to hire each year!  She is a role model of mine, and she was so gracious with her time.

Have you ever met a celebrity that you look up to, or your favorite celeb??  Email us photos so we can share it on Facebook!

Hello Canadensis!

Once again, I am writing to you at the end of the work week and today I am feeling very nostalgic.  I think it is partly due to this new television show I have been watching on the Travel Channel called “Toy Hunter.”  The show follows a renowned toy dealer named Jordan who searches across the country for rare toys and collectibles from past decades.  In many cases, the items that Jordan finds are the same treasures from my childhood that I played with until no end from Star Wars and superhero action figures to games like Speak and Spell to the lunch boxes and thermoses I brought to school.  As I watch, I continually find myself saying, “I had that!”  So funny!  For more about the show “Toy Hunter,” click here.  And, here is one episode of this show.  I hope you like it.

On the subject of toys, here was one of my favorites when I was growing up…

My nostalgic feeling also comes from the fact that over the last few weeks, I have spent a lot of time with camp friends from when I was a camper at camp.  Still, to this day, many of my closest friends are those that I went to camp with.  As I think about it, it is mind boggling to realize that these relationships have been part of my life for over 30 years!  This always brings me back to my feeling about the magic of camp is that there is nothing quite like your camp friends!  Interestingly enough, this summer, a camp friend of mine e-mailed me a few photos from “back in the day.”  So, I finally figured that I would share these pics with my Canadensis camp family, completely realizing that I am setting myself up for a good laugh.

With this nostalgic feeling going around in my head, the music I have been listening to over the past few weeks can be dated back to my youth of the late 70’s and early 80’s.  When I was a kid, I can remember playing my records and spending hours just reading the album jackets while listening.  During this time, the cassette tape also started to become very popular.  Every Sunday morning, I used to make my breakfast and bring it to my room so that I could tape Casey Kasem’s Top 40 Countdown on the radio, which ultimately became the mix tapes that I would bring to camp!  The other day, I actually went into my closet to relocate these tapes (that’s right, I still have them…coincidentally, they are stored in an Adidas sneaker box).  As I sorted through the various mix tapes, a big smile came to my face.  These songs, although some of them are definitely considered super cheesy, were a staple of my childhood!  Here are a few songs to show you exactly what I mean.

Much like the current pop hit “Gangnam Style” by PSY where no one really knows the words, unless you speak Korean, in 1985, we had Falco’s hit “Rock Me Amadeus,” in which I still have no idea what these words are because I don’t speak German.  Hard to believe now that this was such a radio hit back then.

In 1982, you couldn’t go anywhere without hearing the J. Geils band and their hit “Freeze Frame.”

In 1984, “Ghostbusters” was one of the biggest movies of the year.  And, the movie’s theme song was all over the radio and even spent several weeks as the #1 song in country.  As for the song’s singer, Ray Parker Jr., I don’t think I ever heard another song from him again.

OK.  So there is my walk down memory lane.  For me, some great memories!  And, hopefully for some of the older readers of this blog, a good nostalgic feeling as well.  Onto other camp stuff…

I found 2012 CIT Becca Altschul online the other day.  She and her friends have entered themselves in the VH1 Music contest where they had to submit their version of the Ingrid Michaelson song “Blood Brothers.”  You can find their version of the song and vote for them by clicking here.  Please show them your support and to help support the VH1 Save the Music Awareness program!  Voting ends November 1.  The winner will get Ingrid Michaelson to play at their school.  Very cool!  Good luck, Becca!

Got a great picture sent to me from 2012 Super Senior Lauren Gadol, who had her camp friends over as part of her Sweet 16 Celebration!  Here is a picture from the post celebration festivities as all of the camp friends slept over…

Also, this blog gets to report on some of the campers I have seen in the past few weeks.  For starters, I got to hang out with Drew Spielberger from Dobbs Ferry, NY.  Drew is now in third grade and is already excited for Summer 2013, which will be his second summer at camp.  He is currently playing left midfield on his travel soccer team, the Jaguars.  Very soon, he will also be playing his third year of travel basketball.  After camp, Drew told me that he and his family had a great trip the beach in Delaware!  He wanted to give a shout out to his 2012 Bunk 2 boys and his counselors Ethan, Tom and Sam and can’t wait to see them at the reunion.  Here is a picture…

