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Brides ... Visit Lake Norman!

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VLN offers complimentary wedding services to help make your big day one to remember. Let them ease the headache of finding the ideal venue by sharing with you their Lake Norman Weddings Comprehensive Venue Guide. Also, VLN can assist with securing hotel accommodations. Their hotel lead process involves a great partnership with area hotels arranging room blocks at discounted rates. When your accommodations are secured, you’re entitled to special Lake Norman branded wedding bags for your traveling friends and family.

Contact Travis Dancy with Visit Lake Norman at (704) 987-3300 or tdancy@lakenorman.org for more information on how to make your wedding planning a “piece of cake.” Also visit lakenormanweddings.org for more information about their free wedding services.

Lake Norman’s large variety of camps provide an enriching experience for children during the summer months.

365

Days of Summer

Behind the scenes of Lake Norman area camps

by Grace Kennedy

Two campers enjoy a sweet treat with a Cornelius Parks and Rec camp.

If summer camp is the main event, our local Parks and Recreation Departments are the directors, producers, and crew who keep things running smoothly. During their busiest planning periods, recreation supervisors from Cornelius, Huntersville, and Mooresville gave us a peek behind the curtain into the year-round work that goes into the town camps that Lake Norman families line up for on registration day.

Fall: Building and booking

As soon as campers and staff say their goodbyes on the last day of camp, the team starts prepping for next year, starting with surveys for staff, instructors, and parents.

Huntersville Recreation Coordinator Weston Smith gets input from his summer staff right away, while it’s fresh in their memories. “I want to ask them what worked and what didn’t, which field trips worked best, what did the kids like, what did the staff like.” Camp supervisors survey parents on everything from the registration experience to logistics and overall programming.

Building the team for next year starts early, too. Now more than ever, recruiting staff is an essential part of pulling off a quality summer camp. Finding the right mix of people to supervise, entertain, and teach campers is an enormous undertaking, especially with so many camp options in the Lake Norman region.

Barbara Johnson, recreation supervisor for Mooresville’s Winnie Hooper Center, says, “We work with lots of partner agencies which includes community, faith-based, businesses, individuals and non-profit groups. Town staff have been awesome volunteer instructors too.”

Along with the team building comes the booking. Some of the field trip destinations fill up a year ahead of time, so it’s never too early to reserve spots for high-demand locales such as SouthTown

Left: Zootastic Park visits a Cornelius Parks and Rec camp in 2020. Above right: Kids dig in the dirt at a Huntersville Junior Adventure camp. Bottom right: Making new friends at a Mooresville Parks and Rec camp.

Wake Park, one of the field trips offered in the past by the Huntersville Adventure Camp.

Winter: Putting the pieces together

While families are busy with their holiday shopping, the Parks and Recreation departments are putting together their camp schedules. Mooresville Recreation Program Manager Latasha Singletary says camp schedules and content are based on surveys and feedback from participants, parents, staff and instructors; enrollment and attendance from previous years; availability of instructors; new parks and recreation trends; and risk and safety factors.

“Late winter represents the department’s busiest planning period as schedules are finalized, brochures are developed, strategic marketing efforts begin, and online registration programs are prepared,” says Cornelius Recreation Superintendent Chad Cauble.

Spring: Sign me up

Each town has its own registration date and process, but it’s always an exciting milestone for camp planners—and parents. Cornelius Parks and Recreation Special Events Program Manager Mike Wolf says some parents set an alarm for 6 a.m. on registration day, equipped with a camp planning chart.

Spreadsheets or not, registration is taken seriously by parents and planners alike, as town camps are one of the most popular options for Lake Norman families and spots are naturally limited. The best way to stay on top of registration dates is to subscribe to emails from your town’s Parks and Recreation department.

As families enroll for summer camp, the work goes on. “After registration opens, preparation continues with the recruiting, hiring, and training of camp counselors; ordering supplies; and preparing for opening day,” says Cauble.

Summer: Showtime!

Several camp planners we spoke with were eager to share about new offerings for 2022. Mooresville’s Selma Burke Recreation Center is offering SciKidz camp, a nationally recognized program that After School/Summer Camp Supervisor Marvet Spencer is excited to provide this year. Chad Cauble in Cornelius looks forward to the Summer Recreation Experience, a new series of partial-day camps that will feature STEM-related opportunities.

#WorthIt

Summer is when camp planners finally get to see the positive results of their year-round efforts. “Seeing the smiles on campers’ faces, their excitement and enthusiasm when they experience activities for the first time, is what these camps are all about,” says Cauble.

Stephanie Pennell, recreation supervisor at Mooresville’s War Memorial Center, sums up the simple way she knows all the hard work was worth it: “Although all-day field trips are the most exhausting, they are usually the best. If the campers fall asleep on the way back to the center or on their way home, the day was a complete success.”

Learn more about camp schedules, registration, and employment opportunities: Mooresvillenc.gov Cornelius.org | Huntersville.org | www.ci.davidson.nc.us

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