Happy Halloween from all of us at the Winter Office!!

So, what are you going to be for Halloween?? If you pop on over to Brian and Pam’s blogs you will see tons of photos from our Summer Halloween celebration this past summer, so go have a look and make sure you come back to my blog.

Welcome back. This past week, I heard from Meg Mucatel who told me she was going to be one of the 3 Blind Mice at school for “costume day”. That’s a great idea Meg. I can see it now- me, Armon, and Ginsburg…wonderful!

Otherwise, things are going well in the office. Pam worked long and hard on finding a new location for Reunion 2011 and while I am not ready to let out the secret just yet, it’s going to be at a fun, new location and I think everyone will really enjoy the activities this place has to offer. Speaking of reunions, how about Canteen on the Fly, which is in just a few weeks. We hope to see as many of you as possible and hopefully you can bring a friend or two who might even be interested in coming to camp! It’s going to be loads of fun, we have a special giveaway for everyone who shows up, and of course who could pass up Ice Cream. I think the best location is NYC- Ben & Jerry’s, but I have to say Goodnoe Farms in Newtown, PA was also terrific.

Short blog for today before the weekend, but enjoy the following JibJab, which of course was produced by our very own Jcal. It seems these JibJabs have become an annual tradition now on Halloween- ENJOY and have fun trick or treating!

Click Here for a Special Halloween Greeting!

Hi to all and sorry for the delay in blog postings. I am up to camp (well sorta) as the past week and coming week I am going back and forth between camp and Philadelphia. I have been busy moving out of my Philadelphia home and putting stuff into storage so that my renters can move in.

This past weekend I celebrated Mother’s Day with my entire family (my new niece who is adorable!) as well as Robin and her family. We all had a great time and in true Forti spirit, my mom put on a nice brunch this morning for our extended family. Of course I offered my help, but my mom did most of the work as usual and we all had a really fun time. I hope that everyone remembered Mother’s Day and said thank you to their moms for all they do for us “kids”. My mom is an amazing mom and although I know I don’t always show my appreciation to her, she truly is a very caring and loving person. So, make sure you say something nice to yours!

In camp news, it’s freezing. Actually, it literally is freezing up at camp! Unger reported seeing snow flurries this morning and our poor Australian/Kiwi staff are shivering all day. Wasn’t it nice of Justin Winch and Unger to postpone the cleaning roof gutters job around camp due to the high winds on the roofs! Last night camp lost power for about 6 hours also due to the high winds. Fortunately, no trees down to report around camp, but many fell out on the public roads and so our power company had to come out last night and fix the down lines. We hosted our semi-annual Special Olympics weekend (if you recall we donate camp to them twice a year) and so their talent show was moved from the Rec Hall to the dining hall due to the power outage. Our dining hall has a backup generator powering all of our refrigerators, freezers, lights, ovens, etc. ensuring we can keep our food and be able to cook it!

Reminds me of my freshman year at camp (Summer 1993 I believe?). The power went out on the last day of camp and our slideshow/video presentation, which we still do on the last night, had to be shown in the Rec Hall using a portable generator! Craziness. One other time that we lost power, we drove around on pickup trucks with ice cream around camp because our canteen ice cream freezers are not hooked up to a generator! So, the reward for us campers was free ice cream. Ah, the small things in life, but see how I remember that from almost 20 years ago.

Well I better get going and finish up my work as it’s Sunday night and I think I am entitled to some TV catch up?! Hope everyone is doing well and don’t forget, Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there!

Also, if you haven’t heard we have extended the ANCHOR FOR TODAY deadline to May 19th. For more information about Anchor for Today please click here.

Have a great day!

Blog posting coming soon, but in the meantime HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY to all of the mothers out there! I figured I would post this video, because I am sure it makes my mom oh so proud of me each and every day:)

Sorry to my loyal followers, some of whom have been complaining about my lack of posts lately. April begins crazy time and between camp, planning our wedding, and renting out my condo in Philly, things are a bit hectic! Although things are busy, this is the best time of year because camp is just around the corner.

As I type this, camp is right outside my window! I am sitting in my office with Matt Unger and we are busy preparing camp for our opening weekend, which is on April 30. Also joining our group rental that weekend is our CIT’s of 2010 who I know are so eager to get up to camp. Matt arrived here on Monday and has been hard at work doing all of the little things (and not so little things) to make sure everything is ready. Our kitchen staff will be arriving next Monday and some of our precamp counselors on Wednesday. We have staff flying in all the way from New Zealand for next week already. It’s unreal how time truly flies.

