Preparing For Camp, Part 2

During the last Newsletter in Part I of this article, part of preparing for summer camp was involving your child in the decision making process of where they will be attending camp. Now that you and your child have chosen a camp, why don’t you set up a time to go visit, which will further help alleviate any anxieties of attending camp. Many camps have “Open Houses” during the Spring – Camp Friendship’s Open house is on Saturday April 18, 12:00 noon till 4:00pm. This allows families to see first hand where they are going and most importantly meet the Camp Directors and staff who will be providing the care and support of your most “precious gift” for a period of time without you!

If you are unable to attend the Open House, Camp Friendship invites you to contact camp to arrange a tour of our facilities at a more convenient time for you. Whether it be an Open house or an individual camp tour, now is your time to ask questions or discuss concerns! Children are usually “sold” on the physical aspects of the camp visit – “What does my bunk/cabin look like?”; “How big is the pool?”; “I can Zipline into the lake? – (Cool!)” – where as parents are often swayed by the attention to detail of the Camp Director and its staff – “Will the bunk/cabin be kept this clean throughout the summer?”; “Do you have Lifeguards for the pool?”; “They (the campers) can zipline into the lake? – Is that safe?”. Make sure that when you leave camp that you have asked ALL of your questions, no matter how small the question, make sure you are satisfied with the answer, as half of preparing your child for the summer camp experience is also preparing yourself!

“How many pairs of socks do I pack?”; “Can I visit my child while they’re at camp?”; “Can I email my child?”; “What happens if my child gets homesick (or I miss my child)?”

These questions are very common for parents sending their children to summer camp! A huge part of preparation is also reading all the information provided by the camp or knowing where to access that information.

The best starting point is always the website! Camp Friendship’s website www.campfriendship.com holds everything you will need to know (and then some). “CF’s” Parent Handbook can be found on the website and is definitely a great way to prepare you and your camper with its many forms, lists and general information.

The Parent handbook is specifically designed to answer frequently asked questions pertaining to camp preparation, such as: packing and laundry, access codes for sending emails and viewing photos of campers, and it even contains phone numbers for your child’s Village Director (the person who oversees the cabins where your child lives while at camp) so that you can personally contact them during the summer to check on your child’s progress.

Now that you know what the facilities look like, who is going to be overseeing your child’s summer experience and what you can/can’t bring to camp (per the Parent Handbook) now it’s time to get as many of those forms/waivers signed and sent back to camp as early as possible. It may seem like a lot, but every piece of information (especially transportation details for interstate and internationals) is vital to us as a camp, to ensure that your camper receives the best possible camp experience. You are the experts on your children, so any information you can share about them helps camp provide positive experiences which translate into lifelong memories.

The excitement is in the air, the day is nearing… it’s time to pack your campers gear for camp. Let me say three things to you all before you start packing:

1. Paint 2. Grass Stains 3. Mud

That’s right… IT’S CAMP!! At camp it’s messy and dirty… that’s ‘cause it’s FUN! Please don’t send your campers with new clothes or clothes that you would usually consider “good” or “nice” clothes ‘cause it’s highly unlikely that they will return in the same condition. ALSO, please don’t allow your campers to bring things to camp that are usually considered “contraband” (please see a full list in the Parent Handbook)! Last but not least, help your campers pack their own bags, DON’T DO IT FOR THEM! That way they will know basically what’s in their bags, and it’s also another time you can take to positively talk to your camper about the exciting adventure that they are about embark on.

You now have the resources for preparing your camper for summer camp, we are only a phone call away, and we honestly will do anything we can to help prepare you and your camper for a positive summer experience…

After all… “Enter Here To Be and Find A Friend”!

*Original Article found on our Spring 2009 Newsletter

Week 9 – Summer 2008 Comes To A Close.

