I never thought that sitting down to write this would be so difficult. Then I thought about it for a bit and decided that trying to fit my entire life story into a few paragraphs is a tough task, a lot has happened in 23 years. Here is my best effort (with many gaps here and there I’m sure):

In 1988, my parents chose to give me the name Wesley, a name that I prefer in its shorter form – Wes (in reality I only allow my parents to call me Wesley). I was born in the great city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada and a from a town 45 minutes north called Newmarket.

When I was still in grade school, I never attended a residential camp, but went camping with my parents each summer. With both my parents being former lifeguards, I became a fan of the water very early on and have kept my passion for the water up over the years. I became a lifeguard when I was 18 and have been one since then. I also love sports. Love to play them, watch them and talk about them. Being Canadian I am a true lover of hockey and lacrosse. I am a lifelong supporter of the Toronto Maple Leafs and that won’t change anytime soon. I’ve also been following USA college basketball and football for over 10 years now and love watching the passionate players and coaches. Basically, I could talk your ear off for days about sports.

Anyways, I eventually went off to the University of Waterloo and graduated with a degree in Environmental Studies. My major at school was urban planning, which simply can be described as “It’s like SimCity, but for real.”  I am a big fan of architecture, which lead me to urban planning, but I’ve actually found that I enjoy urban planning more than architecture. I say this because urban planning is about the space around a building and the flow of people and vehicles through that space. Bringing people to a building is as important as the building itself; if people can’t get there, the perfect building will be useless. I really enjoyed the hands-on aspects of my program where building models was part of the final grade. Ask me about my big fire truck and I’ll tell you all about how a city is planned around the importance of emergency vehicles.

At university, I was quite involved in the community. I was on student council each year and eventually ended up working for three different ones. The experiences I had working with these groups helped me become part of the university community and work on my communication skills. I was also involved with the campus recreation program where I was a referee, referee-in-chief and convener of the university dodgeball league.

My camp adventures began in 2007 at a camp near Bracebridge Ontario. I began as a counselor and lifeguard my first summer. I fell in love with the experience and went back the next year as the head of swim and theme days. I then had the opportunity at a camp near Parry Sound Ontario to become the waterfront director in 2009. After that summer I took a year off camp to focus on finishing my university degree. This allowed me to begin a job in outdoor education (basically summer camp for school groups year round) at a camp in Rockwood Ontario. I have been an instructor there since September and have absolutely loved being outdoors all of the time. One of my favorite things to do is watch students’ come from the city and having a blast rolling down hills, playing in mud and just being kids in general; this is why I love camp.

So why come to Camp Augusta? Well firstly, I love new experiences and meeting new people, so coming to California will definitely be a new experience and I’m sure I’ll meet some interesting people. Secondly, I’ve never come across a camp with as much focus on child development as this one. Thirdly, the chance to be a Master of Fun and Games just doesn’t come up every day, a role I’m excited to take on.

Alright, time to share some of my pastimes that I would love to chat about or have the chance to teach you about: photography, I will most likely be found taking pictures at any time I can, I love taking pictures so much that I have two cameras coming with me to camp; guitar and music, I’m not the best and play weird music, but I can show you a few chords and introduce you to some old folk music that I grew up with as well as my love of a little-known-band named The Beatles; and karate, I began in 2003 and achieved my black belt in 2007, I like self defense a lot and would love the chance to teach you some fun stuff.

I’m super excited about running sweet games and causing mischief at Camp Augusta this summer. I’m stoked to hang out this summer!