by Max Weinberg, OSRUI Assistant Director

This past week, I had the pleasure of attending the Foundation for Jewish Camp’s Cornerstone Fellowship Seminar with six other members of the OSRUI staff.  We joined staff members from over 60 Jewish camps in North America to become leaders at our camps, learn from an outstanding group of Jewish educators, and share ideas and experiences with other camps.  The fellowship is designed to empower experienced bunk counselors to become the next group of leaders at camp.

There are two different focuses that take place at the seminar.  The first is attending sessions that are topic specific to try and bring new ideas back to our camps.  Some of the tracks that our Fellows (bunk counselors) took part in had to do with inclusion, outdoors/teva (nature), conflict resolution, and Israel programming.  This was an opportunity for the Fellows to learn from educators who are leaders in the field of Jewish camping, as well as to share best practices with other Fellows.

The second part of the seminar is working with our own camp staff in what is called “camproom.”  As a group, we worked to develop a vision for our camp, and develop this vision into an Action Plan, which consists of programs and camp-related activities that we wish to implement over the course of the summer.  Our camproom sessions were extremely productive, fun, goofy, and served as valuable bonding experiences.  Our group of Cornerstone Fellows will meet weekly over the course of the summer to continue to implement, refine, and track the progress of our Action Plan.

I was truly honored to serve as the Liaison (group facilitator) for this wonderful group of Fellows:  Sarah Altshuler, Jacob Beckert, Rachel Goldberg, Talia Jacobson, and Peter Luck.  Itai Shabtai, our Rosh Mishlachat (head of our Israeli delegation of staff members), was also part of our Cornerstone group, working within our framework on management and programming skills for our Israeli staff.

I enjoyed spending time with them this past week while learning, laughing, and sharing our favorite camp stories.  We look forward to continuing our important work this summer and helping to improve our already exceptional camp.