Dear ICF Family,
We are a just a few steps before the summer of 2021. The ICF leadership team has made a huge effort to stay in contact with the ICF members, to get updates on conditios in each country and to share them across the ICF community.
The good news from several countries warms our hearts and gives us hope for others. We are so glad to learn that in Australia, China, Russia, USA and most European countries, many camps are opening in some form or other. In other countries camps are either partly opening or remain in stand by mode.
During the pandemic, ICF has become a bridge of solidarity and information across the camps industry. Since March 2020, ICF has taken part in and supported several national camp conferences in different countries by participating virtually or in person.
As President, I have made a second visit to Russia in March 2021. With the help of Russian colleagues, we did our best to reinforce for everyone that camp is safe and important. We put out these messages in television segments, press interviews and at meetings with governmental officials and opinion leaders.
ICF has recently completed the 2021 #ThanksToCamp campaign with an emotional closing campfire on zoom. In less than a year, this second campaign showed incredible results. Interactions grew from 2K to 41.1K people and our reach expanded from 500K to over 2.5 Million. With the help of our translation team, we communicated our campaign in 8 languages – truly amazing effort by committed volunteers.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank a few special people who were the heroes of this campaign: ICF Board members John Jorgenson, Alexia Sideri, Simon Sambrano and Pablo Casas alongside ICF volunteers Gabrielle Raill, Kate Taylor, Gwynn Powell and Tamer Tombul.
ICF will continue keeping the campfire burning brightly and bringing people from all across the World around this fire with new projects. ICF Camp Tours is a new Project and we are so excited about it. You will find detailed information in our newsletter and on our web site.
Our voice and our impact becomes stronger and stronger as we work and share in harmony to carry the ICF messages to the millions of children and families who need camp.
Please follow all of our social media channels – Instagram, Youtube and Facebook. Please share your camp-related social media posts with ICF hashtags: #ThanksToCamp and #InternationalCampingFellowship. This will help us follow you, others find us and grow our family.
On behalf of the ICF Board I wish you all a safe and rewarding summer.
Yours in camping,
Fahrettin Gozet
ICF President