In South Orange, NJ, I saw Ethan and Robbie Goldman.  Summer 2013 will mark Ethan’s third summer at camp as an Upper Inter while he’ll be joined by brother Robbie for his first summer in the Lower Junior Boys division.  Now in 5th grade, Ethan is involved with a lot of rock climbing at a local climbing gym, where he will be competing in upcoming bouldering competitions.  He is also playing soccer and the piano.  Ethan also showed me a robotics competition and challenge that he and his friends have entered, called the First Lego League.  You can check it out by clicking here.  Ethan is excited to see his camp friends throughout the winter and is excited for the reunion in January.  He wanted to say hello to his bunk mates from Summer 2012’s Bunk 8.  Robbie, who is in the 2nd grade, has been involved in Muay Thai Kickboxing.  When at home he likes to cook.  In fact, when cooking, it is common for Robbie to get the fruits and vegetables from his very own garden that he and his dad take care of.  Robbie also plays drums and is involved in the junior version of the robotics league.  In the spring, Ethan will be playing short stop for his baseball team.  When he gets to camp next year, Robbie is looking forward to all of the activities to do on Lake Lenape as well as the opportunity to once again spend the summers with his big brother.  Here is a picture…

Had to tell you about this!  I discovered a great new website that camp families are sure to make use of.  As we encourage camp friends to see each other throughout the year, parents often try to find drop off and pick up points between different locations.  After all, we certainly recognize that bunk mates could live quite some distance away from each other.  Well, there is now a website called meetways.com.  MeetWays was established to help people easily find a halfway point between two locations. So, if you’re thinking about meeting-up with a far away camp friend, MeetWays can help you find the perfect middle point.  To go to the website, click here.  Or simply go to www.meetways.com.

Finally, with Halloween upon us, I wanted to leave you with a few camp inspired Halloween costumes I found online.  If you have yet to find a costume this year, maybe you can go as…

Have a great day!  Have a great weekend!  Have Happy and Safe Halloween!

-Brian

I wanted to post some of our winter calendar in the hopes that we’ll be seeing you soon!

Friday, October 19th we will be volunteering answering phones for the NPR Pledge Drive, if you listen to NPR and would like to donate, give us a call between 10am-3PM at 1-888-345-9499 and a Camp Canadensis rep would love to chat with you!

Saturday, October 20th and Sunday, November 11th are chances for new families to book a tour of camp.  You must call ahead to reserve a spot, but if you are considering camp for 2013, come up and take a look!

We are hitting the road and coming to your town for Canteen on the Fly!  This annual program brings together new campers, returning campers, staff, alumni, prospective families…and anyone that wants to enjoy some ice cream and camp fun!  Saturday, November 10th we’ll be in the Philly Suburbs!  Monday, November 12 we’ll be seeing our Long Island campers while school is out for Veterans Day.  Our final leg of the tour will be on Sunday, November 18th in West Chester & Northern New Jersey.

Shortly after ringing in the New Year, we hope that all the 2012 campers and staff will plan to join us for the camp reunion!  Saturday, January 5th from 10:30-12:30 at Funtime America in Cliffwood, NJ.  Lunch is included.

There is even more to look forward to this winter…

-As always, myself, Brian and Eric will be doing home visits all throughout the winter getting to know our new campers.

-We’ll be letting you know about local community service events.

–New Camper bowling in April is a chance to start making camp connections for current K-4th graders.

–Staff hiring trips in Australia, Michigan, Ohio, Arizona, Pennsylvania, United Kingdom, Eastern Europe and more new destinations for 2013 is how we recruit an outstanding staff, and it leads to fun mini reunions for our staff in those areas.

Hope to see you soon!

Hello Canadensis!

Yes, I know.  I have been very delinquent on my blog posts.  Somehow, someway, time has escaped me and have neglected my Canadensis Cyberworld!  I am sorry and hope to make it up with this October Catch Up Blog.  After reading the following, I hope that all of you will be satiated (good SAT word for all you CITs) and will have had your fill of all things Canadensis and the happenings in the Life of Brian (a Monty Python movie title, by the way).

Over the past month or so, our Winter office has been getting back into the swing of things.  We want to thank all of the campers that completed our annual survey.  In compiling the results, we now have a 100+ page report of really wonderful feedback.  We use this information every year to continue to grow the camp program new heights each Summer.  It is such a wonderful tool for us to evaluate the summer from one year to the next.

