Welcome to 2010 Meadowbrook Staff!

As we have crossed the 100 days ‘til Camp mark, we wanted to once again welcome you to what will be the best Summer ever at Meadowbrook!

For those of you who are joining us for the first time, you are about to meet and work with an amazing group of people, all with the common goal of finding the greatness in every one of our Campers and bringing it out.

For those of you returning, we are thrilled to have you back! Once again, we have a tremendous number of staff members returning this Summer. Each year we raise the bar for those staff invited back. We recognize and appreciate the great job you did last year, and we look forward to building upon it in the Summer of 2010.

A few quick but important notes…

Everyone at Meadowbrook needs to work all 39 days of camp. This year, camp runs from Monday, June 28 - Friday, August 20. If you have had any change in your plans that effects your ability to work the entire Summer, please let Rich know right away.

Get your forms in…medical forms, tax forms, reference forms, working papers, etc. If you need any additional copies, they are under the staff section, forms library, on our website.

If you are on Facebook, become a fan of Meadowbrook Day Camp (facebook.com/meadowbrookrocks). We regularly post content related to camp. We have also set up a group “Meadowbrook 2010 Staff”. This is a private group that will allow our staff to interact with each other prior to camp. You can post and answer questions about what to expect this Summer. It gives everyone a chance to meet before camp even starts. You may find some friends working at Meadowbrook that you didn’t even know about!

Finally, we will be making some significant changes to our Staff Orientation. For the first time, we will be handling some aspects of training on-line prior to the start of Camp. This will allow us to spend more time during the actual orientations at Camp on more substantial, and we think exciting, elements of becoming an excellent staff member at Meadowbrook. If you would like to receive correspondence from Meadowbrook, including the pre-camp staff training information, at a different email address, please let us know so that we can update your record.

We are glad you will be part of the Meadowbrook family this Summer. If you have any questions prior to orientation, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are looking forward to a great Summer together…only 93 days ‘til camp!

- Roz, Jed & Rich

ACA Tri-State Conference

At Meadowbrook, we talk a lot about our Leadership Team as an important difference in what we offer our camp families. It is a large, mature, experienced, committed group of professionals that help make the Meadowbrook experience extraordinary for our Campers!

This important difference was on display last week as 12 (yes 12) members of the Meadowbrook Leadership Team attended the American Camp Association Tri-State Conference in Atlantic City. With 12 attendees, we were probably the largest group from any camp in NJ, and among the largest at the conference overall.

Why do we make the commitment and investment to bring so many people? At Meadowbrook, we are dedicated to continuous improvement and lifelong learning for everyone....our Campers...our General Staff...and our Leadership Team! Sure, we can tell everyone what Jay Frankel said, but it is not that same as hearing it first hand and participating in a role play with his actors. We can explain the latest team building game from Jim Cain, but it's not the same as playing it. We can talk about what other camps are doing in the areas of staff hiring, training, facility improvement, program development, but it is not the same as actively participating in the discussion and learning from the best and brightest in the camp industry.

On the exhibit floor, we are always looking for the newest improvements, special event ideas, craft suppliers, etc. Sure, 6 eyes are good....12 are better...24 incredible. We purchased several new items for our Activity Tent, replaced a few more tents, and are adding a new over-surface to the hallway and bathrooms where our Tiny Toon Campers change.

We visited with our suppliers for background checks, t-shirts, insurance, database management, food service and others...We confirmed plans with our entertainers for Reality TV Week, Carnival, X-treme Water Day, and our Giant Board Game...We checked in with camp vendors where we were their first or early clients in the camp industry such as our revolutionary Snap Court Surfaces, bubble machine, and iDance.

Overall, we learned, shared, bonded and grew to help make this Summer at Meadowbrook another Extraordinary Summer for all of our Camp Families!

Activity Tent

We are finishing up our annual trip to the American Camp Association Tri-State Camp Conference (more on the conference later). One of our goals for this year’s conference was to improve what we offer under the Activity Tent at Meadowbrook.

Mission Accomplished! First of all, we purchased a brand new product: Poly Pong. Poly Pong is a 4-sided Ping-Pong Table. It is a combination of Table Tennis (aka Ping Pong) and 4-square! There are 20 different ways to play and it should be Really Neat!

We are also buying new Baggo sets. We found Baggo at this conference a few years ago. It is a bit like horseshoes with bean bags. It is a very popular game and we will replace our Baggo sets with brand new ones!

We are also considering another new item: Lasso Golf. We really like the game and the concept. We just need to make sure that we area comfortable we can play it safely under the Activity Tent.

We will continue to offer 4-Square, Giant Connect-4, Giant Jenga and Knock Hockey. And naturally, we are always on the lookout for more ideas. Let me know if you have any!

- Jed

"I Need To Get A Real Job This Summer"

We are very lucky at Meadowbrook: we have great staff members and they have an amazing Summer working at Meadowbrook. Each year, over 65% of them return for another great Summer. For many of those who don't return, it is because they "Need to get a 'real' job this Summer..."

Today's article in The New York Times does an excellent job of illustrating that working at camp could possibly be the 'most real' job a young adult can have.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/09/nyregion/09bigcity.html?src=tptw

As I often like to point out, what is a 'real' job...working in an office, wearing a tie, and learning to use a photocopy machine? Or earning the respect and admiration of fifteen 7-year old boys as you capture their imagination while leading them on a secret mission from the bonfire to the hockey rink that nobody else can know about...

As Doug Herzog, the president of the MTV Networks Entertainment Group, says in the article, “College is great; everyone who has the opportunity should go to college, but I learned everything I needed to know at camp.”

How can you top that. Want a "real" job this Summer....work at a camp!!

Congratulations Roz

An important part of Meadowbrook is our T.I.G.E.R. program. TIGER represents the 5 key attributes that we think are important to creating a successful camp community:

T eamwork

I ntegrity

G enerosity

E nthusiasm

R espect

We learn about these at camp and work to put them into practice both during the Summer and throughout the entire year.

Under the G-Generosity heading, we congratulate Roz on her appointment to the Board of Directors of S.C.O.P.E. SCOPE is a non-profit organization. Their mission is to provide children in need the edge to succeed in life through the summer camp experience.

Under Roz's leadership, Meadowbrook has been a long time supporter of SCOPE. Roz has been an important part of several committees that organize SCOPE's annual fundraising dinner each March at the American Camp Association Tri-State conference. She also chairs the SCOPE fundraising auction each winter for the ACA-NJ Section Holiday Dinner.

Not only do we wish Roz the best as her role within SCOPE grows, we thank her for continuing to model Generosity for the entire Meadowbrook community!