New Club President Charlotte

With the start of the new year, our own Associate Director and longtime Rockbrook girl, Charlotte Page, has taken over as the President of the board of directors for the Boys & Girls Club of Transylvania County. The Boys and Girls Club is a remarkable community organization providing after school programs for kids ages 5-18. It serves as a “home away from home,” where children are supported with tutoring, character and leadership training, health and life skills, and of course plenty of fun activities.

This is big news! The Asheville Citizen-Times newspaper just published a story about Charlotte’s new role as president. Here’s a link to read it. Other Board members and staff of the Boys & Girls club are excited about Charlotte’s leadership. “Charlotte brings a commitment to and a knowledge of youth that’s invaluable,” said one, and “Charlotte obviously loves kids and has a keen interest in seeing them progress,” remarked another.

Congratulations Charlotte! There’s a long history, going back to Nancy Carrier, of Rockbrook’s Directors serving the children of our local community. It’s so great to see that tradition just as strong today.

You can learn more about the Boys & Girls Club of Transylvania County on their Web site.

90th Year Reunion a Great Success

What an amazing weekend! It was 3 days bathed in absolutely perfect weather, decorated with fond memories relived, and filled to the brim with laughter and conversation among friends… a camp reunion to remember. Rick and his crew took great care of us by serving wonderful meals, including several fresh yummy desserts baked by Alison. Everyone stayed busy on Saturday hiking to Kilroy’s Cabin, climbing the Alpine Tower, making pottery, shooting archery, and zipping down the water slide at the lake, but perhaps most enjoyably, spending a lot of time relaxing amid the beauty of Rockbrook.

Here is a group photo we took after lunch on Saturday (click the photo for a larger version). We also took lots of photos all weekend long and have published them here: 2011 Alumnae Reunion Photos. Take a look!

Stay tuned to our Alumnae Blog for more updates about the reunion. There are many wonderful moments to recount.

Thanks to everyone who attended the reunion. We always enjoy welcoming former campers back to the “Heart of a Wooded Mountain.” It won’t be long before we do it again!

90 Years of Rockbrook

This weekend we celebrate Rockbrook’s 90th year by inviting all of the camp’s alumnae to return to the “Heart of a Wooded Mountain.” Former campers and counselors from all over, from the southeast to the northwest, women of all ages, from 21 to 71, are arriving today in Brevard for the weekend events at camp. It will be a wonderful time to reconnect with each other, reminisce with stories, and simply to enjoy together the beauty and spirit of Rockbrook.

We’ll be posting updates on Facebook and Twitter throughout the weekend, so if you couldn’t make it, you can still follow along. Stay tuned!

A Fantastic Summer

Today we closed Rockbrook’s 90th season and said farewell to our Third session and August Mini session campers. After these weeks together, it’s astounding how close we’ve all become, girls of all ages and staff members sharing experiences and growing together as a family. We’ve laughed together and cheered for each other. We’ve learned together and helped each other. All this proving once again a remarkable thing about Rockbrook: everyone here is part of a loving community, supported, encouraged and appreciated. Being a part of it is a marvelous feeling.

That’s one of best reasons girls develop such a deep love for camp. They not only get to do so many amazingly fun things and live with so many great people, they cherish the feeling of freedom and the regular moments of excitement every day brings. Life at camp is different from the rest of the year. It’s of course missing modern comforts (and technology), but also, strangely, feels more real.

Thank you everyone! Rockbrook is magical because everyone— our great girls, counselors, directors, support staff and families —makes it that way. Thank you for your efforts and support this summer. It’s truly been fantastic!

Plenty of Smiles

This, the last full day of camp, is always a strange day of wrapping things up, cherishing moments with friends, and feeling a little melancholy knowing that we’ll all be heading home tomorrow. As we pack and move luggage, there is a certain reluctance to let camp end, even as there are last minute activities and time to be together.

Today we picked up our finished pottery projects. All of the pieces the girls made and glazed during the session have been fired, their shiny colors now leaping up at you from each dish, cup and piggy bank. This is the first time the campers have seen how the kiln has magically transformed their work into these amazing creations, so it’s very exciting for them.  Katie and Will, the lead ceramics instructors, take great care to fire everyone’s work and have it available in time to take home.  It’s so cool to see how everything turned out!

