SUNDAY TALK (12/29/2024) — Closing out my term as Chair of the Camp Dudley and Camp Kiniya Board of Trustees this week, I wanted to leave you with some thoughts I shared with the Board at our final meeting of this year.  Three things I will always remember with pride from my Board service over the past 22 years were: (1) our decision to purchase and open Camp Dudley at Kiniya in 2006; (2) the brave but painful choice to protect our community by not running our summer programs in 2020; and (3) experiencing Camp’s reach and impact while visiting our exchange partners at Camp Abbensen in Germany in 2023 and Camp Salduero in Spain last summer.  Three lessons about effective teamwork that I will retain from my time on the Board are: (1) to say clearly what we want to achieve; (2) to speak the truth out loud; and (3) to understand that our ideas often have rhythms and seasons of their own and Camp’s long horizon sometimes means that my job is to pave the way for a goal to be achieved in the future on someone else’s watch.  Finally, three strategies I believe are critical to Camp’s long term success are: (1) diversity because our Camp Family is becoming ever more diverse along many axises and that will only accelerate in the future; (2) affordability because we must assure that working families can send their kids to Dudley and Kiniya and Camp can deliver on its mission to all families; and (3) environment because environmental changes are already impacting Camp’s program in myriad ways, both predictable and unpredictable, and we must be ready to adapt and also to continue in our efforts to teach environmental citizenship and to be good stewards of Camp’s natural resources and surroundings.  Thank you all for trusting me with the chairmanship these past three years.  It has been a great honor, hard work, and a lot of fun.  And it has been my privilege to serve Dudley and Kiniya and the Camp Family.

Much love, JU #11904