Greetings Vegans!

Nearly all of the forms are active on your Camp in Touch Account online for your viewing pleasure!  Some of the newly activated 2012 forms include: the Visiting Day Registration From, where parents can choose what day they are coming along with any guests; the Activity Selection Form, where you choose what activities you want on your schedule; the Family Weekend Registration Form; and the Health History Form.

We are going to start on Pen Pals and Big Sisters, and hope to have that information to 1st year campers soon!

We are thrilled to announce that the 2011 Yearbook DVD is in the mail! Thanks to all of our 2011 campers and the hard work of Jeremy and our videographers, it is awesome!  The shows and 2011 Tamary DVD have Jeremy’s full attention and they should be done soon.

As we’ve mentioned, we love receiving updates about what you are doing outside of Vega. We recently received an email about an interesting school art project, which came with this picture.  Hunter created a hat out of Vega T-shirts!  She “just cut and knotted a few ends, and had a hat”.  Brilliant!

Finally, we are beginning to upload brief staff biographies to the Meet The Staff section of our website.   We hope you enjoy reading about this summer’s staff, who are going to be the best ever!  Everyone is looking forward to having tons of fun this summer.  Meanwhile, enjoy the Winter!

Kyle, Emily and Paxton Courtiss (Directors), Sandy Harris (Program Director) and Anthony Pyatt (Office Manager) gathered last week in Boulder, CO, where Kyle, Sandy and Anthony (pictured here) attended CampMinder Camp.

CampMinder is the industry-leading software for camp businesses.  Vega uses CampMinder for many things, such as scheduling, forms collection, camper accounts, travel coordination, and much more.  At CampMinder Camp, camp directors and administration learn about new CampMinder software and best practices, and participate in development seminars helping CampMinder maintain and improve their product.  By attending CampMinder Camp, we improve our ability to offer Vega campers, families and staff with the smoothest and most convenient platform for preparing for and participating in camp.

Highlights of the conference include: integrating Camp in Touch (the name of Vega families’ and staff’s personal CampMinder accounts) into Vega’s social media, more efficient activity scheduling, faster reporting, and networking with other camp directors and staff.  Spending time in Emily’s home town of Boulder, CO and staying with her parents there was an added coincidental bonus.

A special thanks to Sandy and Anthony for taking the time out of their busy lives to travel to Colorado to join us for this educational and fun event!  This time together inspired many new ideas for making the 2012 summer sensational!

Summer must be getting closer, because we just mailed out the 2012 Camp Spot uniform and clothing catalog!   Look for it to arrive in your mailbox early next week.  You can also see all the items in the catalog on the Camp Spot’s website, and enter your camp name, Vega.  The Camp Spot is happy to assist you with your uniform and packing, as are we!

Having a uniform at camp is great for so many reasons.  It’s easy – you wake up in the morning and know what you are going to wear.  It promotes equality – every one is wearing essentially the same thing.  And finally, it connects us all to the history and tradition of Vega – Vega campers have been proudly sporting the green and white uniform since 1936.

Last summer, in celebration of Vega’s 75th anniversary, we changed the staff uniform logo to the original Vega logo, which was used from 1936 through the late 1970′s.  It was such a hit we decided to add this vintage logo to the camper uniforms this summer.  Of course, any previous logos are perfectly acceptable camp uniform.  We love how the original logo reminds us of Vega’s 76 years of excellence in camping, and hope you like it too.

Looking forward to those warm summer days on Echo Lake!!

Fondly,

Linda, Kyle and Emily

Dear Vegans,

Happy 2012!  We we are excited to show you the new progress on the Cook’s Corner cooking building in this Vega news edition!

As you can see the external construction is nearly completed with Arthur and Tiger adding the finishing touches outside the building.  The next phase of construction will be to put together the beautiful kitchen that Dave Roberts and Arthur have designed for you!  We know that the cooking class, which will be called “Ve-gourmet”, will be a huge success and fun for all the campers who sign up for this new activity.

