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Dear Parents,
All the NCSYers left camp on Wednesday but we have stayed busy here in Baltimore cleaning up and beginning preparations for Camp Sport 2014. I am grateful for the success we had this summer and I already miss the NCSYers but I am happy that I could get a full night’s sleep. Hopefully the rest of our NCSY staff and campers have caught up on some sleep and I hope they have shared with some very good memories from Camp NCSY Sports 2013. Camp ended with much excitement and I want to share with you a glimpse into the last days of camp. I fully understand that we sent home a teenage boy and the odds are that they may not have told you so much about camp yet.
Friday afternoon we had a trip to Walmart and a hockey game. We then prepared for Shabbos with great spirits. Shabbos had only gotten better as camp has progressed and this last Shabbos was incredibly uplifting. Friday night we had a large camp Oneg run by our Learning Director, Rabbi Tuvia Fried and his sons and the singing and stories were even better than the chulent. Shabbos day had its regular schedule of classes and we ended with our most powerful Shalosh Seudos. I shared with the boys some thoughts, as to how decisions they make today are beginning to affect their future. I wanted them to know that each Jew has their own special purpose in life and they need to strive to be their best and not to be anyone else. Aim high was how they should set goals, but slow and steady wins the race. After Shabbos, our final bowling trip of the year was followed up by our regular pizza.
Sunday found us once again playing sports, but this time it was to determine our final playoff seeding. After dinner we went swimming and got some free time to begin to pack up. Monday was a serious sports day, full of playoffs and last minute trips to Rita’s Ices, which is kosher here in Baltimore. We then packed onto the buses for our last trip of the summer to an indoor sporting facility. The NCSYers had fun running around and playing indoor soccer and football, as well as wallyball.
Tuesday our last day in camp started with a bang. As you know the learning program focused on the upcoming holidays in the month of Tishrei. We started learning about Rosh Hashana, and then learned about Yom Kippur when we each made commitments to better ourselves. The next two units dealt with Sukkos and we built model sukkos and candy lulavim to better understand what we learned. Our final topics were Shemini Atzeres and Simchas Torah. On Tuesday we ended the learning with Simchas Torah dancing and hakafos, it was quite exciting and a great surprise end to learning. In the afternoon we played the championship round of the playoff and crowned new champions of the Kiddush Kup and Toilet Bowl for 2013. Congratulations to the Laminators and Wexicans. Everyone joined in a celebratory barbecue and headed back to camp to prepare for the video, t-shirt and book presentations. Special thanks to Yossi Shapiro and Sammy Aaronson for putting together a great video to sum up a great summer.
Although we have sent all the boys home and packed up the sports equipment, camp truly never ends. We plan on a reunion and the friends, campers and counselors from camp will get together all year long in person and online. Our biggest reunion will take place 11 months from now when we start Camp NCSY Sports 2014. Registration will begin in early Fall, you will receive an e-mail as soon as that starts. This past year we unfortunatley had to say no to people who applied late, so make sure to apply early. One of the reasons we had such a robust year was the special offer NCSY sends out for pre-registration, I encourage you to take advantage of this offer.
We appreciate your sharing your son with us for the summer. I hope you enjoy having him back. We always let our NCSYers know that for the past 40 years camp sports is more than just July. Once you come to Camp Sports you are part of our NCSY family and we are there to help in any way we can. This includes you as the parents of our campers. My e-mail is jdgreen18@gmail.com, feel free to contact me anytime.
I want to end by thanking my entire staff. They went above and beyond to insure we had a great summer. They made this year possible and they did it in a professional and responsible manner.
Enjoy the latest picture montage video we posted online. We will be posting some more pictures and videos next week so make sure you take a look.
Have a wonderful summer and this week you can ask your son to clean his room for shabbos, we have done it the past four!
Jon Green
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