It’s 5:26 right now, which means Matt would be getting the soda from the secret hiding spot for camper’s birthday parties at dinner, Sam Ginsburg would probably be falling asleep at his desk, and I would be trying to get a few emails done before dinner. Now it’s 5:28 (yes, I am a slow typer!) and the pizza man would be delivering 5 pies per camper’s birthday, so I would be yelling at Sam to wake up, jump in the mule, and get the pizzas! Just kidding about Sam sleeping, but while all the campers are in their cabins for shower hour, it’s a good time for the Ops (Operations) Staff to get some downtime (just a few minutes though) before heading off to the dining hall.

Flash back to this past weekend- On Saturday, Will Armon arrived to PHL airport around 12:30PM, so I picked him up and we went out to lunch at a local diner. It was men’s time because in a few hours, Robin would be arriving from Florida. Jaycal also took Amtrak up from DC to join in the fun weekend planned. Well, not so much fun because Sat. afternoon after I picked everyone up, we went back to my place and they all watched me starting to pack up my condo! I lived in this apartment/condo for the past 6 years and so of course I have alot of junk. Now that I am getting married on Sep 5 (at CAMP!!), Robin and I will be getting a larger place in the suburbs of Philly. I need my space, ya know, although she definitely feels the same way. Anyway, Saturday night was a mega dinner at Taconelli’s, which is a great pizza place here in Philly. You have to pre-order your dough a day ahead and all they sell is pizza and soda. Robin made an awesome salad for us to enjoy, which you can bring with you, along with cupcakes from Jaycal from Georgetown cupcakes! Pizza, cupcakes, and soda…sounds good to me! Karen Sharir, Cara Corradetti, and Pam joined us at dinner along with Andrew (my best friend from growing up) and one of Pam’s friends. It was a blast and we had so much fun catching up with everyone.

Sunday morning the alarm went off at 6:30AM because 4 of us had to use one bathroom to get ready for the day. We headed out to pickup everyone from the night before and we all crammed into my Honda Pilot (yay 3rd row back back seats). We arrived a few minutes early, so we ran to Dunkin Donuts for some quick coffee and egg white flatbread sandwiches. The new campers began arriving, as well as some of last year’s juniors, and we had 3 different sessions of kids. It was a blast seeing everyone and made us all (staff included) excited for camp! Special shout-out to counselor Pete Tarnoff for also helping us out that day.

By the end, I was wiped out! I guess I am not back into the camp groove just yet and was so tired when we returned to Philly that I cleaned up a bit more of my condo, had some salad, and went to sleep.

Monday was a busy day in the office because I knew I wouldn’t be there on Tues & Wed. Hold on one second…

“Girls camp please report to the dining hall for dinner now”.

Sorry, it’s 5:35PM so it was time to announce girls camp to dinner. Back to Monday…the office was busy with tons of staff and parents calling with questions. It was great to hear from everyone. Monday night, Pam and I went to see the Green Family. We went to catch up with Rachel (returning camper) and also get to see her younger brother Jason, who will be participating in our Tour and More Weekend for prospective campers this summer. Tour and More is an overnight experience for young boys and girls who are interested in getting a taste of Canadensis. We have had an overwhelming response so far and are so excited about that weekend, as is Jason Green! Also at the house, we saw Rory and Jordan Mitchell who live just a few houses down and enjoyed some great pizza. Rachel surprised us when we walked in with this awesome poster…thanks Rachel!

We also took this photo after eating some yummy cookies and strawberry shortcakes for dessert.

Tuesday I went to an Eco-Conference in Allentown, PA. It was a conference for camp directors about things we can do to “go green”. Ironic, that I was at the Green’s house the night before, right?! I got a few cool and innovative ideas, but most of the ideas were larger scale things for us to work on during the winter. The good news is that ALL of the cabins now have light timers installed (most are behind the wall and you would never know they are there). After 30 minutes, the lights in the cabins will go off and all you have to do is push the switch up again for another 30 minutes. When we looked at how much time the campers spend in the bunks, it seems like it’s usually less than 30 minute intervals. The good part of this is that the lights won’t stay on all day when you accidentally forget to turn them off before leaving your cabin! I also spoke to our trash company again today and confirmed that we will be continuing our participating in the Single-Stream Recycling Program that they offer in our area. So, small steps towards improving our environment. We also have a few other ideas that we are looking into and I will update you more in the future.