Down and over at Rockbrook’s Equestrian Center, Audrey and her crew of horseback riding instructors invited everyone down for their “Barn Party.” This is an event with riding demonstrations, mounted games, and decorated horses. Everyone who took horseback riding was invited to participate and plenty of other campers came down to the main lower riding ring just to watch the festivities. The funniest game was “Herding Cows” where three staff members, dressed as cows in white t-shirts and black spots wandered randomly while riders tried to guide them to a pen. It was pretty funny to see and hear (moo!). It was a fun, cheerful event for everyone, complete with chilly popsicles as a surprise treat at the end.

Lunch was a classic camp favorite: grilled cheese sandwiches and Rick’s homemade tomato soup. They also served an awesome fruit salad that included the sweetest pineapple. After lunch, we all assembled in he gym for this session’s production of Schoolhouse Rock, our camp-wide musical. This is a play written just for kids and is based on the popular TV series with its well-known songs: “The Great American Melting Pot,” “Conjunction Junction,” and “A Noun is a Person, Place or Thing.” All three age groups had roles to sing with a couple of solos mixed in with choral numbers. These girls have talent!

Rockbrook’s traditional “Spirit Fire” brought our day to a close just beautifully. As dusk approached, the whole camp, all of the campers and counselors dressed in their uniforms, gathered around a campfire circle by the lake to spend some time reflecting on everything camp has meant to us over these last few weeks. We remembered all the fun events, and those moments where things couldn’t be funnier. We expressed our thanks to one another, recognizing that Rockbrook is wonderful chiefly because it encourages all of us to be our best. It inspires us to help each other enjoy camp together. I suspect that’s one of the main reasons it’s such a friendly place. The Spirit Fire can sometimes be a little emotional too as the girls realize the close friends they’ve made at camp are going home in the morning. Tonight too, there were a few tears, but also plenty of smiles.

Following a long tradition, we ended the Spirit Fire by each camper and counselor lighting a small white candle from the central campfire. Sarah and the other Directors first lit their larger candles and everyone else filed by to light their candle. We then spread out around the lake singing a couple of last songs. Standing around the lake, shoulder to shoulder gazing at the candlelight and softly singing with chirping crickets in the background, this is a scene generations of Rockbrook girls have experienced. It’s a truly beautiful moment they will remember for a very long time.

Fairy Banquet

Today was one of those fantastic food days at Rockbrook that are almost too good to be true. It started with a special treat from Alison. She made us some of her chocolate chip scones, the kind of scones that start with flour and ice-cold butter, cut to just the right consistency, and blended to make a sophisticated “crumb,” but also with plenty of sweet chocolate to keep every kid smiling. I guess Alison was feeling creative, or maybe a little playful too, because she added a smear of orange glaze on each scone when it was fresh from the oven. They were heavenly!

At lunch it was Rick’s turn to show off a little bit. Since the dining hall was closed because the CA campers were decorating for tonight’s surprise banquet, we had a picnic lunch on the hill, and when Rick heard “picnic” he thought “barbecue.” But to do it right, you have to plan. He ordered 180 pounds of pork shoulder (“Boston Butts”) and started by first seasoning it and baking it for 4 hours. Next the grill: after hand rubbing each piece of meat with a blend of spices, he grilled them all for 3 hours, completely blackening the outside.  Not done yet though, he then smoked everything for another hour before letting the pork “rest” and cool.  It took 3 people another 2 hours then to pull all the meat off of the bone by hand. Wow, that’s a lot of work!  But it turned out to be the most amazing, tender and juicy, flavorful barbecue. Rick also made an excellent vinegar-based barbecue sauce, and served it all with buns, and his sweet potato fries and coleslaw.  The whole camp was completely stuffed after going back for seconds and thirds… and that was just for lunch.

About 6:15pm the moment everyone was waiting for arrived with the unveiling of the secret banquet theme for this session. The CA campers (who have finished the 9th grade) selected the theme on the first day of camp and spent the rest of the session planning for this night. They decorated the entire dining hall, every wall from floor to ceiling, spending a huge amount of time painting “panels,” colorful scenes on wide sheets of paper to be hung all around the inside. They decorated each table according to the theme, this time designing paper menus and adding flowers, leaves, moss and of course plenty of candy.

