Life Skills at Camp!

Jed at Camp Weequahic 1971

Last week, 14 members of the Meadowbrook Leadership Team attended the American Camp Association Tri-State Camp Conference in Atlantic City.  It is a great opportunity for our staff to share and earn with thousands of other Camp professionals.

In the spirit of sharing, here is a blog post from another Camp...this one from my Alma Mater, Camp Weequahic.

At Meadowbrook, we are very focused on teaching important life skills to our Campers.  This blog post is a great perspective on some of those life skills that we teach at Meadowbrook, skills like Resilience  Sportsmanship, Teamwork, and Self-Esteem.  Check it out...and let us know what you think!

 Learning to Lose at Camp

Working at Camp

Next Sunday, I will have the privilege of presenting at the NY/NJ American Camp Association's (ACA)  Teen LEADership Conference in New York City.   As I was researching information for my presentation, I came across this article at Suite101.  It was published last May, but it is as applicable today as it was last year and it will be for years to come!

Top 10 Summer Jobs for Teens

No less than 4 of these Top 10 Jobs are taking place at Meadowbrook each and every day of the Summer:

- Camp Counselor
- Sports Camp Counselor
- Lifeguarding
- Child Care

Most importantly, Teens (and other Young Adults) who work at Meadowbrook gain the valuable life skills that Susan Carney points out in her article:

Communication Skills
Problem Solving Skills
Ability to Work as Part of a Team

And that is just the start!

Do not underestimate the benefits of working at Camp...just ask anyone who has done it!!

See you at Camp!

Summer Camp is More Than Fun!!

We tell parents all the time that Meadowbrook is amazing fun....but it is really much more than that!

This article from New Jersey Family Magazine points out some of the important benefits of attending an ACA Accredited Summer Camp like Meadowbrook!

• Children who participate in summer programs...are less likely to have a significant summer learning slide and lose the academic gains they made the previous year in school.
• Camp also enhances a child’s physical and emotional well-being. Activities build social skills, teamwork, and independence, which contribute to stronger self-confidence and leadership abilities.
• Kids who go to camp with friends they already know feel comfortable from the get-go and can launch into activities right away. For other kids, the joy of making new friends and developing social relationships might be more rewarding than the activities.
• Nearly 75% of campers try new activities they were initially afraid to do.

Check it out and let us know what you think:  Summer Camp is More Than Fun!

Summer will be here before you know it...if you haven't registered your Children for Camp this Summer, now is the time!

See you at Camp!!

September Update: What’s Happening at Meadowbrook?

We miss the sounds of happy children, Lunch Pavilion cheering, Lifeguard whistles, and T.I.G.E.R. spirit at Meadowbrook…but we hope everyone’s transition back to school was successful.

While we have moved from our blog to facebook status updates for much of our electronic communication, we will still update the blog with larger pieces of information, like this.

So, what’s been happening at Meadowbrook since Camp ended?

We are already very busy getting ready for the Summer of 2012! There is no off-season at Meadowbrook!!

We started by welcoming back many Campers to our Valley Brook School. One of the differences here at Meadowbrook is that we are a year-round youth-development facility for children. We have lots of blue MCDC backpacks in the halls of Valley Brook. All of the preparations that we do to change Camp back to School (waxing all of the floors, painting, landscaping) also benefits our Meadowbrook Campers. We also did a lot of wall repairs in our Pre-K changing room as we prepared for Valley Brook School.

We have chosen to do a lot of work on our pools this year, and we have started now instead of waiting until Spring. Rain aside, we emptied both the main pool and upper pool. They are being scrubbed, power washed and have fresh coats of paint and tile work. Now we wait for a solid week of dry weather for a second coat of paint and then we refill and cover for next Summer. From there, we will move to improving the deck surfaces around the pools this winter.

Our landscaping crew has also been hard at work. The very hot and dry start to the Summer took it’s toll on many of our grassy areas. We have done lots of thatching, aerating, fertilizing, seeding and haying to get everything back to beautiful for the Summer of 2012! We have also improved some of the gardens around buildings and will continue to plant throughout the fall.

Another Meadowbrook Difference is that ALL of our Staff re-interview every year. We start with our Leadership Team (editorial comment: the largest and best in the industry). Many have already been in to see us, some spending several hours reviewing programs and Staff and brainstorming ideas to make the Summer of 2012 even better!

Generally speaking, our facility has not had too many problems with all of the rain we have been getting, including the hurricane. But we have had a few issues, most notably erosion on the road between our two lakes and a little flooding in the basement and garage at the Camp house. We did lose some carnival games, special events supplies, and furniture; but we are happy to report that all of the Meadosaurus bones that everyone found during the Summer of 2010 were saved! We will be spending time during the next few weeks rebuilding both the road and basement so that they will both be ready long before the Summer of 2012!

Finally, September is a busy month for giving back. We are very focused on practicing Generosity from our T.I.G.E.R. program. Throughout the month, Roz has been attending meetings for S.C.O.P.E., where she sits on their Board of Directors. She also worked on and presented at the American Camp Association (ACA) Day Camp Conference. Our Office Manager Marty also designed and moderated a session at the Conference. Four of us attended and it was a chance to learn what is going on at other Camps as well as share our best practices with the industry in hopes of more and more children having meaningful Camp experiences for years to come. Meanwhile, Jed has also been busy as a chairperson planning the ACA Fall Management Conference and the ACA Tri-State Camp Conference. He also has been fulfilling his Board position with the NY/NJ Section of the ACA.

Looking forward, we are excited to see all of our families at Meadowfest on October 16^th at Camp. Come enjoy a great fall day at Meadowbrook with lots of fun activities. This is also a great opportunity to earn referral discounts with our SWAP program. We encourage you to bring along friends and neighbors who may be interested in sending their Children to Meadowbrook next Summer. When they enroll and list you as the referring family, you receive a $200 discount on Camp for your family!

As always, we thank you for the confidence you place in us and for allowing us to share the wonderful Meadowbrook experience with your children. As always, if you need anything from us, have any questions, or we can be of any assistance, please do not hesitate to give us a call in the office. We are available all throughout the year for all of our Meadowbrook families!

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

American Camp Association

As camp professionals, in addition to running Meadowbrook Day Camp, we are active participants and leaders within the camp industry. For example, today I attended the Board of Directors meeting of the NJ Section of the American Camp Association (ACA) where I am an active Board Member.

What does the ACA do and how does Meadowbrook fit in?

First and foremost, Meadowbrook is an ACA Accredited camp. That means that we follow over 300 nationally recognized standards to help make Meadowbrook a safe, well run camp. ACA Accreditation is a large commitment that camps make and it is estimated that only 1 in 10 camps in the state of NJ achieve this high standard. We are proud that we have consistently been an ACA Accredited Camp. I also serve on the NJ Section's Standards Committee and volunteer as a Standards Visitor to camps seeking to establish or renew their ACA accreditation.

Our involvement with ACA also means that we are frequently attending seminars and workshops to help us improve everything we do at Meadowbrook. We share our expertise with others and have the benefit of learning from other camp professsionals as well as experts in other areas. This helps us to make every Summer at Meadowbrook and amazing experience for our Campers.

Finally, ACA works to provide the camp experience to as wide an audience of children as possible. Again, we are very involved in this goal through our ACA work as well as by providing significant support to an outgrowth organization from ACA called S.C.O.P.E. Just today, I joined a new ACA task force exploring ways to make the wonderful benefits of a day camp experience available to as many children in NJ as possible.

- Jed