Coming back to today, things at camp really look awesome. It was a sunny day so of course that always helps. The fields are all mowed already, the water is on to 85% of camp and Tom is finishing up the water to the rest of camp tonight and tomorrow. The hot water heaters are all lit for the most part, which means we are READY for camp! Of course we have tons to do- put the nets back up, add sand to our beachfront, fix minor things here and there, etc. but when the water gets turned on, that’s a big step towards completing our pre-camp tasks.

Sorry this blog was so scattered today, but I have so much on my mind! My brother will probably be so embarrassed if he reads this, but he has been stuck in London since last Thursday (remember that he just became a father 3 weeks ago to my niece!), so think positive thoughts that his flight home tomorrow will be ON SCHEDULE. I also know one of our staff members stuck in Dubai headed to London- positive thoughts for all in Europe right now affected by the volcano…

The 2010 Where in the World Winners are…

1st Place: Alex Ehrenthal

2nd Place: Rory and Jordan Mitchell

3rd Place: Noah and Ben Rubin

4th Place: Greg Ricken

5th Place: Brittany Glassberg

Congratulations to all of our winners! Prices will be announced this summer. Thank you to everyone who participated.

For my final post about the 2010 Where in the World, have a look at the countries I have visited! Amazing, if I may say so myself…

Click here to see the countries I have visited!

Since Jaycal is still busy tabulating the scores from Where in the World Round 3, I figured I would do a quick blog entry!

This past weekend Robin flew up and we spent some of the time doing some wedding planning. I can’t write too much on here about the process of planning a wedding since Robin actually reads this and I would get “in trouble” for explaining all of the challenges and differences of opinion, so let’s just say that yes Robin I am so happy about everything we picked out Saturday (sense the sarcasm?) In all seriousness though, it is quite an adventure planning such a big wedding and especially the challenge of it being non-traditional since it’s at camp, adds another element to it. Robin is doing such an amazing job, with the help of both of our moms, at planning all the small details and making sure everything is perfect. We had a great weekend and it was nice to be able to do planning things in person! And yes, we even compromised on the tuxedo that I will be wearing:)

In other news, Sunday was our Canadensis gives back to the community day (I just made up that title, like it?!) and we had approximately 10 families turn out to the JRA event. JRA is the Jewish Relief Agency and each month food is packed up at their warehouse and then delivered to Jewish families who could use a little extra help throughout the month. This month, it was a Passover distribution, which is their largest distribution of the year. As a result, it was MOBBED and so unfortunately there were lines waiting to pack the boxes. Once we got the boxes packed, we all loaded our cars with food boxes and drove over to an apartment building where we went door to door delivering them. Our campers did an excellent job running to the elevators and were really efficient with the deliveries! Thanks to everyone who came out and volunteered their time.

Rewinding a few days back, on Thursday Pam and I drove to L.I. to visit a few families. We arrived a little early (I am neurotic about not being late and one visit a few months ago took over 4 hours to get there and I was so embarrassed to be late!) so we went to King Kullen for a quick Passover aisle shopping excursion. While there, we ran into Renee Press, mother of Abigail and Hannah and she insisted we run over to their house, which was only a mile away and surprise the girls! Pam and I did just that and the girls were so excited to see me and meet Pam (or so I think!). They are both doing well in school and definitely excited for the upcoming summer. If you look closely in the pic, you may see that they are both wearing their Canadensis wristbands and this is proof that people do wear Canadensis all year round! We surprised them, so they had no advance notice to put them on special:)

After our quick visit with the Press Family, we went to a prospective family who is interested in coming to Canadensis this coming summer! Following our visit with them, we went to see the Gilady Family and we had a blast! When we walked in, they insisted on feeding us…there was fruit and bourekas so someone must have told Laura and Dvir that they are my absolute favorite and I haven’t had them in years! They were of course delicious and after eating Pam and I went to the basement with Jaymie and Avery and played some hoops! Jaymie is amazing at basketball and put up a good fight as she was in the lead until the last 30 seconds, but I pulled through and won by 2 baskets! Good job Jaymie and Avery. It was hard work playing 5 minutes of hoops, I am not sure how you all play basketball for an hour on the courts, haha.

