One week into camp. Of course, weeks mean very little to us. It’s what happens every day that matters.
Our first efforts are spent on getting everyone oriented. We had humorous skits to show how to compost involving our Program Director Paul, who was dressed in a red suit to resemble a piece of meat. He ended up in the trash, which is always amusing. There were camp fires and cabin contracts on the first night. There is a photo of a rather artistic one on Smugmug (our photo gallery) where you can see a drawing of a house and the title “What Builds a Strong Cabin?” Inside each window are the words, “Caring, Passionate, Nice, Organized, Hopeful, Respectful”. When the cabin moves from the “Forming” stage of group formation to the “Storming”, there is a solid contract like this one as a foundation. We also had our “Boundaries” nights where we go over the basics of how to make a safe and inclusive community.
Yet. we didn’t spend all our time sitting down – there were over 100 swim tests from arrival to dinner the next day, and we jumped into coal-burning our primitive wooden bowls, despite the rain. It cleared up enough later for us to play the all-camp game, Kingdoms. For games like this, having so many campers is fantastic. A former Executive Director of F&W wandered into our game and said he was delighted to see how little had changed.
The Senior Lodgers had their first co-ed activity of work projects with Indian Brook campers, which helps form a relationship built on respect and hard work rather than the typical middle school, gender politics.
The first cycle also included a cabin night, a Council Fire with our first beading ceremony and our first trips pack-out.
The second cycle began as all Senior Lodgers departed on trips, while First Lodge and Big Lodge settled into a smaller camp.
Tonight was the second night of our small camp – A1 campers departed on their two-night overnights. All who were in camp played “Bears”. I got to be a sleep bear and one group shifted my deadweight into a wheelbarrow frame. It was lots of fun and a good tonic for some of our slightly homesick campers. We know that we will always have some homesick campers, and what matters is how you respond to it. The challenge is to get those campers back involved with camp. One of our successes, which we discussed at staff meeting, was in one cabin where the campers organized themselves spontaneously to all dress up in costume to cheer up their cabin-mate.
That’s practicing empathy and creativity!
On Sunday, every cabin will be going on an Adventure that they won in an auction yesterday. Two days later, we’ll have the Senior Lodgers back in camp and can see their trips skits and songs at Council Fire.