Hello Canadensis!

I hope all you in the northeast have made your way out of the snow.  I don’t know about you, but I am fed up with all of the white stuff.  Last week, here in north New Jersey, we got another 20+ inches.  It is enough already!

For this blog, I wanted to share with you many of the pictures from our first ever Canteen on the Fly on Sunday, February 21.  The idea was for camp’s year round staff to hit some of our neighborhoods and see just how many Canadensis campers and families we could meet.  Our journey started at noon in Merrick, NY at TCBY.  At 1:30, we were at the Carvel in Jericho, NY.  Finally, at 4:00 pm, we made our way to Livingston, NJ and Colaco’s Creamery.

First off, we were blown away by the turnout!  With the three locations combined, I think we must have seen close to 200 campers and families.  It was absolutely terrific to see so many people.  Every child that showed up had a chance to win Canadensis items from pens to patches to T-shirts.  Of course, anyone that showed up got free ice cream!  Here are some great pictures from the day…

Thank you for all those Canadensis campers, parents and staff that made the trip out to see us.  We had a great time!  We can’t wait to do it again this Sunday on March 7 when we hit Cherry Hill, New Jersey and Buck’s County and Main Line, Pennsylvania.

Of course, last week was another opportunity to get to see Canadensis campers in their homes.  In New City, NY, I saw Steven and Jason Haber.  Jason, also called Jay, is in the 3rd grade and will be in our Junior Division in 2010.  Jay plays on football, basketball and baseball teams in the fall, winter and spring.  He also enjoys participating in the town’s Mad Science program, which does cool experiments such as lighting balloons on fire and making slime.  This summer, which will be his first at Canadensis, he can’t wait to make new friends and Color War.  Big brother Steven, now in 7th grade, returns to camp for his third summer and will be in the Lower Senior division.  He also plays on football, basketball and baseball teams.  In 2010, he can’t wait to try to ride an 80 in Hondas and Color War.  Here is a pic…

In Irvington, NY, I met Brianna Havraniak and sister Maddie.  Brianna will be coming to camp for her first summer in the Lower Inter Girls division as she is in the 4th grade.  When not at camp, Brianna is busy with a number of different activities.  She ice skates and snow skis.  She plays lacrosse, basketball and tennis.  She plays the violin and will also be performing in her school play “Romeo and Juliet.”  Sister Maddie, a future Canadensis camper, enjoys break dancing and playing electric guitar.  She is also involved with lacrosse, basketball, soccer and snowboarding.  Here is a photo…

In Ambler, PA, Pam and I went over to see the Greenes…Justin and Lauren.  Justin, who returns for his 3rd summer as Freshman Boy, is excited that his sister Lauren will be coming to camp for her first summer.  Lauren is in the 3rd grade and will be in the Junior Girls Division.  Lauren has been busy with her Lazers basketball team and gymnastics this year and soon she will be playing travel soccer.  She also loves playing with her dog, Mia.  This summer, she is looking forward to the Ropes Course and Zipline and all the activities at the lake.  Justin has been extremely busy with travel soccer.  His team, Montgomery United, placed third this past season in the top division.  Justin played midfield on the team.  He has also been playing a lot of tennis.  In 2010, he can’t wait to be on Freshman Hill, meet all the new staff at camp, do the Summit at the lake and winning Color War.  Here is a shot of the four of us…

As I sit here on March 1, I would be remiss by not mentioning the fact that my Syracuse Orange (my alma mater) is currently the #1 basketball team in the country!  After defeating Villanova on Saturday night in front of 34,616 fans (a new regular season record for a home game), the Orange jumped ahead of Kansas, Kentucky and Purdue to claim the nation’s top spot.  Hopefully, they can go far in the college basketball tournament in a few weeks.

Well, that’s all for now.  More blogging later.

Have a great day…Brian

Over the weekend I got to spend some time with Becky Jacobson and Karen Sharir, and they told me all about their recent artistic collaboration…

Becky J had to write a  “Collaborative Recipe Poem”, meaning she had to write a poem with a partner, and the poem had to read like a recipe. Becky asked Karen to assist her with the creative piece, and the result is nothing short of masterful. The girls drew inspiration from the movie, Wet Hot American Summer (a camp counselor favorite!) and I laughed out loud the first time I read it. If you know the WHAS movie, you will be surprised to see just how many references the girls were able to squeeze in to their poem…

Recipe for a Wet Hot American Summer

Cleanse Arty the beekeeper and set aside,
Barbecue a crowned class B dungeon master —
let simmer in a thin sauce of hygienic products.
Add some arts and farts and crafts.

