Happy Thanksgiving!

All of us here at Rockbrook, Sarah and Jeff, Charlotte, Carol, Sofie, Frampton, Connie, Richie and Jerry want to wish our campers, counselors and their families a happy Thanksgiving holiday.

Happiness, health, friends and family— these and many more are our wishes for you!

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!

It Starts with People

Everyone likes taking pictures, but at a place like Rockbrook where there is something wondrous or beautiful at every turn, it’s exciting to try and capture the experience in photography. The photography activity, or what we call “Photo Phun” around here, gives the girls a chance to explore and take— no make pictures all over camp. Jane, the lead instructor, starts them out by explaining how to use the digital cameras and when to select certain settings given what they’re shooting. She teaches them the basic notion of adjusting shutter speed and aperture relative to the amount of available light, for example, and how changing these settings affects the depth of field and motion effects. With this background, the girls will often head out to explore, looking for “cool photos.” To focus that sometimes, Jane will challenge them with a scavenger hunt where each photo has to have a different main color, or a represent a different letter in the alphabet. She’s taught them about stop motion photography and light painting as well. See why we call it “Photo Phun?”

You probably can also see why having a skilled, energetic and enthusiastic activity instructor is so important to the success of something like this. For Photo Phun to really be fun for the campers, Jane has to be both a skilled technician who really knows her stuff about photography, but also a creative teacher who enjoys working with kids. Rockbrook is full of great activity instructors like this. They instinctively know how to take something maybe a little technical, like archery, tennis, horseback riding, or rock climbing for example, and present it to the campers in a way that’s safe and informative, but also inherently fun. There are a few tricks to this that we present during our staff training week, but we also work hard to hire counselors who “get it” instinctively. Pull together a bunch of people like this, young women who love what they do, creatively and imaginatively, and who sincerely love being with kids, and you’ve got a sense of what makes the Rockbrook staff special.

Beyond the scheduled activities offered each day, it’s often the simplest things that mean the most to a girl when she’s here at Rockbrook. Playing tetherball on the hill at twilight, sitting in the sun on a huge rock by the lake, or racing your flip-flop down the creek— these can be the best memories of camp. Of course, the most important ingredient in everything at Rockbrook is the people, the incredible community of spirited folks who share camp together. They form the core of these memories. Certainly Rockbrook is a beautiful place and the activities are excellent, but it’s your cabin mates, your counselors and all the other support staff (Rick, Alison, Clyde, Elaine, Richie, Katie, Will, the many Directors and so many others) that truly make these little moments that add up to be “camp.” The magic of camp starts with people.

Tonight after dinner we sent word for everyone to dress up and come down to the gym for a surprise evening event. The girls must have been saving up costume elements because we saw amazing wacky wigs, goofy glasses, colorful dresses, boots and hats in any combination (There are some great photos of this in the gallery). When they arrived, they found the gym transformed into a game show, with our friend Bill Grimsley ready to host a trivia question and answer game using his podiums and scoring system. He randomly selected contestants from the audience, pitting girls from the same line against each other. Some of the questions were about Rockbrook, and others about pop music, TV and movies. Occasionally he would announce a “challenge round” where for extra points the contestants performed a task like hula hooping, or for the counselors, eating something “not so appetizing” like canned pig brains in gravy. Ugh! Of course, the audience thought this was hilarious. Prizes, like a giant cookie cake, went to cabin groups, and at times when the contestants were stumped and the audience knew an answer, the whole crowd won a little treat. Silly and oh so good!

Excitement Bubbling Up

Today we opened our third session of camp, and it started out with excitement bubbling up all over. You could see it on the hill when each camper arrived and the counselors let out a cheer. You could see it on campers faces as they literally jiggled in the back seat of the car ready (so ready!) to hop out and get started. These girls have been waiting all summer long for camp, so they were ready to explode with excitement. It was there in the big bear hugs between two friends finally reunited. And we certainly saw this excitement during lunch, the first meal, when it took about 3 minutes for the whole camp to launch into the “Bubble Gum” song.

