10 Coffee Mugs - Part III

 

Summer 2021

We're back!

Well, we're back at 50% capacity with a ton of mitigation policies including distancing between cabins and no indoor meals or All-Camp events, and routine testing (Rest'Test'n'Treat). But we're back!

However, all this caused us to invent new words like "Whatever Time", "Morning Meeting", the new "Choice Rec", and "Patio Dining".

Speaking of Patio Dining, we fortunately also debuted our brand-new refurbished flagstones, a wonderful upgraded area that has grown to be an iconic heart to Camp Central.

Each summer is built upon the previous summer, and for the first time since 1951 we didn't have a previous summer at 4-H Camp to build upon. The Staff of '21 answered the call and assembled last minute (we didn't know for sure we were running until April!) to endeavor to run Camp in a way that had quite simply never happened before.

The counselor staff was made up entirely first-year counselors, many of whom never got the opportunity to go through our Junior Counselor program or step foot on 4-H Camp previously (with the exception of one Nicol, who traveled several thousand miles the wrong direction to somehow make it to Camp). However, through sheer dedication to our mission of making camp happen for our campers and a boatload of ingenuity from our Senior Staff team, the program was resuscitated under some truly challenging circumstances. Our current summers are now built on the foundation of this summer, and all the Summer Staff of 2021 were able to accomplish. 

Oh, while we were at it, we went ahead and added an 18-day BIG Session in August. But more on that in '22.

Also, beloved Colmerg hand wipes became quite the thing. (You're not clean unless you're Colmerg clean.)

Summer 2022

Now we're really back!

Well, back with full cabins and a full camp roster for the first time since '19. As a reminder, at this point NONE of our counselors had worked with a full cabin and full camp before - AND we took all those freshly invented programs and adjustments from '21 and created a brand-new schedule. So we were back - back once again doing a ton of stuff we've never done before for the very first time.

Speaking of - THE BIG SESSION.  Probably the BIGGEST programmatic change in New Jersey 4-H Camp history was when we switched from a volunteer run county program to a fully staffed open enrollment camp. Probably the SECOND biggest change was the introduction of our Big Session. Campers have always wanted to stay at camp longer, and the Big Session allows for more new friendships, an even deeper sense of community, more time in the groove of the camp lifestyle, and truly making 4-H Camp a long term home-away-from-home.

Meanwhile, our Craftshop, one of the most beloved and creative areas of camp, got a FULL bring-back-from-the-brink renovation to make it an even more beloved and creative spot. 

Summer 2023

Okay, now we're actually seriously really for real really BACK!

We had third year counselors, we had second year counselors who had run a full camp last, we had first time counselors who had been through the Junior Counselor and CIT programs, our practice of stacking summer upon summer was back and for the first time since 2019 you could almost call it business as usual at 4-H Camp - or as usual as we get around here, anyway. Most sessions of the summer operated at full capacity, and in our THIRD Big Session we were starting to find a sense of tradition (while still finding plenty of space for invention) in our new program.

Speaking of new programs, we also expanded the New Jersey 4-H Camp program to 4-H Camp at Rutgers Gardens! A new day camp set in Rutgers beautiful botanic garden, it endeavors to capture 4-H all of our trademark goofy community building and simple-play-outside-make-new-friends-mentality in a day camp setting. (The concept is even loosely based on our virtual Camp, HAFHAH.) The first summer was a wonderful success, and we can't wait to do it again this year.

For renovations, we gave a very nice interior polish to our Nature Center, changed the Camp Store to Staff Store-age, got some more paddle boards, and most importantly of all...procured a Skee-ball machine.

Yes, this summer was SO recent...

We haven't even gotten around to hanging this on the wall yet.

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...And that brings us to right now!

Today!

Getting ready for Coffee Mug #11, Summer #74, and the most important number of all, Summer #1 for all of our first time campers - some of whom will join us in falling in love with this place, coming back summer after summer, and being IN the Staff Photos when we post the 20 Coffee Mugs retrospective.

10 Coffee Mugs - Part II

 

Summer 2018

We're already up to Summer '18! Time flies when you're looking at coffee mugs.

A red letter year with a red ceramic mug, because for the first time since we switched to an open enrollment model at the tail end of the last century, 4-H Camp was at 100% capacity! All sold-out, all 7 sessions, not an empty bunk all summer long.

Cabins #7 and #9 received renovations, and we constructed (and cleverly named) our Canoe-nity Garden! It was our first Whodunnit Week.

Oh, and it's also forever known as the summer of the drone crash. 

SUMMER 2019

Well, a brand-new swim dock system for the first time in 70 years leads the list of facility upgrade in Summer '19. While we were at it, we got some new fans and some new boats and some new benches and some new sheds cause it was fun to say "new for nineteen."

We also introduced some new themes which would become mainstays, like Epic Tales of Mythic Legends and CampPandemonium.