So what was the theme? Fairies. Each CA dressed as a different color fairy, complete with wings and plenty of glitter. The panels contained lots of nature imagery— twisted vines, large trees, and clusters of mushrooms. Flowers and twinkly lights seemed everywhere, really adding to the magical feel. The CAs played fun music throughout the dinner as they served their menu of “Thistle in a Blanket,” “Rainbow in a Cup,” “Magical Fruit Salad,” and “Robin’s Eggs.” Together all of this decoration, music, food and dancing, particularly the elaborate fairy costumes, the dining hall truly became a fairyland tonight. It was a great party we’ll remember always.

Ice Cream and Fairy Houses

Today the girls were surprised by the arrival of the “Biltmore Train!” You’ve heard of the Biltmore Estate. Well, in its earliest years it also ran a commercial dairy (as well as a hog, poultry and cattle farm) and sold its products locally. The delivery truck for the Biltmore dairy products— remember the milk man? —was decorated with a train motif, so when that truck would arrive at Rockbrook, the campers called it the “Biltmore Train.” One of the things it brought was ice cream. Think big tubs of yummy, ice cream ready to be hand dipped. Keep a stack of cones nearby too. And keep eating until it’s gone. That’s the Biltmore Train at RBC.  It means the campers can eat several (two, three, even four!) ice cream cones by getting right back in line while they eat their cone. Soon there’s a train of girls eating ice cream at Rockbrook. A decadent, once-a-year special treat for all these Rockbrook Girls!

Tonight for the Twilight period after dinner, Pam organized a special “Fairy House” workshop. This was an invitation to come down to the garden and build a small planter, a magical pot of flowers, moss, sticks and other natural objects that fairies would inhabit.

Mostly Juniors were excited about the idea, but there were several Middlers who attended as well. Pam prepared by having a variety of flower pots available, as well as trays of flowers, a pile of different mosses she had collected, even shells. The campers were encouraged to bring with them a couple of special “found objects” to add to their houses, something like a shiny pebble, or strangely gnarled stick, for example. Most of the girls started by planting a couple of different colored flowers in their pots. Pam, Alison and Sarah helped them with the soil and explained how to bury the roots of the plants. Then most added moss to the pots already making them magical looking. Adding string, a collection of stones and twigs, some of the fairy houses became quite elaborate. A couple even had a roof made of sticks and moss. The imagination and creativity built into this activity, combined with all the cool natural materials made it such a wonderful experience. It’s the kind of thing we just love around here!

A Traditional Sunday at Rockbrook

Sundays bring us a calm way to spend time together at Rockbrook and get ready for the coming week of activities and special closing events. We began our morning with a late breakfast of doughnuts in pajamas-a favorite around Rockbrook! From there, campers tidied up and get dressed in their traditional camp whities: white polo, white shorts and red tie. We have a very special way to tie our tie called a friendship knot that has been passed down through generations of Rockbrook campers.

All smiles in camp whities

Hi-Ups leading flag raising

After our flag raising ceremony led by the Hi-Ups, our Junior and Middler campers led us in the final chapel of 2011. It’s theme of “It’s a Small World” meant a lot to our campers. Many spoke about how they have found true friends at Rockbrook who have reappeared in their lives at another point. Others spoke about the awesome part of meeting new international friends while at camp. We are always surprised each year by the number of international campers who attend Rockbrook. Just this session we have girls from Russia, Belgium, Mexico, Guatemala, and Germany. You never know who you might meet at Rockbrook!

From there, campers spent time preparing for another longtime camp tradition: The Miss RBC Pageant. Here at Rockbrook, the silliest and most creative take home the crown. From dances, to songs, to skits and more, campers do an all-cabin talent followed by a question and answer round for each cabin’s representative.

Cabin Half Pint's dance routine

Junior 6's fun theatrics

This evening campers will enjoy a relaxing movie night of watching Tangled in the gym. As we prepare for the final days of 3rd Session, each camper will have time to reflect upon her camp time as well as savor those last few days of summer. What a fun weekend it has been here at Rockbrook!