It’s always a real moment of pride for us to open a new session of camp because it lets “the outside world,” our parents and campers, and their family and friends accompanying them, see all the good things we enjoy at Rockbrook everyday. They can marvel at the sheer beauty of the place, the big trees, stone lodges, and traditional, rustic cabins tucked in the forest. They can enjoy the truly cool mountain air and gaze off the hill at the mountains beyond. Most importantly, they can personally meet some of the wonderful people here. Our cabin counselors are fantastic young ladies. It’s clear when you talk with them that they are marvelous, caring, confident, and energetic women, and will be great role models for the girls at camp. Likewise for our camp Directors, Sarah and Charlotte, Mandy, Sofie and Catherine— these are highly experienced and dedicated Rockbrook people, super organized and responsive. I’m sure you’ll get to know several of these folks, and I’m equally sure you’ll be impressed.

After lunch, which included Rick’s comforting, homemade macaroni and cheese, we all assembled on the grassy hill of camp to meet the Line Heads (the counselors who lead each age group) and Directors, and to sing a few songs. The Hi-Ups, our oldest campers, took a turn teaching a song, and the Directors all joined in to perform a funny “Shower Song” that reminded the campers to bathe while at camp. “Jumping in the lake is not the same…!” Down in the gym, the counselors next took turns presenting short skits to introduce themselves and their activities to the campers. It’s helpful for everyone to learn what activities are offered this year and who will be teaching them. Here too, the campers see that being a little silly is part of the fun here at Rockbrook and that everyone, counselors, directors and campers alike, enjoy it. At some point or another, we’re all dressing up, dancing around, singing and laughing our heads off.

Later, each age group came down to the lake for their “swim demonstrations.” With all of our lifeguards assembled, plus all the Directors, every camper and counselor took a turn demonstrating her swimming ability by jumping off the dock, swimming out 60ft, back another 60ft, and then treading water for 30 seconds. Doing this successfully, confidently, earns you a buddy tag and a cool green bracelet that signals a swimming ability strong enough to tackle our new water slide. If a camper’s swimming skills are weak, she receives a special colored buddy tag (alerting the lifeguards) and must wear a life jacket in the shallow end of the lake. She can also redo her swim demo during any free swim, and the lifeguards are always happy to help work on her strokes.

One quick last reminder… we are posting photos every day online and you can see them after logging into your Campminder account. Checking these is a great fun and you can easily share them by email or on Facebook. Enjoy!

Confident Sense of Adventure

During one of the many tours of Rockbrook we’ve been giving lately, a parent asked an excellent question. “What do you look for when hiring counselors?” It’s really an important thing to ask, and it’s something we think about a lot, all year round, in fact. We know that our counselors are certainly role models for the campers, but also friends, teammates, sisters and moms to the girls as well. The first thing we look for in a counselor is simply an enthusiastic, energetic, friendly young (high school graduate or older) woman who loves children. The best counselors are naturally “kid people.” They have an innate ability to connect with children, to listen to them, and communicate with them authentically.  This allows them to become really good friends and to forge great trusting relationships with the campers.  Of course, this makes camp fun and rewarding for everyone, camper and counselor alike. Even more specifically, another trait we look for in counselors, among many others, is a confident sense of adventure. This describes someone who isn’t scared to branch out and try new things, who is generally up beat and positive even when faced with the unknown or when something isn’t going exactly right (Raining? “No big deal! Let’s sing some rain songs…!”) Having a confident sense of adventure means being resilient, flexible, creative and improvisational. See how those are great qualities, and something that makes a wonderful role model for girls? There really is a lot of that going around at RBC.

This year we are having the jewelry making activity meet on the porch of the hillside stone lodge. This porch, which is made of rough-sawed, oak planks, overlooks the lake and at the right spot, has a view of the mountains in the distance. There are a few rocking chairs out there and a big table with benches for the girls to use as they tie friendship bracelets, twist wire, string beads and weave necklaces. It’s a beautiful setting to spend time learning new friendship bracelet techniques (like that toe-tie!), and naturally just talking and laughing about nothing in particular.

