Allen stepping down as president of CFC, Inc.

Posted By on Jul 31, 2014 |


Hello Family Campers!

Thank you for your participation at Chinese Family Camp this year, either in person or wherever you happened to be last week. It was another great, Great Camp! We are here to serve the people!

As most of you heard at Camp, I will be stepping down as president of the board for CFC after my term end this year. I wanted to write up my thoughts on how I arrived at this choice over the course of last week, as well as other thrilling aspects of the position, the organization, and Camp in future blog posts.

Top 10 Things to Know About What’s Going on Here
1. I am still 100% committed to Chinese Family Camp and plan on attending for as long as I can move around and eat.

2. I intend to remain on the CFC Board in some capacity and bring whatever I can bring to the party, not to mention that all the official correspondence uses our address here in Chicago.

3. I will be stepping down as president at our annual board meeting teleconference sometime in January, when we elect board members and select officers. Until then, I have all the power! Mwahahaha!

4. I arrived at my choice to step down as president during last week’s camp completely through my own reflections, mixed in with some very enlightening conversations with several of my dear fellow campers (and my very dear wife, Mary) along the way.

5. Camp has always been the highlight of every year of my life, all the way back to the first camp back at Lake Wawasee when my mom had to carry me around (I was 14! No, just kidding, I was 1 1/2 that first year).

6. I informed some of the board members about my choice to step down before our board meeting last Friday. I did not get a chance to contact most of you ahead of time, so it probably was a bit of a surprise.

7. Camp has always been a place for me to find out and remind me about who I really am, what I’m capable of, what calls me, what’s possible for me. Camp is the laboratory that, year after year, allows me to experiment with what works or doesn’t work – for Camp, for my fellow campers, and for me.

 8. In the realm of what works or doesn’t work for Camp and for me, I felt that continuing as president is not going to work for either in the near term. I have become complacent about where Camp is, and where it could go. I believe this is not the place for your president to hang out if we are committed to having Camp continue to operate and thrive for another few generations.

9. Personally, I scared myself the week before camp really struggling on my statistics course mid-term (thank God for Khan Academy!). I wasn’t giving it the attention it deserved, and I realized I need to get my butt in gear if I was going to get anything out of the course and the remainder of my master’s degree program.

10. Stay tuned for my next blog post!