Jack's Camp Friends

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Got a text this week from one of our unit leaders. Awesome dude. Totally committed, thoughtful, and hardworking. He doesn't come from tons of money, and is very focused on his career trajectory. And he was trying to break up with me. (with me!!!) I wasn't ready to accept that. Pushed back a bit (I'll stop short of saying I was a bully, wouldn’t have been very camp of me) because I wanted to understand what was really going on. Jumped on a...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Hello from Portugal! Here hiking the Fisherman’s Trail with my friend Blake Boles. Join his newsletter about being Dirtbag Rich. Please, I have a bet with him that I can get him 11 new subscribers and I need that Milka Bar. Walking all day, working at night. Kinda awesome tbh. The other day, we were moving along the coast, overlooking the most beautiful cliffs, when rain starts pelting us sideways. We slogged through the mud. Completely gross...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Quick Note: We are running this staffing survey to have every camp learn from every other camp. Fill it out and we will send you the data when it’s done. This is one of the best things we do each year to build up the camp community Summer Staffing Analysis Survey Now, to the newsletter! ---- Growing up, my dad only cared about two subjects → Math and Science. History? Nah. English? Whatever. Spanish? Definitely didn’t matter. My dad has a PhD in...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here I have a theory. You’ve read these emails. You get why camp newsletters matter. Maybe even a little convinced. But you haven’t signed up. And there’s probably a reason. Let’s take a few swings. “I don’t have time.” Fair. You’re running a camp. There’s always something. Quick math: Write For Camp takes about 2 hours a week. One live call. Some writing time. That’s it. And the system we build together? It’s designed to make newsletters faster after...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Honesty time. I’m not super great at sales follow-up. You know the drill. Someone fills out a form. You call them. They’re interested but not ready. So you’re supposed to reach out next week. Then, if they don’t register, 10 days after that. Then maybe a month later. I’m just not as good at that as I could be. Too many things happening. Too many hats. But I’ve also kinda noticed: it doesn’t matter as much as I thought it would. Because every week,...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Note: This post is appearing for free tomorrow (Friday, 1/9/26) on the Write From Camp Substack. Sign up for free weekly posts (or eight paid posts per month), all about running summer camp. Camp is a huge choice. Weeks away from home. High cost. Trusting strangers with your kid. Saying yes to something totally outside most families’ experience. Parents don’t button-click, impulse-buy camp. They can’t. Which is why so much camp marketing gets it...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here It’s the beginning of the year but writing this at the end of the year (got that?). Good time to think about this newsletter. Been writing this for a couple of years, but over the last 18 months, every single Thursday. Most camp pros are drowning in emails already. So why add another one to the pile? Here’s the honest answer. The Problem Camp owners, pros, directors and staff are a pretty isolated group. We know our camps really well. The Y,...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here Quick favor before we start: The great Dan Weir is running his staff survey again this year. So much great camp info comes from this. Summer Staffing Analysis Survey open until January 5th! Bonus: Everyone who fills it out gets access to the results with real data on how camp staffing is going. All right, on to the newsletter... Been thinking a bunch about the Hidden Curriculum lately. Which is to say I kind of think about the Hidden Curriculum...

Jack's Camp Friends Newsletter Subscribe Here New year. Same 47 (thousand) things on your plate. Camp directors are incredible at being busy. We aren’t always amazing at getting less busy. Remember that guilt cycle? Feel bad when doing worker bee stuff because you should be doing CEO stuff. Feel bad doing CEO stuff because emails are piling up. Result: nothing gets done well, everything feels half-finished. I’m really trying to think about this going into this new year. Don’t have it all...