It’s a wrap. BRAINSTORM 2017 is complete. We couldn’t be more thankful to all of you who invested your time and joined us for our 3rd annual conference. This conference is a big commitment for our company as each member of the CampBrain team is involved in this event. No outside event planners for us! We might just have to have a session at next year’s conference on event planning best practices! We love hosting this event because it is our opportunity to connect with you face-to-face and at the same time, watch you make connections with other camps. It really is a highlight of our year.

When we were planning this year’s event, we wanted to cap attendance between 120 and 130. The primary reason was that we felt that enabled us to have the time to connect with everyone personally. The goal of this conference is for each person to walk away feeling they will be able to get more from CampBrain – do more, do it faster, get better info out, etc. The best way to accomplish that is to combine “normal” sessions focusing on best practices with lots of one-on-one time. I feel that we hit that mix nicely.

For those who couldn’t make it, here is a summary of our two days.

Quick Facts
What You Said

As we said at the conference, we strongly encourage you to tell us about your experience. We look forward to the feedback so that we can continue to deliver you a conference that meets YOUR needs. That is how we define success. We have received a 60% response rate on the survey so far. A big thank you to all who have taken the time to share their thoughts and for those of you who still want to – good news, there is still time!

Let’s take a look at the responses so far. Each of the items below are rated on a scale of 1-5 with 1 being ‘not so good’ and 5 being ‘great’.

Venue – 4.6 Valuable Learning Experience – 4.3
Food – 4.6 Well Run & Organized – 4.8
Walking Tour – 4.9 (that’s even with the rain!) Feeling cared for – 4.9
Wed Night Open House – 4.7 Thurs Night Social – 4.6

We received lots of valuable comments – we appreciate each and every one of them – and we wanted to share a few to give you a taste of what your fellow CampBrain camps said.

It was so much fun to finally meet everyone. My feedback is all because I want to help make the conference as strong as it can possibly be. CampBrain is a terrific company! I look forward to working with everyone in the coming season. I look forward to your future upgrades. Overall, I came away from the conference excited to put new information to work in my second season using the web version. I had a great time! Thank you to the entire CampBrain team!!
– Pam Swift, Creative Arts at Park

The conference is a fantastic opportunity to learn and meet people from other camps, as well as the Campbrain team! The sessions provide tons of info and you get helpful hints from other users too. The conference fee is very reasonable, it was time well spent! Great job!
– Megan Snape, Glen Bernard Camp

This conference was a wonderful balance of information gathering, sharing and social networking. There was a variety of learning sessions for a variety of user levels. The presenters were knowledgeable and approachable. They genuinely valued each question and customer. The speakers set the positive tone for the conference while building a greater level of understanding, transparency of the process and mutual respect for their staff and software users. I left the conference inspired and ready to bring my new training and knowledge to enhance our amazing Summer Camp experience for my school community, families and staff.
– Kathy Polubinski, The Albany Academies Summer Programs

I can’t say enough good things about how well I feel this conference was put together and run. The CampBrain employees appeared to be *excited* to be there and talk with us. This means the world to me. It reinforces what I have already experienced during the past 12 years of being involved with you all – you’re good at what you do, you listen AND talk WITH us (not to us – there is a difference), and you care about us. THANK YOU!
– John Latimer, Camp Seale Harris

I thought it was an excellent and very well run conference. I thought the sessions as well as the lunchtime speakers were all great. Everyone was incredibly helpful, polite, and open to any questions big or small. My only issue was having to choose which sessions to attend as I feel I could have benefited from many of them. Thank you for all the work you put into the conference, I can only imagine the amount of time it must take. I will certainly encourage others to attend, particularly those like myself who are just starting to learn the ins and outs of Web version. Thank you!
– Margot Perlmutter, Camp Tamakwa

So impressed by all of the people who work at CampBrain. Everyone I interacted with was helpful, caring and committed to making our camp experience a positive one. I was a little apprehensive about moving to Web version, but after spending time with our CB team, I am confident everything will go smoothly.
– Sarah Horner Fish, Tom Sawyer Camps

Your staff are all so welcoming. I got the ‘Warm and Fuzzy’ feeling of being a part of something very special when speaking with your staff. I wish we could do a whole week!! You’ve made an amazing impact on myself and other camp staff. Thank you.
– Erica Jefferies, Camp Kandalore

It was a lot of fun, super informative, and left me wanting to run home and use CampBrain! Thanks for being amazing hosts, and keeping a software conference campy!
– Kristina Wagnitz, YMCA Camp Lincoln

I want to return next year with others from my office.
– MaryAnn Lawson, Lake Highland Prep School (Orlando, FL)

One of the best organized conferences I’ve ever been to. Really amazing staff, very thoughtful sessions, great Q&A sessions and tons of time for them, and amazing 1-on-1 sessions and tons of time for them too. Really, everyone and everything about this conference was helpful in getting the users to maximize the power of CampBrain and for the staff to hear how to continue to improve the product – amazing exchanges all around.
– Phoebe Jekielek, Hurricane Island Center for Science and Leadership

A picture says a thousand words. So to keep this post from being any longer, please enjoy some of the photos in our gallery and on Facebook.

I know I’ve already said it but a big THANK YOU to all of you for making BRAINSTORM 2017 such a success. Without you, we wouldn’t have a conference to host. We are already thinking of ideas for BRAINSTORM 2018. See you then!