If anyone has any Ve-gourmet activity ideas, please post a comment!

We want to share with you some of the other projects that are being worked on this winter. First we are we constructing a brand new crib for the swim docks.  Get ready for lots of fun in the sun and in the water. Another culinary addition is a second Tee-Pee location down at land sports!  We are turning the land sports pagoda into the Snack Shack!  We’re looking forward to making smoothies all over camp so you can spend more time in activities.

We have been in contact with Tamary and their excitement for 2012 is contagious!  They have chosen a theme, but that remains a surprise until the summer.  We know that this group of young women is going to be a great Tamary, who will be wonderful leaders of the camp and big sisters to you all!

Tons of Love!

Linda, Kyle and Emily

Today, December 21st, is the winter solstice, which means that it is the shortest day of the year and Winter is offically here!  This year, it is also the first day of Hanukkah! We hope that you have a fabulous holiday season.  Remember that research has proven that the age-old saying is true: giving is always more rewarding than receiving!

Speaking of giving, several Vega campers have been giving audiences joy in holiday dance performances.  Sari (pictured here- 2nd from the right) played the role of Mary in the Yorkville Nutcracker!  We remember seeing Sari often practicing and stretching even during coaches period throughout the summer.  Liana Plotch was also in the Yorkville Nutcracker.  Tess Wodin performed this December in the New York City Ballet’s Nutcracker!  Way to go ladies!

In this picture, you can see Sari with some of her Vega sisters along with Michelle Tolson, our dance department head, who came to show Sari their support (as well as everyone from their bunk last summer through the signs they made)!

Meanwhile, up at camp, we are getting the new cooking building ready.  The trusses were put on this week, and it looks like Arthur and the crew have designed a great new building.  We’re thrilled to be able to add gourmet cooking to our program and hope that everyone enjoys it!

We love hearing what our Vegans are up to throughout the year.  Please keep us posted!

Wishing you and your family a wonderful winter holiday season,

Linda, Kyle and Emily

Dear Vegans,

Greetings from all of us here at Vega’s Winter Office!  Some of you may be aware that we have been doing a Mother/Daughter Weekend every other year since 2006.  Since that time, we have consistently received requests to accommodate dads to be part of this special parent weekend.  After some deep thought and planning, we decided to make this possible, so this year we are going to have a family weekend at Vega!   In case you’re wondering the dads are going to have their own cabins.

There is only enough space for 40 dads, so if you would like to reserve your space, please RSVP via email to info@campvega.com.

The weekend is going to begin mid-morning Saturday, August 11th and the final event is lunch on Monday, August 13th.  We have been perfecting this weekend program since 2006 and think that this year’s family weekend will be the most fun yet.  More
details about the weekend will be sent out with travel information next month.

Best wishes and Love,

Linda, Kyle and Emily

Greetings Vegans!

As most of you may know, we have been reviewing the video yearbook segments as each program area is completed.  It gives us great pleasure to share these video segments with you NOW on Vega’s own video site.  This page will be working in conjunction with our website, and we suggest that you add this to your “favorites”.

http://vimeopro.com/campvega/2011-yearbook

After all of the chapters are completed, which will be soon, we will mail everyone a hard copy of the video yearbook!  In the meantime, we are planning on uploading videos at least every week and we will keep you updated via the Vega facebook page when more videos become available!

Enjoy!

Linda, Kyle and Emily

Dear Vegans,

Occasionally we receive updates from present and past campers and staff and post newsletter articles with their news. Accordingly, we would like to congratulate Ashley Randall for riding nearly 50 miles on a bicycle in one day! The most noteworthy aspect of this feat is that by participating in this ride, she helped raise over $10,000 for research in type 1 diabetes for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation International (JDRF)! You can find out more about the charitable organization here: http://www.jdrf.org/

Ashley and her father Bill are pictured here.

Please keep us updated with any news of yours, and stay tuned for more news coming up about the new culinary building and more.

Love,
Linda, Kyle, and Emily