Patchwork Marketplace

Hi camp friends,

If you follow me on social media you would have seen me post about this already, but I thought I’d share a little more info about it here. I am just so proud and excited about this project. And if you don’t follow me on social media, this will be brand new information! Exciting! Also, let’s be friends, all of my social media links are on the sidebar. –>

How Patchwork Marketplace Came To Be

Ok, so if you’ve been around these parts before you may have seen this post by Curt Jackson in my “Path” series. And also this post about how exciting it is to work with new people in blog land and in camping. Well, once Curt and I chatted a bit, wrote for each other’s blogs we decided that we wanted to work on another project together. We brainstormed a little bit, designed some (awesome) t-shirts, wrote a few fun quizzes and other posts but we were still looking for a bigger project to work on.

Then he mentioned that he always thought it would be neat to have a site similar to the ones available for teachers but for camp and recreation professionals.

Cue record scratch.

Hold the presses.

That’s freakin’ brilliant!

I said, “umm, YEAH!” so we put all of our resources into creating Patchwork Marketplace.

And I’m super excited about it.

Then we came up with the name Patchwork because it sort of encompassed all of the things we were trying to accomplish with the marketplace. There’s an explanation on the site, click here to read it.
(If you join our beta test, you can have access now. More about that at the bottom)

Collaboration friends, it’s where it’s at!

Sooo… What Is It We’re Doing?

Serendipity and Summer Camp

Let me tell you a neat little story…

 

In September I saw a Facebook post that a local camp was having an open house/ ecumenical service. I’d never been to the camp before and it was only about 40 minutes away PLUS they’re not a member of my Provincial camping association (which I’m involved with) so I thought I’d check it out and chat with some board members to try to convince them to join.

 

I rounded up my husband, my mom and dad (cause they love that type of thing – my parents, not my husband… it’s not his thing, but being supportive is 🙂 ) and off we went.

 

We got to the camp and it was lovely! The buildings were looking good, there were some great fields and wooded areas and a waterfront with a lot of potential.

 

We attended the service, then afterword they announced that you could head over to the bbq, tour the facility, etc. Mum and dad headed to the bbq and hubby said “great, we can wander around like they said and you can check the place out” to which I replied “no way, I want a guided tour, let’s find a board member!” because I had questions, and I wanted to see EVERYTHING!

 

So we wandered down to the waterfront and back because there were people going that way (it was hard to tell who board members were) and on the way back this gentleman was walking with two other people and explaining something to them about the outdoor chapel.

 

So of course I made my way over and said “Excuse me, sorry for interrupting,  I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation, are you a member of the board?” He was very kind and told me he was and that they were just heading over to see the outdoor chapel so of course I said “Oh that sounds wonderful, do you mind if we tag along?”.
He was thrilled that we were so interested (generally, people love talking about their camp) and off we went.

 

After that he offered to give us the full tour of camp so I obviously jumped at the chance, my husband was both in awe and a little embarrassed (I think) at my enthusiasm and the number of questions I asked about their program, facilities, camper numbers, everything.
But the board member was delightful, I gave him my business card and then he introduced me to some other board members and I gave them my cards as well.

 

It’s a small faith-based camp that was closed during 2016 because they needed to do renovations, prior to that, campership had been declining to the point where they only ran one session in 2015. This fall open house was their launch of a new era, one where they’re rebuilding and re-imagining their program. So I asked them what their plans were, if they were thinking about hiring an ED and they said that they just didn’t have the resources for that right now, so everything would have to be done on a volunteer basis.

 

After the visit…