Finally, our tour of LI ended with dinner in Hewlett, NY with none other than Grandma Levi. Pam’s grandma invited us to join her for dinner at the Pizza Place (yes that’s the name of the place!) and it was delicious. Sorry, no pics with grandma, but we definitely had fun. Oh and one more thing- after dinner we went to Hewlett Station Yogurt, which is a soft-serve yogurt place where they serve Hewlee’s. A Hewlee is frozen yogurt blended with a muffin. Sounds absolutely gross, I am with all of you on that, but I have to be honest and say it was delicious. After all that eating, we hit the road for a 2+ hour drive home. Luckily, no traffic.

So, back to the present…tomorrow we are all headed to Atlantic City for our annual tri-state camp conference. Thousands of camp professionals all get together down in Atlantic City for a few days of meetings & seminars, purchasing for the summer, and socializing. Of course during socializing time, it’s ALL ABOUT CAMP! So, we will all be talking camp for the next few days 24 hours a day.

In between my trip to Atlantic City, I am flying up to Boston to visit my brother and sister-in-law because there will be another Forti joining the world any hour now:) I am excited to say that I will be becoming an uncle within the next few days and of course I will post a pic or two on here if you all don’t mind!

So a new Forti will be born (gender unknown) and we will post the winners of fabulous prizes for Where in the World all in the next few days…Stay tuned!

Well this is it! I made it back from almost 6 weeks overseas…some headaches, but other than that no fever, no virus, no H1N1, etc. I am healthy!

This time of the year also means it’s time to get into camp mode…Matt Unger will be moving to camp in about 5 weeks and me shortly thereafter. I typically have moved to camp in mid-April, but it’s time for me to pass the torch to Unger. He will do an incredible job at getting things ready to welcome our first precamp group on Friday, April 30th. I will of course travel back and forth between Philly and camp throughout April and early May until I move up, but it’s now Unger’s turn to give it a go! It may sound awesome to be at camp in mid-April, and trust me it is great. Of course most of us would prefer to be at camp than at home. But, let me tell you from experience there is so much more than you can imagine that goes into preparing for summer. The most obvious is turning the water on, which is not an easy task. Throughout Matt’s first few weeks at camp, he will squeeze in time to be a guest blogger and update all of us on what is going on up at camp!

Back here in Philly, Jaycal and I are putting the finishing touches on the Where in the World is Eric Forti recap, some quick facts about the trip, and of course…announcement of the WINNERS! We had more participation this year than ever and it seems like many people enjoyed the twitter. I have a feeling there will be a Round 4 next winter, so don’t despair. I promise though to Robin, who has been so amazing at accepting my crazy schedule, that I won’t twitter/blog while we are on our honeymoon. (Well if you promise not tell on me, maybe I will a little bit!) Speaking of honeymoon, we haven’t figured out where that will be yet. I have traveled to all continents except Antarctica, so what do you think Robin of an Arctic honeymoon?

Getting back to the office has been CRAZY after being out so many weeks. Payroll to run, bills to pay, year-end tax returns to finalize and file with the lovely US government, on top of finalizing the staff for the summer, camper visits, new prospective families to visits, etc. Again, all the best parts of working for a camp year-round:)

Next week, the  office will be closed on Wed and Thurs as we all travel down to Atlantic City for the American Camp Association Tri-State Camp Conference. It’s always a blast, but I will admit I am ready to sleep in my own bed for more than a few nights in a row! We are staying at the Borgata though this year (comped rooms), so I guess I can’t really complain. Someone to make the bed, cook the meals for us, etc!

Well that’s all for tonight. A short blog because I am exhausted. Am I allowed to use jetlag as an excuse still? Have a wonderful evening and I will be back in a few days to announce the winners of Where in the World:)

Welcome to the 2010 Camp Director Fair in Kiev, Ukraine! As some of you may recall, the past 5 years I have traveled to Moscow and some years also St. Petersburg , Russia in addition to many other Eastern European countries. (I can’t reveal the itinerary just yet so you can keep playing along!)

Anyway, this is my first time in Kiev, Ukraine and the first time our wonderful agency, CCUSA, has taken us to Ukraine. It is a wonderful city with lots to offer. In my limited time here so far, it seems that Ukraine is a bit more modernized and the people seem friendly so far. Last night, I had the unique opportunity to go a Jewish synagogue and participate in Friday night Shabbat services. Upon walking in, it was almost like going to a temple in the US! This one was orthodox, so it’s definitely more Hebrew than I am used to, but once I found the page (which admittedly took about 3-4 minutes!) I participated in the services. Because this weekend is also the Jewish holiday of Purim, the services were extra festive and after one prayer the men marched around the synagogue about 20 times singing and clapping. I of course stood to the side, but for one rotation around I got dragged out there! Trust me, when I walked back past my seat after that, I hid the rest of the time!

