Summer Prep

It’s rather hard to believe that summer is upon us when yesterday it was a high of fifty, I was wearing a sweatshirt, the farmers have not gotten in all their crops yet and the leaves are only beginning to bud. But since the summer staff has been trickling in over the past two days and our summer schedule starts with Memorial Weekend Family Camp tomorrow, I guess summer really is upon us.

I’m thinking the real sign for me is that my desk has no possibility whatsoever of being clean. Registrations continue to roll in (thankfully even more online which is SO much easier!), mailings have to go out to the parents every week, and there are still many other angles of my job that have nothing to do with the summer. (Next week I’m going with Lisa on a “field trip” to the places she thinks she wants to take the women to during our fall women’s retreats…four whole months from now!) So while I’m balancing many things, I’ll focus on summer right now.

What do I do during the summer? Let’s see…

• Get use to having thirty or more college students around…five of which spent a few hours in my office gabbing today. I don’t deny that my world is small, but college students live in a much smaller bubble. What they rattle on about is fascinating.
•       Mailings, mailings, mailings. Three weeks before camp starts, parents receive an envelope full of information about camp. The week before the letters go out, I run a report for that session of kids and lay it all over my living room floor so I can make sure all their info is correct (i.e.: balances due, the friends they want to share a cabin with are really coming, they’re signed up for paintball). I then make those corrections, print each child’s statement, run an updated report from which I pull mailing labels and then stuff envelopes. We’re talking anywhere from 100 to 190 letters. Thankfully, we have an envelope “licker” and a postage meter!
•       Answering the phone. There are moments when I want to throw it across the room. (Praise God for Andrea who answers too because I can’t be on that many phones at once!) And I can honestly tell you you will not believe the questions mothers ask…I need to make a list of them for a future blog post!
•      Cabin assignments! I get to do my first ones next week and I’m so looking forward to it! I know it sounds crazy, but taking 150 kids and separating them into twenty cabins is the kind of work I love best. It’s also where I have the most power: if some counselor gets on my nerves, I can give them a cabin full of “ADHD” kids. (Yes – I will warn the staff next week to be VERY nice to me or I will make their summer miserable…)
•      Run reports. I live by lists, so I suit this job very well because before next week is over I will have made a dozen of them: cabins, waterfront, special needs, express check-in, standard check-in, regular canteen, early bird canteen, share camp bonus…yes, I have a list of my lists!
•      Registration. Duh. I am the “Registrar”. But, I get a break on registration Sundays – I get to do express (they’ve already paid for everything) versus standard (they owe money). The first registration day will be a breeze. I’ll be on my way back from Boston where I’ll be in a wedding the day before. But, believe me, I’ve tons of prep work before I leave…and I’ll be running circles when I get back!

That, in a nutshell, is what I do during the summer. And while there will surely be moments when I want to throw the phone across the room or run my computer over with my car, I truly think I’m going to enjoy it.