Greetings from Indian Brook, and welcome to our Summer 2012 Blog! Last Friday, 58 wonderful women came onto the Farm & Wilderness campus; they joined hands and celebrated the beginning of our summer here in Plymouth.
IB staff bonding on their first night.
After a great dinner with the whole F&W community, we split up by camps and had some time to get to know each other in our smaller groups. It’s unbelievable how spectacular this year’s Indian Brook staff is! They’re not only highly skilled individuals, but they’re passionate, fun and caring.
Each year, F&W staff members gather two weeks before our campers arrive. We use the first week to hone skills specific to the activity areas we offer to our campers. IB staffers mix with those from other camps and then spend days in focused workshops on different subjects: Barns & Gardens, Work Projects, Rocks & Ropes, Lifeguard Training, Water Safety Instruction, Outdoor Living Skills, Trips, and Cooking. In addition to providing time to practice hard skills, this week offers tremendous opportunities to work closely and learn from colleagues at other camps.
Beth, the head of Barns & Gardens at IB, showing new staff around the greenhouse.
Along with busy days full of great workshops, we’ve had lots of time to enjoy the beauty of Vermont while building strong relationships within the IB staff and the greater F&W community. Chatting about her past few days here, a second-year counselor, Izy, expressed sheer delight, saying “it’s moving to be part of a community where new and old members offer each other such incredible support!”
After all our staff received their Wilderness First Aid and CPR certifications, Indian Brook staff returned to our campus to finish preparing for campers. Our trainings this week focused on creating both a physically and emotionally safe environment including workshops on risk management, the Emergency Action Plan, Facilitation of great experiential learning activities and cabin/trail dynamics, Ages & Stages, Mental Health support networks at F&W, Counselor Training, Health and Wellness, and Cultural Competency. We’ve also practiced songs, deeply cleaned our campus, and started the infrastructure of our dynamic community.