Dice up a talent show and be sure to leave the baggage and attitude at the door,
Because we don’t need it.
Fry it in a pan of “fondue with cheddar.”
Juice the deepest thoughts from your gournal.

Then take some “hey” from before and add it to the mix,
Throw in some dance belts, lycras, et.al. seriously.

Take Arty and his fake summer romance that didn’t even happen,
and spread evenly throughout the hundreds of colored markers.
Add One cup of determination to get McKinley loved.

Blend everything together in one huge piece of the space station coming towards Earth.

Before you put it all in the oven make sure to get the lower camp kids out of the ropes course,
I meant to tell you about that yesterday.

Toss it in the oven and make it your beeswax to get it out at 9:30 to see what it has blossomed into.

If you follow the directions exactly, almost all of your campers should make it out in one piece,
except for the few who are lepers.

But this tastes like burger so I don’t like it anymore.

Have you ever used a camp joke, or the general theme of camp, as inspiration for an assignment or creative piece? If so, email it to me at cara@canadensis.com and I’ll be sure to post it for everyone to enjoy!

Other than the usual weekend dinner with camp friends, life has been business as usual, only it seems that the days are flying by faster than ever, and I truly feel as though I’m going to wake up tomorrow and be leaving for Pre-Camp. I have been coming up with some crazy ideas for camp activities and craft projects over the last few weeks, so I’m really excited to start working on translating my ideas into reality as this month goes on. Here’s one project that Karen and I will be starting:

This piece is made entirely of recycled materials, mostly magazines and old canvases, and it’s going to be so cool to create our own!

Well, I hope everyone is excited for the arrival of a new month, another month closer to camp, and that all of our Philadelphia/Cherry Hill area campers and friends will be coming out to join us for Canteen on the Fly this Sunday!

Got a question for Eric? Send your questions to JCal@Canadensis.com and we’ll get them to Eric for answers. Thanks again for everyone that has been participating. All questions are worth 1 point. Good Luck!

Welcome to the 2010 Camp Director Fair in Kiev, Ukraine! As some of you may recall, the past 5 years I have traveled to Moscow and some years also St. Petersburg , Russia in addition to many other Eastern European countries. (I can’t reveal the itinerary just yet so you can keep playing along!)

Anyway, this is my first time in Kiev, Ukraine and the first time our wonderful agency, CCUSA, has taken us to Ukraine. It is a wonderful city with lots to offer. In my limited time here so far, it seems that Ukraine is a bit more modernized and the people seem friendly so far. Last night, I had the unique opportunity to go a Jewish synagogue and participate in Friday night Shabbat services. Upon walking in, it was almost like going to a temple in the US! This one was orthodox, so it’s definitely more Hebrew than I am used to, but once I found the page (which admittedly took about 3-4 minutes!) I participated in the services. Because this weekend is also the Jewish holiday of Purim, the services were extra festive and after one prayer the men marched around the synagogue about 20 times singing and clapping. I of course stood to the side, but for one rotation around I got dragged out there! Trust me, when I walked back past my seat after that, I hid the rest of the time!

Otherwise, today is the Ukraine hiring fair. Over 200 applicants will be walking through the door hoping to secure a job at a summer camp this summer. There are about 25 camp directors here representing their camps. Of course anyone who doesn’t get hired here in person, can still get placed at any of the over 1,000 camps our CCUSA Agency works with who haven’t flown over here.

One final note: I often get asked why do I bother flying all the way around the world to hire our staff? Besides the fun and vacation (haha, j/k), there is a tremendous value (in my opinion) to meeting our staff in person. From our counselors in Australia to our kitchen/laundry/maintenance staff in Eastern Europe, meeting our staff in person means we will get the BEST staff for the BEST SUMMER EVER! All of our staff are extremely important to running such a successful camp and by flying over here and meeting them in person, it shows our staff that we value them and want them to succeed at Canadensis.

