Forecasts and weather realities

Meteorologists like to be the lead story on the evening news, and mundane forecasts keep them at 18 minutes past the hour. Not saying that it won't be chilly and damp at times, but some of them make it sound like we should get out the snow blowers...while 3 weeks ago they hinted that building an ark might be a good move. If you recall, the weekend that was supposed to be constant rain all weekend ended up being great on Friday, nice on Sunday and just a light rain on Saturday from about 10am until 4pm, which happens sometimes. That leads us to the calls for cancels, which are interesting in their perspective. There are some coming in tents who have called to upgrade to a rental RV, as they would prefer a little more shelter...while there are those in 40' motorhomes who are looking to cancel. Unlike the off-season, or some place where there are no special events associated with the weekend, such is not the case at Strawberry Park, especially during the Halloween Weekends. Unless you have booked entertainment, perhaps as a fund raiser, you have no idea of the costs involved with magicians, hypnotists, musicians and DJs, all of whom will still be perfoming and getting paid (even if it rains, in which case the venue will change). We will still be giving away over $1000 in prizes to the costume winners, and over $500 in prizes to the site decorating winners. The haunted hall is open for the 4 Halloween Saturdays, and costs over $20,000 to design, erect, staff and dismantle. For the campers who don't understand why they can't simply get a credit for a future stay if looking to cancel the dat before arrival because of the weather, try to follow the math invloved. Simplest example would be if 1/2 of the sites cancel because of the weather. The costs involved with the current weekend do not diminish (maybe the jumping pillow won't be open some of the time, so it won't need to be staffed by that one employee, but all else goes on as scheduled). If there are 200 site reservations, there would be two options to cover all associated costs. The first would be to double the fee of everyone still coming to camp...which would probably not go over very well. The other is offering those who cancel a chance to come at another time...but since their camping fees have paid for the entertainment and activities on the weekend for which they canceled, they would need to come and camp when there is nothing going on, such as a November weekend, or perhaps mid-week in May, since they are camping using a credit from a stay that was canceled but still needed to be operated as if they were coming. Either that, or if those who cancled wanted to be offered the same level of events and entertainment for their re-scheduled visit, they would need to cover those costs, which for the stuff taking place on a Halloween Weekend would be the difference between an off-season stay with nothing happening ($60) and the cost of a Halloween Weekend, which is $182. Keep in mind that if there is rain on October 31 (actual Halloween), chances are that most of your neighborhood is not going to reschedule trick or treating for the next week...it will happen rain or shine, and those who have a positive outlook will make it enjoyable for the kids. Same is true here...many folks will enjoy Steve Wronker's hypnosis show, the kids will laugh just as hard at Mr. Magic, the costume winners on a damp Saturday will be just as excited as those who won in clear skies, the ceramics crew of Ron & Arlene will be just as accomodating, the Bingo winners will be just as thrilled, the pumpkin carving entrants will be as eagerly waiting the announcement of the winners, and so on. Will some events be a little tougher if we have to hold them under the Rec Center? Yes, the parade can be tricky, but it works. And besides, despite the weather headlines, the details that have followed have indicated that those Friday night football games will probably still be fine, as will the Yankees game, and Saturday is likely to be more often clear than rainy. Knowing our calendar well in advance helps, as we put very few strong requests in to Mother Nature back in January (the Saturday of Bluegrass and Cajun Weekends, the Saturday of Carnival Weekend and the 4 Halloween Weekend Saturdays from 4:30PM until 8PM, covering the parade and the trick or treating), and she does not usually let us down. Bring a poncho, bring some mittens, fill those LP gas tanks and join us. I'll be the one still wearing shorts and smiling like it is an August day of 80 degrees.