And, by the looks of it, Summer 2012 was simply amazing for our campers!  We have already received so many incredible e-mails and phone calls from camp families, letting us know about their awesome experience.  At the same time, we have gotten word from a lot of campers and staff of planned reunions and get-togethers that have already taken place since camp ended or plan to take place in the upcoming months.

As for our own get-togethers, our Annual Reunion, celebrating Summer 2012, will be held on Saturday, January 5th at Funtime America in Cliffwood, NJ from 10:30 am – 12:30 pm.  This is the same location we had our reunion at last year and from your feedback, all the campers and staff that attended let us know that it was a great place for this event.  The facility is jam packed with games and rides as well as an eating area.  We hope that our camp families and staff will save the date on their calendars now.  Here was the online invitation that was just recently sent out…

Along with the Reunion, we are planning to once again have our Canteen on the Fly events in November.  We are still working out specific locations and times, but we will be hitting areas in the Philly suburbs, northern New Jersey, Westchester County and Long Island.  Be on the lookout for e-mails, letting you know when we will be in your neighborhood and ready to eat some ice cream.  We have also been working on a T-Shirt give-away for all those that attend.

As is always the case, if we learn of any get-togethers or special moments involving our campers or staff, we will post them here on our blogs.  In an effort to catch everyone up, here are some that were sent to us over the past few weeks / months…

OK.  So, the next one needs a little explanation.  As you may remember in a previous blog, Freshman Boy Eric Miller was the lucky recipient of Bruce Springsteen’s harmonica that was thrown to him by Bruce at show he attended earlier in the year.  Just when he thought this would be a memorable moment in his life, at a show after camp, things were taken to a whole new level.  If you’ve never been to a Springsteen concert before, it is typical for Bruce to bring up one lucky fan to help him perform the song “Waiting on a Sunny Day.”  Well, suffice to say, that lucky fan was Eric Miller.  Here is the video of which I am completely jealous of.  Ha Ha!

On a personal note (and sort of on a camp note), since camp ended, Jaime and I have been busy with our wedding planning.  Our date is set for Mother’s Day weekend.  Where you ask?  Well, we decided that Camp Canadensis was the most fitting location for this memorable event!  Jaime and I are excited that amphitheater will be the place where we will be making things official.  With Summer 2012 being Jaime’s fourth summer, she has felt very strongly connected to camp and she couldn’t think of a better place to celebrate.

Since camp ended, Jaime and I have also been getting in our fill of concerts…one of our favorite things to do together as a couple.  In the past few months, we have seen a ton of shows, including God Street Wine (an old favorite of mine from my college days), Bruce Springsteen (on his birthday, nonetheless), Ben Folds Five, Spin Doctors and Blues Traveler.  All good stuff.  Of these, Bruce was probably my favorite.  After a two hour delay because of lightning, Bruce played from 10:30 pm to 2 am.  And, like I said, at midnight, it was the Boss’s birthday, which made the show extra special.

Of course, my weekends have also been filled with the New York Football Giants.  Finally, Eagles fans, I will no longer mention the Super Bowl score from last season now that a new season is upon us.  Although the Giants are currently sitting atop the NFC East division, I will subtly remain quiet (for now) since the Eagles won our first meeting this season.  However, I hope to get revenge in the final week of the season.  As you may know, we love to tailgate in Lot L12 before every home game and I had the pleasure of seeing a few camp families stop to say hello and enjoy some BBQ.  Thanks to Ben Keim and dad Dan Keim as well as Noah Stern and dad (also, camp doctor) David Stern for stopping by and seeing us.  Speaking of football, it is great to hear that so many campers have used Fantasy Football leagues as a way of staying in touch through the Fall months.  How is your team doing this year?  Mine…not so good.

One final camp note:  this Friday, our Year-Round Crew will be volunteering at WHYY-FM (which is the National Public Radio station in the Philly area), taking donations for the station.  During the day, we are sure to be mentioned on air, so our Philly-based families should tune in!  If you call in to donate, there is a very good chance you will be talking to us.

Well, that’s all of the blogging for now.  I hope you now feel more caught up in the Life of Brian.  I promise to blog much more (and more frequently) in the months to come until Summer 2013.  As Group Leader Pete Tarnoff asks, “Is it too early to start the countdown?”

