By Josh Latzko, Director of Specialists

Hi, my name is Josh Latzko and I am the Director of Specialists this summer. I am a senior at the University of Louisville studying Sport Administration and Marketing. My favorite sport is baseball and I dream to one day be the General Manager of the Boston Red Sox. I served as the Youth Engagement Director at Temple Adath Israel Brith Sholom in Louisville, Kentucky for the past two years.

This is the first year in recent memory GUCI has had someone solely focused on our specialty programs. That being said, my responsibilities include assisting the specialists in developing their individual curricula for their areas and supervising their programs. I also am in charge of coordinating and running the special days on camp, like Yom Sport (Color Wars), Israel Day, and Boker Balagan (literally translates as “Messy/Crazy Morning, in which the morning schedule is completely different), along with others. Having a heavy focus on our specialty and elective programs provides a range of options to help our campers develop usable and enjoyable skills, and introduces our campers to new activities they may not have had the opportunity to try otherwise.

In addition to Chug (elective activity), some of our campers now participate in a new program called Nosaf (“Additional”). This program gives campers another hour to choose from a list of electives in which they will participate. Essentially, it operates as a second Chug hour.

We have specialists in more than 15 different areas, allowing us to provide the following Chugim and Nosaf programs for campers:

• Archery
• Art
• Ceramics
• Creative Writing
• Dance
• Drama
• Fitness
• Frisbee
• Music
• Photography
• Pool Games
• Songleading
• Sports
• Tennis
• Volleyball
• Wilderness
• Video