Dear CampBrain Clients:  

In our annual post, we use this time to give you some insight into what has been happening at CampBrain for the last 12-months. The word we’d use to describe the past year is growth. Growth both in terms of where we’re heading with the product but also within our team. There’s much to share so let’s get into it!  

Product Enhancements  

In January 2024, our team began a new software development life cycle which is our workflow process in which we decide what we’re working on, solving, building and releasing all within an eight -week timeframe. With this process, we’re able to commit to frequent and regular releases with the goals being:  

  • Add new features that clients need and help to streamline their business practices.  
  • Continue to enhance usability and ease of use of the software. 
  • Aim to increase satisfaction with the software. 
  • Address areas that are stale and have not seen improvement in a while. 

Since the introduction of our new software development life cycle, we’ve released a number of exciting enhancements to the product: 

  • We introduced a Booking Portal for the Conference Center, a portal for booking contacts to manage their booking and make payments.  
  • We’ve continued to see client adoption of CampBrain Payments, our internal solution for payment processing. We’re proud that with CampBrain Payments, you can conveniently manage all your payments right within the CampBrain platform, while still receiving the excellent support you know and trust.    
  • In addition to the above, you can now accept payment by eCheck/ACH in the Conference Center Module for anyone using CampBrain Payments. 
  • We released our Texting feature, the ability to communicate with customers via SMS/Texts. You can stay connected and keep parents informed with quick and reliable communication to ensure instant updates on camp activities, schedules, and emergency alerts. 
  • We launched six new standard reports both to support your day-to-day programs but also reports designed for your business office. We love CCR-750: Season Registration Statistics. This report displays helpful registration statistics using tables and charts. An easy, visual way to identify how registrations are flowing at camp.  
  • We’ve continued to invest in our infrastructure to extend the longevity of the CampBrain application and scale-able system performance. We are committed to catching up and a continuous investment on modernizing the platform to ensure the longevity of the product. 

Team Growth 

Here at CampBrain, we are proud of the internal growth we’ve seen over the years. We love to see our people taking on new roles and new challenges. In 2024, we saw record internal growth across our team.  

 

  • Charlotte (10 years) moved from our Client Success team to our Product Team as a Product Manager.  
  • Peter (6 years) moved from our Client Success team to our QA Team as a QA Analyst.  
  • Andrea (4 years) moved from being an individual contributor on our Support Team to an Operations Manager specializing in our Implementations specialty.  
  • Adri (1 year) and Tasha (2 years) moved from our Support Team to our Business Development Team as Business Development Representatives.  

We also saw our leadership team grow as Mayuran (Director of Engineering, 15 years), Jeff (Director of Business Development, 15 years), Alison Sexton (Director of Product, 9 years) and Alison Schmidt (Director of Operations, 11 years) all have settled into their roles and completing the CampBrain Leadership Team (we are the ones responsible for writing up this post).  

We have also been lucky to have brought on some incredible new folks to the CampBrain Team:  

  • We welcomed back Wilson as our DevOps Lead in July.  
  • Janine, Adaoma, Karren, Emma, Thomas and Tina all joined our Support Team in August.  
  • Loiezar joined as a Senior Software Engineer in November.  

With this many individuals coming on board, it requires planning and commitment from our entire team to see that they are onboarded in a supportive and caring way. We’re so fortunate that our entire team cares deeply about this and we can deliver an incredible onboarding program for all our new hires. Our onboarding program includes culture related initiatives like Camp 101 educational training and a buddy program where our new hires are ‘buddied up’ with a more senior member of the team to help them navigate working at CampBrain for the first few months.  

On the Operations-side, our entire Operations team takes part in delivering training for our new hires including formal “classroom” style training, shadowing phone calls and “fireside chats” where our new team members can ask questions as a group to one of our senior members of the team. These initiatives speak directly to our value of demonstrating care as well as supporting the individual growth of each member of the team.  

Now that CampBrain is a part of a larger organization (Vermont Systems: Parks & Rec Division) we are fortunate to work with some talented people who are supporting CampBrain from the Parks & Rec level. You may have had the opportunity to chat with a few of them already! We want to introduce you to: 

  • Zach is our CampBrain Payments Expert  
  • Cindy is our Director of Marketing  
  • Jenna is our Marketing Coordinator 
  • Melissa is our Marketing Specialist  
  • Doug is our Payment Solutions Specialist  

Events in a Hybrid World 

Now that most of the CampBrain team works remotely all over Canada, we continue to invest in virtual and in person connections. This year we had two major events: State of the Brain (SotB) which brings all of us together for professional development, learning, and value alignment, and our annual camp weekend. Our camp weekend is a retreat for CampBrain staff and their families to gather at camp (we travel to a different camp each year) for camp activities, fun, and connection.  

One way we continued gathering online was through our CampBrain Book Club (CBBC), reading 8 books together & meeting for ‘Show & Tell’ to share our other reads.  

A last highlight to share was once again joining Amici Children’s Camping Charity’s annual fundraiser, Canoe Heads For Kids – a chance to gather with our community! Brainers hosted a Trivia Night & Silent Auction fundraiser in the lead-up, sponsored event day & volunteered, and participated in 15km challenges (virtually & in-person down at Toronto’s waterfront) to send more kids to camp.  

What’s Next?  

We are pleased with what we’ve accomplished in 2024 and will be looking to see this continued growth in 2025 all the while we stay committed to being the best camp software company. As you put plans in place for next year, please know that we are here to support you and continue to be a valued partner in camp and tech.  

Love your Software,  

Alison, Alison, Jeff & Mayuran