The age-old question every camp director gets is, “What do you do the rest of the year, when it’s not summer?”
The answer to that question could fill countless blogs, but this month I wanted to share a glimpse of what life is really like at Canyon Creek in the winter months.
Truthfully, life is much quieter in winter than in the summer time. The leaves have fallen off the trees, the pool is closed, and the fields seem much emptier than in months before. On the outside it might look like there isn’t much happening at all – but that certainly isn’t the case! The term ‘off-season’ couldn’t be further from the truth – because we are hard at work and busier than ever. From working on new programming, interviewing potential new staff, to recruiting new campers – the work never stops for us Creekers!
Of the many things that take up our time during the off-season, the months of November – February find us at the peak of our staff recruitment and hiring. We are fortunate at Canyon Creek to receive countless applicants from all around the world. Each applicant goes through a rigorous process that includes 2-3 interviews, background and reference checks,etc. For each counselor we hire, there are 2-3 applicants we don’t hire and we are so excited to share our new crop of staff with you in Summer 2020!
Oddly enough, the winter months find us less at camp and more at campers’ homes! While that might sound odd we promise you it’s not! From the very beginning we have built Canyon Creek through word of mouth. We go from living room to living room all around Southern California sharing The Creeker Way – Family & Respect! This has always been the best way to grow our camper base and we don’t plan on changing that any time soon!
On top of the staff and camper recruiting there is an entire other business that takes up a lot of our time as well during the off-season – the Canyon Creek Retreat Center, which is a full-fledged retreat center where we welcome school groups, corporate retreats, bar and bat mitzvahs, and even weddings. This takes a large amount of our time as we are fortunate to have so many great guests throughout the other 9 months where our Creekers are busy at home and at school.
We hope that this little peek inside camp during the winter months helped you get a better understanding of all the amazing things we do at Canyon Creek!
By Nick Coffing