Camp Friendship’s summer 2008 season has now come to a close. Our final week of summer camp was a super fun and exciting week for all. This week was not only our final week of camp for our campers but also for the majority of our counselors. Some are staying behind to help us with Family Camp but most will be going back home and back to school for some. We wish them all well and thank them for a great summer.

Just because this was our final week there was no slow down here at Camp Friendship.

As always we enjoyed great activities, high spirits, and fun all around. To top it all off we also had a special Color Wars Olympic themed event on Wednesday. The competition covered water and land events all over camp for our teams, Blue, Red, and Green. Once everyone had enjoyed breakfast the competitions began with lake events for Junior team members and land events for our Senior team members.

After lunch the all-camp relay begun which covered a variety of obstacles and activities. The relay was completed on the lower field with a giant campfire built by the respective team captains (counselors). See photos on bunk1.com of many of the events during our Color Wars event. Evening activity continued the Color Wars theme at the drama theatre. The teams performed their team songs as the final event of the competitions and presentation of the team float.

It was a great experience for our campers and as always great fun for everyone.

As we closed out camp for the week and the season we enjoyed a final Friday night dance with some great costumes but the highlight was our final CAMPFIRE. The campfire consisted of some unique performances from our counselors and campers.

Mini Camp started the evening off with a classic camp performance of “Jigga” and invited everyone to join in. Many special song performances and some classics to remember the campfires that have passed. I took quite a few photos during the show so go check them out. Now that the summer has closed I hope to have a bit more time to upload some videos of the summer.

I have said this before but hopefully this time I can keep my word. Please be on the look out for those on our YouTube page in the coming weeks.

This is the final post for the summer of 2008 but rest assure I will still be here keeping you updated on what’s happening at Camp Friendship. After all this is my home all year long.

See you next soon.

Cris

Week 7 – We Waterski Too!

Week seven marked the end our final two week session of the summer but we still have two full weeks of camp left full of fabulous activities. This week we had some fun highlights such as the final Horse Show of the season. Our riding campers have been working very hard the past two weeks for the show and they all did beautifully. I had the pleasure of watching the show for about an hour and got some great photos of our riders during the show. Camp also had two Challenge Adventure Trips go out this week to West Virginia for our Horseback Trail Riding and Combo Challenges.

During the week our campers participated in many activities such as, fencing, dance, low & high ropes, mountain biking, mountain boarding, water polo, and so much more. One of our archery classes had a friendly little challenge going on when I visited them this week. I believe the boys vs girls archery challenge was a pretty close race by the time I left the range. The boys may have been ahead by a few points, but don’t tell the girls I told you that.

Our canoe class this week were practicing rescue procedures on the lake during my visit. It seemed like a wise lesson to cover to me. During the two canoe periods I visited, first the older campers were volunteering to be rescued while the campers/counselors in the canoe would perform the proper rescue procedures. Earlier Mini Camp had also enjoyed a similar volunteer session with their counselors.

Well that’s a small taste of what went on this week during some of our activities and as always there’s tons of photos on our site if you want to know more. However this week I finally got to go on our Waterskiing/Wakeboarding Sports Clinic on Lake Ana. I got to sit on the boat for a few hours, take some photos and watch our campers waterski and wakeboard to their hearts content.

It was great fun! I was very impressed with the campers skills on the water. We did have a couple of successful jumps on the wakeboard and a few wipeouts, but that’s all part of the challenge. We all had a great time on the lake, had a bit of sun and a few clouds but that didn’t stop us. I hope to join them again for some tubing in the coming weeks, if I’m lucky that is.

Well that takes care of this week, next week is our big soccer match against our neighbor camp TripleC camp and everyone is very excited. I unfortunately will not be able to attend so no photos from me but I’m sure I can round some up from all the other cameras that will undoubtedly be snapping away during the game.

See you next week.

Cris

Note: The week of August 3-9 we will only have one photo update on Wednesday the 6th and no update on Friday. We may have more photos for the session upon my return but they will not be uploaded until the following Monday. I’m sorry for the inconvenience and I hope you can understand.