From mid June through the end of August people know what we do! We do camp! The daily hustle and bustle up in the woods keeps us pretty busy as we have new programs start each week, new staff coming in and out, paperwork to log, inspections, campers to hang out with, and all the crazy campiness that goes on in the national forest.
And then we have the fall season when we travel back and forth almost every weekend for parent/child weekends and work weekends. Finally, in mid-late october, our site team blows out all the water lines so that the pipes don't freeze, turns off all the power, locks everything up, and closes camp for the winter.
And then we relax and take a vacation... NOT!!!
Although there is a bit of a lull in our schedule after all this happens, our work at the metro office is always keeping us busy. If you look back to last weeks post, we've got the fall newsletter to get out, fundraisers to execute (like the zoo walk) and communications to be made from the previous summer. One of the biggest tasks that is on our "to-do" list right now is the 2011 brochure. With that, we have to set our 2011 schedule, pricing, and programs. You're probably starting to get the picture that we still have work to do in the off season!
Then we have promotion. How are we supposed to reach out to new campers if we don't promote?! So that means creating a promo dvd, getting information about camp fairs and other promotional events, connecting with churches, and updating ALL of our forms so that they are ready come January to start registration!
All that to say....this is what we are doing now!!! I won't bore you with more details, but we just thought it would be nice to give an answer to that perpetual question!
Have a blessed week!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Thursday, November 4, 2010
A lesson on the Lord's timing...not ours
This past week has been a good lesson on the Lord's timing at the Camp CedarRidge office. We have been working on the Fall Newsletter since the beginning of October, and had set October 27th as the date of mailing it out. But God had other plans!
The process of printing this newsletter involved printing both the newsletter page and our zoo walk page, which detailed that fundraiser and everything that went on that day. All together, we had to make over 4,500 copies! (since our newsletter is double sided) Our printer did pretty well with printing the single sided zoo walk page, and then as we were printing the front page of the newsletter, we started received the "replace toner" error from the printer. Thankfully, we had some toners ready to change out with the old ones! We made it through the front side printing, but then the "drum life" error showed up. This "drum life" error is not so fun! The image drums are what hold the toner and transfer the right amount onto the page. They have about a 15,000 page yield, and after finding out we hadn't replaced ours since May '09, it was no wonder why the drum life was gone! We were able to trick the printer into continuing to print, but when the image drum really began to fail we had to pause our printing until the new drums arrived in the mail.
All that to say, we weren't able to finish the printing portion of the newsletter until this past monday, 4 days after we were hoping to have it mailed!
The next step in the process is taking all our materials and stuffing, sealing, labeling, and counting our envelopes. Usually this process takes quite a few hours, and we normally dedicate a whole work day to this. But, as God's timing goes...it only took us 3 hours to complete! I think God understood our frustration from the previous week and blessed us yesterday with a quick finish!
The newsletter is now out in the mail on its way to you! What a good lesson on trusting that God's timing is best, and even though our expectations and desires aren't always met, He knows exactly what we need...exactly when we need it!
Blessings to you!
The process of printing this newsletter involved printing both the newsletter page and our zoo walk page, which detailed that fundraiser and everything that went on that day. All together, we had to make over 4,500 copies! (since our newsletter is double sided) Our printer did pretty well with printing the single sided zoo walk page, and then as we were printing the front page of the newsletter, we started received the "replace toner" error from the printer. Thankfully, we had some toners ready to change out with the old ones! We made it through the front side printing, but then the "drum life" error showed up. This "drum life" error is not so fun! The image drums are what hold the toner and transfer the right amount onto the page. They have about a 15,000 page yield, and after finding out we hadn't replaced ours since May '09, it was no wonder why the drum life was gone! We were able to trick the printer into continuing to print, but when the image drum really began to fail we had to pause our printing until the new drums arrived in the mail.
All that to say, we weren't able to finish the printing portion of the newsletter until this past monday, 4 days after we were hoping to have it mailed!
The next step in the process is taking all our materials and stuffing, sealing, labeling, and counting our envelopes. Usually this process takes quite a few hours, and we normally dedicate a whole work day to this. But, as God's timing goes...it only took us 3 hours to complete! I think God understood our frustration from the previous week and blessed us yesterday with a quick finish!
The newsletter is now out in the mail on its way to you! What a good lesson on trusting that God's timing is best, and even though our expectations and desires aren't always met, He knows exactly what we need...exactly when we need it!
Blessings to you!
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