Rabbi Joe Menashe, Executive Director
Ariella Moss Peterseil, Camp Director
With summer 2018 behind us, and Kayitz 2019 167 days away, our entire Encino and Ojai office teams are working to make this upcoming kayitz a safe, memorable, growth-filled, and fun experience for everyone!
We are so fortunate each fall to read hundreds of emails and letters that are beautiful, heartfelt expressions of gratitude for the camp experience, and it helps us focus on the ikar (essence) of our jobs: the campers, the staff, and the camp experience.
What does it take to make this happen in 2019? Since the summer we have gathered feedback from you in a myriad of ways. We have had face-to-face conversations, phone calls, group meetings, conference calls and conducted surveys with parents, campers, staff, and board members. To run a camp in this day and age, there are so many areas worthy of our thoughtful consideration throughout the year.
Below you’ll find a few specific areas that will get extra attention in planning for Kayitz 2019. We will be sharing more information about each of these topics over the course of the year and how we plan to look out for your children’s safety, education, experience, neshamah, and growth!
The big topics we want to work on for 2019 include:
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Chadar Ochel (Dining Hall) Experience – everything from soup to nuts as they say (rest assured, we still will be nut free!) We will take a fresh look at how the dining hall experience reflects our goals for: nutrition, taste, relationship building, and camp ruach.
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Safety and Security – recognizing the realities of the world we live in, we will continue to build upon our robust safety and security measures.
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Transportation – arrival days leave lasting impressions, and we know this is somewhere we can up our game.
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Heat – adjusting to the reality that the summer temperatures have increased and we are beginning a process to adapt our programing and facilities to ensure safety and comfort.
- Camp Communications and Parent Partnership – you’d like to see more of camp (and your campers) during the session. We’ll be working on sharing the magic of summer experience and preserving the bubble the that contributes to that magic.
Celebrating Kayitz 2018 Highlights!
Now that was a pretty big list above, and a lot of things to think about as we plan for the summer. We also want to call out the highlights of camp, according to you!
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Campers and Parents report each year coming away feeling:
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Ramah is a home and kehillah
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Ramah creates and reinforces Jewish Values
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Ramah creates friendships
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We heard campers loved the NEW and INNOVATIVE programming like Robotics and Snorkeling (and we are working on adding horseback riding and mountain biking experiences!)
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Families loved our new pipeline program in Shorashim (A four-day “taste of camp” experience for rising 2nd graders)
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Families appreciated the availability of our team for feedback: what we hear from you is valuable to us. It’s how we do our jobs, and why you are getting emails like this one because we want to always be growing. Do you have a topic you want to discuss from the summer? Send us an email!
We look forward to sharing our thoughts and plans for Kayitz 2019 with you over the next several months as we dive deeper into each topic. Watch your inboxes each month around Rosh Chodesh (the new month) for the next email in the series. Thank you for being committed Ramahniks and Ramah families, and as always, please do not hesitate to be in touch!
-Rabbi Joe, Ariella, and the entire Camp Ramah team!