Otherwise, today is the Ukraine hiring fair. Over 200 applicants will be walking through the door hoping to secure a job at a summer camp this summer. There are about 25 camp directors here representing their camps. Of course anyone who doesn’t get hired here in person, can still get placed at any of the over 1,000 camps our CCUSA Agency works with who haven’t flown over here.

One final note: I often get asked why do I bother flying all the way around the world to hire our staff? Besides the fun and vacation (haha, j/k), there is a tremendous value (in my opinion) to meeting our staff in person. From our counselors in Australia to our kitchen/laundry/maintenance staff in Eastern Europe, meeting our staff in person means we will get the BEST staff for the BEST SUMMER EVER! All of our staff are extremely important to running such a successful camp and by flying over here and meeting them in person, it shows our staff that we value them and want them to succeed at Canadensis.

Have a wonderful weekend and enjoy the snow. Ironically, we have less snow in Ukraine than you have in NY/NJ/PA!

No, I haven’t had a hot chocolate from the world’s best chocolate shop here in Poland yet, but hopefully in a few hours!

Good morning from Warsaw, Poland! Right now we are having our staff hiring fair and I have hired 4 wonderful staff members! Maryla and Mateusz will be working in our kitchen and Sandra and Ageta in our laundry/housekeeping department! All 4 are so excited to travel to the US and Maryla promised that she will make Russian pierogies (potato and onion- no meat for Robin) and Wedel hot chocolate. Wedel is the chocolate shop I blog about every year here in Warsaw. They have the world’s best chocolate hands down and the hot chocolate (also called “drinking chocolate”) is literally a chocolate bar melted into a glass. Hopefully I will leave this fair in the next hour and run to the mall next store for a hot chocolate! Tonight we are doing an evening tour of “old Warsaw” pre-communism times. Should be interesting.

The flights over were fairly uneventful. We were delayed a bit leaving Newark, which worked in our favor because Randy from another camp coming in from Boston was quite delayed, but she made it in the nick of time. Flight was about 8 hours and I slept about 3.5-4 hours of the flight. We arrived for a 5-hour layover in Frankfurt, Germany where we walked around a bit, checked some email, and played Spit (cards). 2 hours later we arrived in Warsaw.

If you haven’t yet checked out the twitter (www.twitter.com/whereisforti), we flew with a double silver medalist in Ski Jumping from Poland. He was returning from Vancouver with his coaches, trainers, and the rest of his team. It was real exciting when we landed and there was a large reception waiting for him. Of course, I naturally thought the tv news cameras/photographers were for the Camp Directors who flew all the way to Poland to hire wonderful Polish students, but I was wrong.

Otherwise, back tracking to last weekend, special thanks to all of the families who came to our first annual (can I tell people that we will be doing this annually??!!) Canteen on the Fly. It was a HUGE success, seeing tons of families in Long Island and North Jersey. Our Syosset location at the Carvel turned into a block party with families inside and outside. Everyone was talking camp- stories of camp, catching up on what they do to pass the time between summers, and everything else. There were alot of camper reunions there. Also, a bunch of future Canadensis campers (hopefully!) stopped by to learn more about Canadensis. What better way than seeing other kids their age interacting with all of their camp friends. So, thank you to everyone who went out of the way and rearranged their schedule to stop by. Special mention of Ilene Calabretta (jaycal’s mom who doesn’t get enough shoutouts) as well as Matt Unger’s parents who all stopped by Carvel. It was great to see all of you!

If all this talk about canteen on the fly excites you, but you missed out on it, don’t despair because Canteen on the Fly is making it’s way to the Philly area on Sunday, March 7! We will be in Cherry Hill late morning, the mainline in the early afternoon, and Newtown in the late afternoon. So, we hope to see you at ones of those locations!

Well that’s all from here in Warsaw, Poland. Time for a hot chocolate- my mouth is watering, but weight watchers is telling me no!!!! Keep checking the twitter for tons of updates and clues for my next destination soon!

I am flying out tomorrow to our next location- destination UNKNOWN:)

UPDATE: Eric got his Hot Chocolate and chocolate bar!

Here is a video of Eric from last year’s trip from Warsaw getting his favorite Chocolate