Can you believe that in just 37 days camp will be full of happy campers? The pool and lake will be as busy as ever, our kitchen will be going non-stop, and our campers and counselors will be having the summer of their lives. Good Bye peace and quite and Say Hello to some SUMMER FUN! It’s going to be yet another amazing Camp Friendship Summer.

As we continue to countdown the days until camp starts we are still working very had preparing camp for your arrival. Some of our seasonal staff are already arriving and settling into their new positions. Zee our summer Challenge Director and year-round Groups Coordinator is back at camp after a few months home in South Africa. She’s back and ready for anything, but I’ll let her fill you in soon. Let me just share a little bit of what the rest of us have been doing.

Lets start with the office staff, these ladies are working very hard gathering every bit of information we need about each of our campers. Our office staff is the front line for camp, they are the ones who package and send out your parent packets, the first ones to answer any of your questions when you call, and so much more. Right now they are working diligently on sending out all parent packets but don’t forget if you haven’t received yours yet or have misplaced a form you can go online and retrieve it. Usernames and passwords have been sent out to access the parent handbook page but if you have not received yours call us and our office staff will be happy to set you up.

We also have our maintenance staff. They are working very hard making all the final preparations on the grounds all over camp. These guys have just recently finished installing the new A/C units in the Dining Hall, oh that’ is going to make for some refreshing meal times. Not only that but they have also finished work on the new Dance Pavilion, new floors and mirror walls. They’ve done a great job, and with a little help from Robin our new Camp Store Manager they also completed work on renovating Huntmaster’s Lodge which any riding campers will remember as their cabin. While you may not notice much difference on the outside once you enter the lodge you’ll be pleasantly surprised. So on to the rest of camp.

Our Kitchen Staff is hard at work preparing the dining hall for the campers’ arrival. Barbara our Dining Hall Supervisor is ordering food, checking labels, and stocking up for a summer full of hungry kids and staff. I’m sure we will have all your favorite meals this summer. Barbara and her staff also take care off keeping camp and all cabins on camp clean and ready, that in it self is quite the undertaking.

This year is a very important year for Camp Friendship because we are up for re-accreditation by the American Camp Association. So our directors are very hard at work making sure that every single piece of camp is up to par. This includes safety standards, staff certifications, food safety, and so very much more. It’s a massive project but one that we are all happy to be a part of. Camp Friendship has been ACA Accredited since our founding in 1966 and that’s not about to change.

Our Program Director on top of being knee deep in the staff hiring, and setting up our programming for the summer and all the groups programming coming up until camp starts is also busy helping with ACA re-accreditation. Lets just say she’s a very busy little bee.

As for me, I’ve got my hands in all kinds of pies. You could say I’m a Jack of many trades and a master of none. However my most important job is to communicate with our camper families and make sure you have all the information you need before arriving at camp. So if you have any questions please let me know. I’m also pulling out my camera and getting ready for the summer, I’m going to have a lot of photos to take.

Well I hope this update helps you envision some of what we are doing and gets everyone excited for another great summer at Camp Friendship. I have a few more things to share, as the summer gets closer so keep your eyes on this page for more.

Cris

Camp Friendship is well known for its culturally diverse camp population. We welcome campers and staff from all over the United States and abroad. So here’s a poll so you can share a little about where you are coming from to share your summer with all of us at Camp Friendship. Please feel free to be more specific in the comments area. (If you do comment keep it to state and country only.)

Poll: So where are you from?

• North
• South
• East
• West
• International

Status:

Also want to create a poll? Click here

It’s amazing how many people are involved in these social networking sites these days. I for one fought the entire idea tooth and nail over the last couple of years and it’s not until recently that I really got sucked into facebook. I’ve actually caught up with old friends that I haven’t spoken to in years.

All of us at Camp Friendship understand the allure of these social networking sites for our campers and even our summer staff. That is why we feel the need to address it with our Social Networking Policy. While this will be a new policy for our Camp Friendship families , this is a well discussed topic in the camping community.

I will not post the entire policy here but it will be made available to you with your new packets which will be in the mail to you very soon and available through our online secure sever soon. I would like to point out a few things to give you an idea why we are addressing this issue.