Also, we were once again 100% sold-out all summer long. The New Jersey 4-H Camp was in a great rhythm, and surely nothing would ever happen to disrupt it, throw us off our game, and require us to reinvent everything. 

SUMMER 2020

Hold on. What summer is it now? Oh, all right. Here we go. 

So yeah. You probably have a vague recollection of this. As it slowly became clear that there would be NO overnight camps operating in the state of New Jersey in the summer of 2020, the 4-H Camp Staff refused to except the intolerable fact of a summer without camp.

So they took their beloved tech-free camp...and put it on the computer.

As I mentioned in Part I of this little retrospective, the biggest takeaway is just how many wonderful people have given so much to make 4-H Camp what it is, and that's never clearer then when we look at Summer 2020: HAFHAH. (Home Away From Home At Home, if you've forgot.)

Staff who were going to work that summer volunteered, staff who've been gone for a bit came back, campers said yes to the nonsense, and parents and Camp Families supported us in making it happen. 

It remains strange that the only summer that no campers were actually AT Camp remains one of the most memorable/successful of them all. 

If you need a reminder of just how strange and campy HAFHAH was, I recommend checking out the Lightning Edition of our Talent Show.

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Once again...TO BE CONTINUED!

Well. After THAT curveball, I think we deserve another break. We'll be back with our final three coffee mugs in the next edition!

10 Coffee Mugs

 

As we approach the end of May and beginning of Summer '24, here's a little something different on the ol' Camp Blog.

Here at 4-H Camp, we love to count summers and recall seasons past - and one of the ways the current Summer Staff keep track is our annual staff coffee mug. It's a little annual tradition I helped get going my first full-time summer, and a casual count on my office shelf revealed that we're up to TEN of them. Seemed like a good opportunity to take a quick look back at ten years of summer camp: 

(I was going to notate when some beloved long-term members of Summer Staff had their first and last seasons - until I realized we had WAY to many beloved long-term staff members to call out individually! Suffice to say, take away #1 from these ten mugs is how many wonderful people have given so much to our 4-H Camp community over the past ten years.)

Summer 2014

Well, after two-ish decades of being a camper, counselor, senior staff member, volunteer, and seasonal summer camp director, I joined the 4-H Camp staff team full-time as the Program Director. See, if you stick around summer camp long enough they just end up letting you stay.

We kicked off the summer with our first ever Lantern BBQ (and post-summer we also introduced our very first Winter Gathering).

We held our first Spy Week, and there was a memorable "medieval health check" that is still brought up from time to time.

Somewhere during all that, the concept for an annual staff coffee mug was invented. 

(And that winter another new resident moved to 4-H Camp as well.)

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Summer 2015

After years of dreaming, our Lakeside Amphitheater was constructed and premiered in Summer '15! It was not just, as a designed, a wonderful spot for Opening and Closing Campfires. It also has become emblematic of our focus on communal gatherings - a spot for all of Camp to get together for Battle for the Island launches, all camp-game instructions, Morning Meetings and more.

Themes included the one and only VIKING Week and our first go at Jurassic Camp. 

Our current Assistant Director, Mechu, joined the team as a first-year counselor!

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Summer 2016

A big one! Let's see. We added a 7th Session of Summer Camp to the schedule, we completed a renovation of Cabin #11, and oh yeah - it was our first summer without long time Camp Director Jim Tavares!

Jim had been the Camp Director my entire tenure on summer staff, and we had always assumed he had at least another 15 years left in him, but after a decade and half of shepherding L.G. Cook 4-H Camp through several institutional transitions, Jim was ready to set off for some new adventures of his own. 

So, that left a small batch of us long-time Senior Staff to try to do the seemingly impossible, and run a summer of 4-H Camp without our fearless leader Camp Director Jim.  

We premiered  Camp Monopoly, there was a Paintbrush Rebellion, and a Heroes week which was an appropriate because pulling together to run Camp without Jim certainly felt like a heroic task.

It was not always easy, but it was exciting, and it brought the Staff of 2016 together in way that only accomplishing the seemingly insurmountable can. 

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Summer 2017

The very first co-counselor I ever had, our very own T-NIVI, also proved that if you hang around here long enough they let you stay by joining the full-time staff team as our Logistics Director. (25 short summers after his first year as a camper.)  

As renovations go, small but mighty, we created an outdoor picnic table area, and in training our Staff created the legendary "slate machine of twenty-seventeen" to beautify the space. 

It was our first Broken Time Machine week and we may or may not have accidentally semi-permanently tie-dyed the White House bathroom. 

And, our future Program Associate and 4-H Camp at Rutgers Gardens Day Camp Director, Shanna, joined the team as a first-year counselor as well. 

...TO BE CONTINUED!

(Yes, I know that wasn't ten coffee mugs yet, but I figured if you're indulging me to spend time dedicated to the nostalgic qualities of customized drink-ware, the least I should do is give you a break everyone so often. So - ...TO BE CONTINUED!)