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the snow. Ironically, we have less snow in Ukraine than you have in NY/NJ/PA!

I hope everyone is enjoying their SNOW DAYS. We are happy to again be receiving all the great Canadensis Snowmen pictures! If you make a snowman or have some winter fun pictures to share email them to jcal@canadensis.com and we’ll post them on the blog! Have a great weekend and remember to continue to check my twitter, www.twitter.com/whereisforti. Also, for every snowman picture we receive it’s an additional 2 points in the Where in the World is Eric Forti Contest.

No, I haven’t had a hot chocolate from the world’s best chocolate shop here in Poland yet, but hopefully in a few hours!

Good morning from Warsaw, Poland! Right now we are having our staff hiring fair and I have hired 4 wonderful staff members! Maryla and Mateusz will be working in our kitchen and Sandra and Ageta in our laundry/housekeeping department! All 4 are so excited to travel to the US and Maryla promised that she will make Russian pierogies (potato and onion- no meat for Robin) and Wedel hot chocolate. Wedel is the chocolate shop I blog about every year here in Warsaw. They have the world’s best chocolate hands down and the hot chocolate (also called “drinking chocolate”) is literally a chocolate bar melted into a glass. Hopefully I will leave this fair in the next hour and run to the mall next store for a hot chocolate! Tonight we are doing an evening tour of “old Warsaw” pre-communism times. Should be interesting.

The flights over were fairly uneventful. We were delayed a bit leaving Newark, which worked in our favor because Randy from another camp coming in from Boston was quite delayed, but she made it in the nick of time. Flight was about 8 hours and I slept about 3.5-4 hours of the flight. We arrived for a 5-hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany where we walked around a bit, checked some email, and played Spit (cards). 2 hours later we arrived in Warsaw.

If you haven’t yet checked out the twitter (www.twitter.com/whereisforti), we flew with a double silver medalist in Ski Jumping from Poland. He was returning from Vancouver with his coaches, trainers, and the rest of his team. It was real exciting when we landed and there was a large reception waiting for him. Of course, I naturally thought the tv news cameras/photographers were for the Camp Directors who flew all the way to Poland to hire wonderful Polish students, but I was wrong.

Otherwise, back tracking to last weekend, special thanks to all of the families who came to our first annual (can I tell people that we will be doing this annually??!!) Canteen on the Fly. It was a HUGE success, seeing tons of families in Long Island and North Jersey. Our Syosset location at the Carvel turned into a block party with families inside and outside. Everyone was talking camp- stories of camp, catching up on what they do to pass the time between summers, and everything else. There were alot of camper reunions there. Also, a bunch of future Canadensis campers (hopefully!) stopped by to learn more about Canadensis. What better way than seeing other kids their age interacting with all of their camp friends. So, thank you to everyone who went out of the way and rearranged their schedule to stop by. Special mention of Ilene Calabretta (jaycal’s mom who doesn’t get enough shoutouts) as well as Matt Unger’s parents who all stopped by Carvel. It was great to see all of you!

If all this talk about canteen on the fly excites you, but you missed out on it, don’t despair because Canteen on the Fly is making it’s way to the Philly area on Sunday, March 7! We will be in Cherry Hill late morning, the mainline in the early afternoon, and Newtown in the late afternoon. So, we hope to see you at ones of those locations!

Well that’s all from here in Warsaw, Poland. Time for a hot chocolate- my mouth is watering, but weight watchers is telling me no!!!! Keep checking the twitter for tons of updates and clues for my next destination soon!

I am flying out tomorrow to our next location- destination UNKNOWN:)

UPDATE: Eric got his Hot Chocolate and chocolate bar!

Here is a video of Eric from last year’s trip from Warsaw getting his favorite Chocolate

Where in the World is Eric Forti Round 3 has begun! Late this afternoon Eric jetted off to his next Destination. Throughout the next 2 WEEKS Eric will be posting new clues on his twitter page and on the blog. Make sure to check both daily and send your answers to CONTEST@CANADENSIS.COM.

If you haven’t participated in the first 2 rounds don’t worry, it’s not too late to start playing! GOOD LUCK!

WWW.TWITTER.COM/WHEREISFORTI