In general, Camp Friendship views social networking sites (i.e., Myspace.com), personal websites, and weblogs positively and respects the rights of campers to use them as a medium of self-expression. However, if a camper chooses to identify himself or herself as a camper at our camp on such internet venues, some readers of such websites or blogs may view the camper as a representative or spokesperson of Camp Friendship.

excerpt from our Social Networking Policy

As we keep working towards uniting our Camp Friendship community through a variety of mediums we do want to take advantage of technology when its seems appropriate. Therefore we’d like to encourage our campers to join our OFFICIAL CAMP FRIENDSHIP PAGE on facebook, with their parents permission of course. This page is a very simple place for our campers and families to go online and start discussions with campers and parents about camp and even talk to us directly. We created this page and I will be monitoring it personally.

Here are some points to keep in mind. . . .

1. Campers must be respectful in all communications and blogs related to or referencing Camp Friendship, its employees, and other campers.

2. Campers must not use obscenities, profanity, or vulgar language.

3. Campers must not use blogs or personal websites to disparage the camp, other campers, or employees of the camp.

4. Campers must not use blogs or personal websites to harass, bully, or intimidate other campers or employees of the camp. Behaviors that constitute harassment and bullying include, but are not limited to, comments that are derogatory with respect to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation, color, or disability; sexually suggestive, humiliating, or demeaning comments; and threats to stalk, haze, or physically injure another person.

Currently we only have two Camp Friendship pages on Facebook which are monitored by our staff, The Official Camp Friendship Staff Group (staff only) and our Official Camp Friendship Page . All other Camp Friendship titled pages or groups are not monitored or approved by Camp Friendship, therefore we can’t be responsible for what is discussed or presented in those groups.

To all our campers, staff, and camp families since your are talking about Camp Friendship anyway just join us online so we can all talk together. This is also a great opportunity for you to get involved with us as we grow our Alumni registration. We are planning some fun and exciting things for our Alumni in the near future but that’s for another time.

If you have any questions or suggestions about this topic please feel free to email, call, post a comment, or start a discussion on our online page and lets talk about it.

Cris

Spring Break Riding Camp has come to Camp Friendship and without a doubt it has been loads of fun. Spring Break Riding Camp has been a little experiment for us at camp. While we always have our Riding Weekends and Mother/Daughter Riding Weekends we thought it would be nice to give you an opportunity to really try out Riding Camp before camp. I have to say so far it has been a great success.

Our riders are just raving about all the fun they’ve had. I was speaking to Skye Ackenbom our Riding Director to see just how much our riders got to do this week and let me tell you it sounds like they had a pretty full week.

The girls attended regular riding lessons but on top of that they had bareback rides and trail rides on our many trails throughout camp. Our riders don’t only ride all week but they get to learn about these great animals that they ride. In theory they learned about colors, breeds, types of feed, and the different parts that make up a horse. The girls even took part in some barn chores, such as tack cleaning and clipping to help them understand what it takes to care for these great creatures.

While Riding Camp is about riding, horses, and fun this is still a camp. Our riders had a great time partaking in evening activities such as scavenger hunt, a hayride, play performances, campfire, and what sounds like fun to me musical stalls.

All and all a fun filled week with friends and horses. While this week brings our Spring Break Riding camp to an end over the next few weekends we will be having our Girls Riding Weekends and Mother-Daughter Weekends, which are always a lot of fun. Some of our weeks are already full but we are opening a new Mother-Daughter weekend up so if your are on the waiting list we’ll be contacting you soon and if not give us a call we may have a spot open for you.

To all our riders I hope you had a super great time and to the rest of you come and join us next time. While Riding Weekends are great fun this summer we’ll be having even more fun.

Note: Here’s an article that will prove very interesting to any of you who are considering sending your daughter to Riding Camp “Tips for Horseback Riding Campers and their Parents” and of course we are always here to answer any of your questions.

Oh and don’t forget to answer our poll! - What’s Your Favorite Part of Camp?

So here’s a new poll for our visitors so we can share a little of what makes camp so much fun for all of us. The poll is attached so please give it a try and tell us what’s your favorite part of summer camp. Go ahead and answer even if your summer camp days are behind you, if you want to elaborate drop us a comment.

Poll: Favorite part of summer camp?

• Swimming in the lake or pool.
• Evening Activities are a blast!
• Making new friends.
• Archery, soccer, tennis and more!
• I love everything about camp!
• Other, Specify in the comments.

Status:

Also want to create a poll? Click here

Ray Ackenbom our Director, Sarah Holder our Assistant Director, Sam Leonard our Program Director, and little ole me Cris the Marketing Director, attended the ACA(American Camp Association) Tri-State Conference in Atlantic City this past week.

