The Siren: June 26, 2023

There are so many great lessons innate to the camp experience – independence, responsibility, friendship, and time in the great outdoors. Our job is to be intentional about helping them process these experiences and taking away the right messages. Our Sunday Night Campfires are great tools for accomplishing those things. 

The Cabin Campfires each Sunday night are designed to facilitate reflection, self-awareness, and personal growth. Similar to our candlelight ceremonies on opening night, these “cabin meetings” offer a platform for open, honest communication and sharing. Each cabin gathers around a campfire at their campsite to engage in meaningful dialogue. The format for the cabin campfire includes:

1) Accomplishments: Everyone takes a moment to recognize their personal achievements from the past week.
2) Compliments: Cabinmates express positive observations and offer compliments to one another.
3) Personal Growth: Each person reflects on their individual progress and lessons learned during the week.
4) Discussion: The group addresses any challenges or problems, collaborating to find solutions.
5) Reflection: Dedicated minutes are allotted for personal introspection, contemplating how to be better friends, cabinmates, and campers in the upcoming week.
6) Goal Setting: Participants conclude the campfire by setting tangible goals for the week, both individually and as a group.
7) S’mores: No campfire would be complete without enjoying delicious s’mores!

The other component of our Sunday Evenings is called Unorganized Free. Recognizing the declining opportunities for unstructured play in children’s lives, we aim to counter this trend. The rules are simple: “Go Outside and Play.” This directive is not commonly heard in today’s world of packed schedules and mounting stress levels. For the campers, the experience of child-directed free play becomes an exhilarating and out-of-the-box adventure. The guidelines are straightforward: everyone must be outdoors, while counselors provide supervision for safety purposes only. Kids were excited to play tag, hide and seek, and just explore the woods.

We’ve also made plenty of time for the silly these past two days. Yesterday we had “Wacky One Days,” where boys had the opportunity to try some activities not normally on the schedule. Some signed up for yoga, Japanese lessons, rugby class, liquid mountaineering and even dog washing (Reggie really needed a bath).

Tonight we had the coronation of our Wanegan King Miles Goldberg. The king of the candy has the tremendous responsibility of ensuring that all of the boys have written letters home before bringing a great spirit to candy distribution. The boys were very excited! We also were able to hear some great jokes from our younger campers at announcements tonight. “How do you know if a joke is a dad joke? It’s apparent.” It’s so nice to be able to share these funny, jubilant moments with such a wonderful group of kids.

Tonight we had the coronation of our Wanegan King Miles Goldberg. The king of the candy has the tremendous responsibility of ensuring that all of the boys have written letters home before bringing a great spirit to candy distribution. The boys were very excited! We also were able to hear some great jokes from our younger campers at announcements tonight. “How do you know if a joke is a dad joke? It’s apparent.” It’s so nice to be able to share these funny, jubilant moments with such a wonderful group of kids.

Today wrapped up our first week of the program as well. The kids signed up for next week’s activities tonight after dinner and tomorrow is our first Cruiser Day. We also welcomed back cabins S1, S2 and S3 who had great things to say about their hiking trips!

Today’s Grace:
“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them”

– James Baldwin