Jack's Camp Friends

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here A dad scheduled a call last month through the Calendly link at the bottom of a camp newsletter. During the convo, he talked about being referred to camp three years ago. Kid didn’t come, but (thankfully) he never unsubbed from the list. “We read the emails every week,” he said. “Don’t stop doing those.” His kid is planning to come to camp this summer. Told this story to the Write for Camp group in our final session last week. 12 camp pros, six...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Let’s just start with…Wow. When I wrote about not recording YouTube videos a couple of weeks ago, I expected to hit send and have what usually happens: go on to think about the next week’s newsletter. But nope. Inbox explosion. Dozens and dozens wrote back answering what the “YouTube” thing was for them. And I thought I’d hear about the strategic projects being avoided, the big CEO work sitting undone. Which def did happen. Partnership packets....

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Remember in The Sandlot when the Babe Ruth ball lands over the fence into the Beast’s yard? Summer screeches to a halt. Smalls, Benny, Ham, Squints and the rest of the crew stand there knowing what’s on the other side. They’ve heard the stories. They know there’s some risk. But they also know they have to get it back. So they start scheming. Building contraptions. Coming up with increasingly elaborate plans. All summer, they’re working this...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here I was supposed to record a YouTube video last Tuesday. Had the time blocked. Had the topic. Even had the script. Had Dan Weir’s voice (hey Dan!!) in my head telling me (again) that I need to be doing this. Instead, I walked across camp to check on mold in one of the cabins. Was it urgent? Sort of. Did it need to be me? Probably not. Could someone else have handled it? Definitely. But there I was, looking at water stuff with our facilities manager,...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here I met Henry DeHart at a bar in Dallas during the CODA conference last year. He was then the American Camp Association (ACA y’all!) interim CEO at the time, and honestly, he didn’t need to be there walking around late at night in a crowded spot. Could’ve stayed in his hotel room, answered emails, prepped for the next day’s sessions. Instead, he showed up. Drinking a beer (I think?), making jokes, moving between groups. Asking questions. Actually...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here “25+ years ago the OG of camp consulting, Bob Ditter, told the room of assembled directors that the single biggest mistake we made was to not speak as child development authorities. I don’t think many accepted it - out of modesty, or whatever else held them back. Glad to hear the affirming reminder again - and with such conviction!” Steve Purdum sent us that note after our first Write for Camp session. That quote’s got everything. Bob Ditter drop....

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here QUICK ASK: If you love these newsletters, you would make me so happy if you forwarded this to one other camp pro and say "Do you subscribe to this? I love it" Subscribe Here THANK YOU! Now on to the dinosaur car part In 2016, a Dinosaur-themed monster truck tank drove into K&E and literally ate cars. I wasn’t there yet, but as you can imagine, this moment is freaking legendary. There’s video of it happening. Kids screaming. Cars getting crushed....

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Aging is kind of a scary thought, right? To be honest, I’m not so interested in getting old (however you define old!). And camp is for kids, so it’s a bit weird to talk about what happens decades and decades later. Except that growing up and eventually getting wrinkled is one of those unavoidable things, so here we are. Science on longevity is all over the place, and I’m definitely no expert here (though I do follow Brian Johnson on Twitter by way...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here One of our campers this summer was an elite U13 quarterback. This kid has a cannon. High schools recruiting him. Getting all the accolades, all the attention that comes with being really good at one thing. In the world, he’s a football player. Plain and simple. But at camp, he did a lot of different things. Played ping pong. Shot basketball. Spent time at arts and crafts, laughing constantly. He still has to compete for sure, played U15 flag...