Stop Motion Video by Campers

The girls in our photography class this summer had fun making short stop motion videos.  They would build something out of play-doh and take a series of photographs slightly moving each object in their scene.  Stringing these still photographs together creates the illusion of motion.  Add a little background music and you have a pretty cool video.  Here is a series of final productions from first session.  Take a look!

The Camp Fire Girls

Do you know about the “Camp Fire Girls” of America? This is a drawing taken from the inside cover of their handbook (the 1947 edition), The Book of the Camp Fire Girls.  The history of this organization is really cool.  Founded in 1910 in Vermont, it’s as old or older than the girls scouts in America.  It later became coed, and has since changed its name to “Camp Fire USA,” but it originally sought to help girls gain important skills for living a “well rounded life—a vivid, intense life of joy and service.”

As you can see from the drawing this included all kinds of skills. Some, like boating, camp craft, nature lore, gardening, dramatics, dancing and art, are still part of the camp experience at Rockbrook. Others are more specialized, like aviation, science and business. Click on the drawing to see a larger version. It’s really great.

The Camp Fire Girls valued spirituality, beauty, service, knowledge, trustworthiness, health, work and happiness, and provided opportunities for girls to form, as Luther Gulick the founder put it, “habits making for health and vigor, the out-of-door habit, and the out-of-door spirit.”  It’s neat to realize that this was “in the air” when the first summer camps were forming in America, and how Rockbrook too shares these ambitions.  Camp really is a place to grow… in some really important ways!

The Best Girls Summer Camp

What makes the best girls summer camp? It’s funny, but you see that claim now and then. “We’re the best girls camp ever!” or “Welcome to the best girls camp in North Carolina.” Most of this can be considered akin to team spirit, the folks from a camp expressing how much they love their particular camp, how proud they are of it, and how they know their camp really is excellent.

Of course, in reality, you can’t say objectively which girls camp is the best. Here in western North Carolina, there are so many great girls camps, each with dedicated and experienced directors, outstanding counselors, beautiful facilities and diverse fun activities. These camps also have very strong supporters, families who have found the camp perfect for their children. You will certainly find happy enthusiastic campers at all of these camps.

So is there really a best girls camp? Only to the extent that a camp is right for you. The subtle differences between camps, their particular strengths or emphases, will probably make you feel more at home at one girls camp or another. To put it differently, there are of course differences between camps but they do not distinguish which camp is “best.” That is something that follows from how much you love your camp, and that’s what makes it best.

So yes, for many reasons, generations of girls believe Rockbrook is the best girls summer camp. They believe it because they’ve experienced it and love it as their own.

It's Easy to Make Friends

When a girl goes to school, chances are she interacts mostly with kids her own age. Both in class and out, her opportunities to make friends don’t reach very far from the other kids in her grade level. When coming to camp, however, a girl spends time with other girls both younger and older than she; pre-teens make friends with young girls, older teens become natural leaders for the younger girls, and so forth. Likewise, all of the campers really get to know the camp counselors, who are generally young women in college or recently graduated from college. And when you consider the senior camp staff, there is a huge age range of people at camp all living together as a community.

The social benefits of this multiage experience are significant. Not only is it more like the real world, but research has shown multiage settings help girls feel less pressure to be competitive with other girls, and this makes it much easier to make friends.

When you think about camp, this makes perfect sense because it really is a special place where teens don’t have to be the “best” to be liked. No matter what, you’ll make really good friends, even if they are a little older or younger.

The Rockbrook Camp Bell

Here’s something that all the girls who attend Rockbrook will easily recognize— the camp bell! This is the bell we ring to signal the whole camp when it’s time to change activity periods, come to meals, and of course, wake up in the morning. It has such a clear tone and is easily heard throughout the entire camp, even up on Castle Rock.

It’s actually a very old bell, older than the camp itself by more than 20 years, which means it’s well over 100 years old. For as long as anyone around here can remember it’s been perched up in the big oak tree at the front of the dining hall, ready to be rung by pulling on the rope that leads to the dining hall porch. It’s one of those very familiar parts of camp that everybody loves.

A Girls' Summer at Camp

Here’s a great old photo of girls at Rockbrook Camp enjoying their summer swimming and sliding down into the lake. We’re not sure when the photo was taken, but in the background you can see the Hillside Lodge with very little growing around it, and since that lodge now has a giant oak tree in front of it, it must have been taken quite a long time ago.  The familiar NC vegetation, the big rocks, and the same feeling of summer really come through in the photo.

How do you like the belts on the girls’ swimsuits?

Camp Girls

Long-time Rockbrook counselor Beth Dobson sent us this great old photo of some Rockbrook Girls.

“I was going through some old family photos yesterday and found a picture of my grandmother at RBC. I edited the photo to point out which girl is actually my grandmother. Beth Davies Allee Gruen was born in 1921, so this picture was taken sometime in the 1930s and my great-great-aunt, Irving Murphy, was a counselor back then as well. Also, my grandmother grew-up in New Orleans, so there has always been some campers from NOLA!”

It looks like this picture was taken up on Vesper Rock overlooking the lake, and more than likely was a cabin group. Very cool to see it. Thanks Beth!

P.S. Beth will be at camp this summer too, continuing the tradition.

Making Real Friends at Camp

And these aren’t your casual friends. At camp you’ll make the absolute best friends of your life, the kind of friends you’ll always stay in touch with. That’s because camp is a place where you can be who you really are. No need to pose, no need to worry about who is or isn’t nice to you; just relax. When you’re honest and open, you’ll find the kind of true people who are easy to like and who will like you too. Whether you’re a kid, a teenager, or a college student staff member, at Rockbrook you’ll make the most awesome camp friends.