Camp Bauercrest

My son has been going to Camp Bauercrest for 5 years. He is not a brat nor does he come from an excess amount of money. He feels lucky that he can attend camp and looks forward to going to camp every summer. He loves his counselors who have enriched his life in many ways. Everyone is fun loving and caring. The Directors are terrific and do a wonderful job running the camp always making accommodations for the individual camper. The lake provides much fun for the campers and like lots of lakes has it’s issues. When they can’t use the lake they have a beautiful pool. My son is rich in his life because of his camp friends and all the memories he has made and will continue to make!

After reading my initial review of Camp Bauercrest, the current management recently dug up my personal information out of their own database and called my parents to try to locate me. The gentleman explained the purpose of his call was to ask me to revise my review to include that the camp has changed dramatically in the last fifteen years, and that he was personally making changes to the organization. Yet he also revealed that he has been a long-​standing board member, and I wonder if that would include my summer here.
I’m not sure about the legality or ethics of having placed this phone call, the number for my home is stored publicly in the phone book, but it feels inappropriate to me. He was clearly concerned that people might think I attended recently, before these changes took place, and that my review would not be an accurate reflection of the current experience provided to campers.
Maybe I don’t look my age? Just to be clear, I attended this camp during the mid or late 90’s. Is that too long a period of time to have standing in my review? 8 – 15 year old campers aren’t allowed to post on Unilocal by TOS. I think I’m about as close as anyone can be to reviewing this place fairly.
It is possible that Bauercrest has changed since I attended, and management no longer requires all campers to swim in Lake Attatash, which more than once during my month as a camper was shut down because it was dangerous to swim in. All summer long, and as far back as anyone ever mentioned to me, if you didn’t shower thoroughly after swimming, you could get «Attatash Rash» which was joked about instead of addressed as a human and environmental health issue.
I didn’t share many of my own negative experiences, because I didn’t want to seem biased. And I doubt I was alone in my experience of having a fellow camper spit in my face, or overhear a counselor making fun of me for going to bed earlier than the rest of bunk, having assumed that I was fast asleep. Or having counselors steal food from me.
Perhaps it is the «premier Jewish sports camp» in the area as this manager described to my father. In the late 90’s, did most Jewish sports camps have counselors referring to kids gay in front of their peers when they weren’t around? If you are interested in sending your children here, please understand that the management’s request from me is fair, and that this was my experience from 10 years ago. There are campers that are fourth generation attendees, and many considered their time here as the best part of their young lives.
But keep in mind that it takes great effort to overhaul the culture of any organization, and think about how hard you’ve seen it to be to implement change in your own lives and workplaces. I can assure you that there was something that I feel now was bordering on criminally wrong with this place and I believe it would take very serious, calculated measures to make it the kind of place I would pay money to send my children.
Consider with all fairness, how much can a camp change in ten years? Is Lake Attatash cleaned up? If not, are parents of potential attendees notified of this? Is the past performance of the camp not something that should be disclosed publicly? Is there a new system in place to improve the culture since the 90’s? If so, make sure it’s explained to you with some supporting evidence before you pack your son’s bag.
Right now I’m wondering how the campers that got voted fattest by paid staff, as well as the kid that I mentioned in my prior review as having gotten honorable mention for his «titties» are doing. Do they have long-​lasting body image problems that are just as severe in boys as in girls? Can you imagine this happening at an all girls camp?
I hope the coming summer has administrators preparing a safe atmosphere for inherently vulnerable youth by establishing appropriate behavior for campers, counselors and administrators alike, rather than attempting to diminish or hide past negligence from public access.