This get together of camp professionals is held every year in an effort to bring us together and share what we’ve learned and what we are doing to improve what we can offer our campers and their families. We all went ready to have a great time and bring back some great resources. I believe we’ve done just that and we can’t wait to put these new ideas to work this summer and in the season’s to come.

This year’s conference was the first time attending for a some of us at Camp Friendship while our Director is an old pro. While at the conference we had the pleasure of attending the Keynote speeches by New York Times Best-selling author and 2000’s Disney American Teacher of the year Ron Clark as well as Rachel Simmons author of “Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls”. If this wasn’t enough we also had a surprise performance from Lisa Loeb, who performed a few camp songs for us camp people from her upcoming children’s album.

All and all the conference was a great success and it just got us even more excited for what we have in store for this summer. We can’t wait to see you all soon.

Hello everyone and Happy New Year! Oh I guess I’m a little late in the year but I do hope it has been great so far. We are actually having a blast so far this year. Our Directors and year-round staff have been out on Camp Fairs meeting with many of you all over the place. We might even be coming to where you live soon, just check out our site for upcoming dates.

Alina just got back from Paris, France where she met with some great families that will be joining us this summer. Our Assistant Director Sarah and Program Director Sam are in Florida participating in some Camp Fairs and I’m sure enjoying the warmer weather.

This time of year is a lot of fun but nothing compares to the fun we will have this summer. It’s very exciting to travel around the country meeting many of you while we prepare for the summer to come. Some of our families are even hosting a few Open Houses where we bring the story of camp to you and your friends.

Well by now many of you should have received our Winter Newsletter or downloaded from our site and if you haven’t get on over and get it. There’s lots of good stuff in there. I’m already working on the Spring Newsletter so be on the look out for that.

Now don’t think we are all running around and forgetting about camp. NO WAY! Just this weekend we had two groups visiting and having a great time. Specially enjoying our Dining Hall which our maintenance staff have been working very hard on this year. They put in central air ( not to useful right now, but this summer it’ll be AWESOME! ) and new floors in the Flag Room.

Our office staff is also doing one of the most important jobs on camp during this time of year and that’s talking to you our families. Please don’t hesitate to call us with any questions our staff is ready to help you with anything you need. I know they are already staying busy with the phones going off but if you can’t get through just try again, we are here.

I hope to keep these posts a bit more regular and brief in the coming weeks so keep an eye out, or two.

See you soon

Cris

WEEKLY ARTICLE:

Here’s an article I found very interesting I thought I’d share with all of you. Maybe I’ll make it a regular thing from now on, hmm. . . we’ll see.

• Building a Culture of Trust

Oh and don’t forget drop some comments, let me know what you thought of the article and share with us what you are looking forward to the most about camp this summer.

The leaves are falling, some much-needed rain is here and we are getting ready for next summer.  The past few months we’ve hosted various groups from the YMCA and some beautiful weddings, it has been great fun.    As the year moves forward our staff here at Camp Friendship is very excited for what’s in store.   Our directors are already hiring some great staff for next summer.  We are also very excited that many of you have already decided to join us again for summer 2008.

Fall Riding Weekends have been a huge success and the barn is keen for some more excitement.  As the horses and riding staff prepare for the winter we are already planning our Spring Riding Weekends starting in March.  This spring we are offering in addition to our Girls-Only and Mother-Daughter Weekends, Spring Break Camp for 5 days of summer-like fun during spring break.  It’s a new offering here at camp but we believe it’ll be a huge success for those girls who want to get away and ride.  If you’re interested in some more details just click here.

Tags: camp, summer, fall, riding, riding_weekends, spring_break

Hello, it’s me again just thought I’d let you in on a bit of news.

OUR PHOTO GALLERIES HAVE MOVED!  Based on our galleries popularity we have realized we must address certain safety issues.  Our photos will still be available for you to view but we will need you to register for a password to access them.  Now this may sound a little more complicated than before but rest assured we are partnering with Bunk1 in order to make this a safe, secure, and painless experience.

We value our campers and their families’ safety and we are taking the steps necessary to provide our Camp Friendship community a very safe and secure way to share in the camp experiences all
Year.  Currently our photo galleries only are available but we hope to offer more in the future.

If you are eager to see the new features available you may go to our website at www.campfriendship.com and click on the link to register for your password.

Our 2007 summer families will soon be receiving more in-depth information on these changes so please be on the look out for a special message from Camp Friendship.

I personally invite you to let us know if you’ve enjoyed this summers photo galleries and weekly news articles by emailing or calling us at 1.800.873.3223.

Talk to you soon

Cris

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