Jack's Camp Friends

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Hey camp people.If you are reading this, you likely fit into one of two groups. Summer just ended, or summer is close to ending. Maybe there is some secret third camp group I don’t know about, but I suspect those two cover most of you. Whatever group you’re in, you’ll understand a lot of what I’m going to say next. Is it a bit ramble-y and all over the place? Yeah, that’s because I’m… Camp Tired The only people who will ever really understand...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Hey real quick. Want to spend a week with me doing the best behavior management training you can imagine? Send your future camp leaders to Skywild New Hampshire next week. You know how you have kids that struggle to fit at camp? Come learn how to support them and understand neurodiversity. It’s the best professional development I have ever done; my bad-ass girlfriend leads it, and it’s free. Come and/or send your staff. 3 more spots. Just email me...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Hey, it’s Jack. Turns out buying a summer camp makes you busy. Real busy. Who knew?! So this week Doug’s jumping in with a guest post, which tracks, since he just spent a few days hanging around camp with me. He’s got some thoughts. Doug, take it away. It was rest hour, and four kids were playing a game called Smash Ball. The Smash Ball setup was a ping pong table wedged into the space between two cabins. Two kids stood at either end holding...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here I was so so so nervous last weekend. It was Visiting Day. That’s when parents descend on this place after putting their kids on the camp bus three-plus weeks before. It’s time to see it for themselves. There’s a lot that goes into a day like this, to say the least. Camp still has to feel like camp, not something staged for the guests. A bunch of these folks are alumni, so they’ve got their own feelings about what camp means. And the nerves aren’t...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Saturday night, I was hunched over the toilet, 100% sure I was about to lose it. The contents of my stomach, I mean. A bug was making its way through camp, and it finally came for me. Was up most of the night waiting to be sick. Though the “show” never started, it was just me and the bathroom tile, hour after hour. Somewhere in there, between waves of feeling awful, it hit me that I’ve gotten pretty good at one half of this job and let the other...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Last week, kids taped me to a tree and turned me into an ice cream sundae. With some ketchup and mustard for good measure. I just hung there grinning while a couple hundred kids lost their minds. It was the dumbest thing I did all summer. Maybe it was also the most useful? It started as a Gold Rush casino prize where the winners got to duct tape me to a tree and throw the literal kitchen sink on top. But the tape and the condiments aren’t why it...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here This week's Write From Camp on Substack is covering how I'm (trying) to make camp videos that feel organic. For Friday, Doug wrote about Sebastian Maniscalco's take on summer camp. This is a free one and is worth signing up to see that post. All right, soccer time. The World Cup is going on. Have you noticed? Maybe caught a little USA 2-0 W last night.If you’re working at camp right now, I doubt you’ve caught much of it. I’ve watched about 45...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here I'm back after going M.I.C.A. (Missing in Camp Action) last week. Two quick things: Check out the best ways to engage with parents showing interest in camp. 7 Camp Lead Sequence Fixes to Make Right Now. Free and a place to start with these automated series. This week's Write From Camp on Substack is all about better ways to write about camp benefits and also how I'm thinking about making videos. Ok, let's get to it. The trial of the century. Last...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here 2 (Very) Quick Notes The automated emails your camp sends when parents show interest are crucial. Been writing and auditing camp lead sequences all spring. Put the biggest takeaways into this free guide: 7 Camp Lead Sequence Fixes to Make Right Now This week's Write From Camp on Substack was all about what to send and post during the summer. Which is very much on theme for what comes next. It’s Wednesday, June 17th at 12:46 PM. This was not the...