Have a great day!

-Brian

Hi camp world! I’m really excited to be able to share my first post-camp reunion story! My sister [aka, Upper Senior counselor] Dani and I, along with my two best friends, spent last Saturday in beautiful NYC! We went in to town to see a play and ended up getting to meet Jake Gyllenhaal – talk about a crazy morning!

After some shopping we decided to meet up with my other favorite celebrity, [Upper Senior group leader] Alex Feigin, for dinner that night!

Alex and Dani put that photo on instagram and within minutes their Upper Senior girls were going crazy! Alex said that her parents we ALSO in town seeing the new Paul Rudd play – now, anyone who knows us knows that we LOVE Paul Rudd, specifically in his famous camp movie, so hearing that he was in town meant we HAD to get tickets. As it always is when we’re together, the man at the box office was able to give us rush tickets in 2 private boxes, we thought that was a pretty sweet setup!

After dinner we had some time before the show so we trekked uptown to one of my favorite places – Bendels! We were having the time of our lives in the headband room and Alex posed for this picture with her favorite accessory…

After lots of laughs and crazy hair pieces we went back downtown to see our show! My friends and I sat in one box, while Alex and Dani sat in the “Upper Senior Box”:

The actors in the play were absolutely amazing – we were all on the edge of our seats the whole time! After the show we waited outside for a chance to see Paul Rudd… we were NOT dissapointed:

I love NYC, I love seeing shows, and I LOVE my camp friends, so this was pretty much the perfect day! Dani and I are already planning our next trek for November, so hopefully we’ll have some more camp friend sightings to report! I hope you’re all making time to keep in touch with your camp friends throughout the winter, it definitely keeps the campsick-ness away!

I love this picture above – it is of Rachel & JMitch, the Presidential Gold Color War Captains, sitting with the rest of our amazing CITs of 2012 on the Amphitheater stage the last night of the summer while the whole camp sang the Color War Alma Maters one more time.  As the weather has dropped 20 degrees overnight, and I’ve been back in the winter office for nearly a month, it’s officially time to say goodbye summer, and start focusing on 2013!

Hopefully, a lot of you have been able to see camp friends (either in person or through Skype) and that you are keeping the memories alive!  I’m lucky to have this job where I get to “ThinkCamp!” all the time, but I got to see some camp friends who live a bit father away just a few days ago.  We mostly ate and enjoyed each others company, but we also did an arts & crafts project!  See below…

I hope by now that you’ve been introduced to the adorable Carli Forti…

Since Carli’s been living up in Canadensis with her parents Eric & Robin since she was less than a month old, she never really got her “crib” setup at home in the Philly suburbs.  (“Crib”…get it?)

Anyway, the furniture and bedding were great, but she was lacking some inspiring artwork – so the Camp Canadensis crew came to the rescue to ensure that her walls would make her room feel like a home.  We divided up tasks…Matt Unger, Sam Ginsburg, Dave Malter and friends worked mostly on hanging frames and a quilt.  I worked on some vinyl art work (similar to the kind we put up in the Camp Canadensis Welcome Center), which includes the tree below.  Once I got the branches up on the wall, everyone started adding flowers…including our Today Show Producer, Jason “JCal” Calabretta, and our Lower Juniors Group Leader, Melissa Torban.

We hope Carli enjoys her new room for a few months, but she’ll be back at her summer home before she knows it!

Happy October everybody! It was a chilly morning as I made my way into the office – I guess this means summer really is over! Now that we’re back in full swing in the office I’m really excited to get back to my blog – I’ve got so much exciting camp-themed fun lined up for this fall and I can’t wait to share it all with you!

Looking back over the summer, I can definitely say this was the BEST SUMMER EVER! So, as is usually my “first-blog-back” tradition, here are some of my favorite moments of the summer, captured on film for you all to see. The best part, I’m proud to say, is that I took all of these snapshots myself! I’m getting super proud of my photography skills and I loved toting my camera around with me, from Ithaca to Orlando, to capture the most amazing summer of our lives…

Credit to LMac for this one:

There are literally hundreds of photos I could post and still never show you what a fabulous summer we had. A picture is worth a thousand memories and this was a summer we’ll never forget 🙂