January 2021 Update, Family Survey to Come, & Registration Update

​Dear Families,
Here is our first 2021 update. Here is hoping you all had an enjoyable, yet different than ever, holiday season. As we begin into 2021, we are presented with our first glimmer of hope that 2021 summer will be different than 2020. We have been in discussions with our local health unit (Southwestern Public Health). For the first time in our planning with them, they are finally suggesting there is a possibility of overnight summer camps being given permission to open.  However, there are still a lot of unknowns to that happening and they are still working on approving rules and guidelines for overnight camps. That being said, we are starting to investigate if we can meet the guidelines that we are starting to receive in order to create a safe environment for all. It may still be a bit before overnight camps get full approval to run, and changing numbers of cases leading in to the summer may still change our plans, but for now we are hopeful to at least run at some capacity.
 
What we do know for sure as of now, is that our camper and staff numbers will likely be significantly reduced. In order to best serve you our families and know more about our potential camper populations, we are going to be creating a family survey. We want to know who is interested in returning to camp and camper ages. This will help us do our best to make sure we can accommodate as many campers as possible with our limited capacity. It’s very important to us that returning campers, who love Camp Tanner, don’t get left without a spot. The survey will be coming out around Jan. 15, please check your e-mail and/or our social media accounts for the link. Please consider completing the survey so that your opinions and interest is accounted for in our planning.
 
Registration is still on hold until we decide on dates. We will be picking camp dates at our next board meeting (the first week of February). We want to wait until then as we want to see camper interest from our family survey before we set dates. We are going to do our best to adjust age groups to best accommodate the ages of our interested campers. So Please complete the survey so your camper is not missed! Dates for camps will likely come out in early February with registrations beginning in mid-to-late February.
 
With the hope of camp running, we are also in the early stages of staffing. Our camper numbers will obviously impact our staff needs, but we would like to start getting an idea of how many staff may be interested in returning to work with us this summer. We will also be putting out a staff survey to determine staff interest. Staff can look for this coming to them near Jan. 15 as well. This is not a commitment to work but just an indication of interest to apply. We hope our staff will complete this to help us know where our staffing gaps may lie.
 
Thanks to all our families for being patient with us as we navigate these uncertain times,
Grrrruff and the Camp Tanner Board