If you’ve ever tried to throw a pot on the wheel, you know that it’s not easy. It takes great patience to learn because there are so many ways a spinning ball of clay can crumple, wobble or even fly off the wheel. Everything can be going great, perfectly centered, and then suddenly your nice bowl collapses and it’s back to square one. All of this makes it such a victory, a moment of pride, when a camper successfully throws something on the wheel, especially the first time.

The Hi-Ups took an exciting trip into the Pisgah Forest this afternoon, stopping first at Looking Glass Falls. This is one of the most well-known waterfalls in this area, partly because it’s about 60-feet tall, but also because it’s easily seen from the main road. We came ready to swim, so after walking down to base, all of us swam through the pool and the spray just past where the water was crashing down. A few of the girls ventured closer to let some of the water smack them on the back, but it looked a little intense, if not painful, so there weren’t many takers. The cold mountain water and the roar of the falls was enough for most of us. Back in the buses, it was then just a short trip further to reach the Pounding Mill overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of our favorite stopping spots up there. It’s 4700 feet up (Rockbrook’s elevation is about 2350 ft) and provides a grand view of Looking Glass Rock below, a popular rock climbing destination.  By the time we arrived it was getting near dinner time and there was a stop at Dolly’s in the plan as well, so today we came just for the view and a quick group picture.  It’s always nice to get a little altitude!

Summer Camp Film Announced

Back in 2007 Josh Wolk, a writer for the magazine Entertainment Weekly, published a book about life at summer camp entitled, Cabin Pressure: One Man’s Desperate Attempt to Recapture His Youth as a Camp Counselor. To write the book, Wolk decided to go back to the same summer camp he attended as kid and be a cabin counselor, to spend a summer living with the kids, teaching activities, and eating in the dining hall. Part nostalgia trip and part a return to innocence (reliving boyhood memories before getting married and becoming “an adult”), the book is well written and is really funny. By introducing you to the campers in his cabin and the other staff members, the book helps readers understand camp from the inside. It shows the complex human relationships at play there, the funny and poignant moments happening all the time, and ultimately why so many people absolutely love camp.

Now, word is out that Derick Martini (best known for directing the 2008 film “Lymelife”) is going to film a movie based on Wolk’s book.  We’re not sure about the production schedule or the cast at this point, but we know that the film will be a comedy about summer camp.  Cool!

We’ll keep you posted and, meanwhile, look forward to seeing the film!

Hold Your T-Grip!

Sixty Rockbrook ladies had quite an adventure by spending their day rafting down the Nantahala River!  Though many find it chilly, it is quite the thrilling ride.  With class II and III rapids, both Middler and Senior campers love the challenge of the Nantahala.  Some of the rafters chose to add on to their adventure by spending the night at our private outpost nearby.  They will return tomorrow just in time for cabin day.  The evening consisted of campfire songs and s’mores… what could be campier that than??

And the fun didn’t stop with rafting today.  Back at home, campers were treated to one of our historic special events this evening: Biltmore Train.  It’s an all-you-can-eat ice cream extravaganza!  It started long ago when the Biltmore Dairy brought a truck decorated like a train to camp and girls would line up for their preferred flavor.  Today counselors filled hundreds of cones with delicious scoops, and campers just keep coming back for more.  This evening’s most popular flavor was our blue cookies-n-cream.  Quite the treat!

Ice Cream from the Biltmore Train

The First Day of Camp!

Campers! Counselors! Trips and Activities! We’re all here and ready to go. It feels so good to finally have camp open and to see everything in motion. After spending all year preparing for summer, thinking about the girls returning, and arranging our fantastic staff, it’s very exciting to get started.

And what a start it’s been! The weather has been perfect… warm 80s during the day and cool 60s at night. With all of the rain we had in the weeks leading up to camp, everything is fantastically green and lush right now. It makes camp just beautiful— bright skies, a clear view of John Rock from under the walnut tree on the hill.

All of the camp activities kicked off as well. The girls signed up for their first set of activities and really got busy. The crafts, the adventure, the horseback riding, the sports. Head over to the photo gallery and check it out.