Camp Newspaper Published

Each session the girls who sign up for the Journalism activity while at Rockbrook contribute to a camp newspaper called the Toilet Paper. It is hung inside the bathroom stalls all over camp so everyone can have a chance to read it. The girls publish fun surveys, report on camp news, do interviews, highlight camp special events, and add original creative writing pieces as well. It’s a fun way to share some of the writing they’ve been doing in Journalism, and everyone enjoys seeing what they’ve been up to.

This is the most recent edition from 3rd session. Click the image to see a larger version.

Hide and Seek and Skits

Today for breakfast, Liz really hit a home run with her chocolate chip scones. Fresh from the oven, we gobbled them up along with the blueberries, yogurt, cereal and OJ Rick had out for us. This light breakfast made a nice change from the eggs bacon and grits we had yesterday. Since we’re talking about Liz’s baking, the muffins were again a unique combination— white chocolate, coconut muffins. They were sweet with just a hint of coconut in each bite. Of course, the girls had no trouble enjoying those either!

Saturday morning is like other mornings with the girls moving through their newest sets of activities. Down at archery, Mandy got a group of juniors all excited by adding balloons to the targets. There’s something about trying to shoot a smaller target like this; she two different girls get a bullseye. Whenever a camper shoots a bullseye at camp, she joins the “Bullseye Club” and is recognized at lunch when the archery counselor announces her name.

At the lake, in addition to the normal swimming classes, the paddlers were working on their kayaking and canoeing. They meet to gather their paddles and life jackets (PFDs) on the stone patio under the Middler Lodge and then select boats at the water’s edge.  Practicing strokes on the lake, maybe paddling a course set up by the counselors, is a great way to prepare for a river trip out of camp.  It’s also fun— maybe you’ve seen this in the photo gallery —to swamp your canoe intentionally, and then climb up on the turned up bottom of the boat.  It’s not easy to balance two, or even three, people like that!

The afternoon’s activity was a giant, all-camp game of hide and seek we call “Counselor Hunt.” All the campers assemble in the gym while all the counselors take 15 minutes to hide somewhere in camp. Some dress in camouflage and paint their faces to hide in the woods, while others just have really good hiding spots. Each counselor is worth 100 points for every year they have attended camp, so several are worth quite a lot, like Michelle who earned a cabin 1000 points. When it’s time to start searching, each cabin runs around camp together looking, and when they find a counselor, they bring her back to the dining hall to claim her points. Keeping the whole cabin together and literally combing the entire camp is a real workout, but the girls are so excited when they discover a hiding counselor.

For tonight’s evening program, the different age groups went to their lodges for various skits. The Seniors did “bag skits” where the whole cabin makes up a skit using 5 random items they receive in a bag. The Middlers did a spoof on a pageant (“Miss ——–” contest) and the Juniors did “Commercials” for silly products. This was a night of crazy, silly dressing up all over camp with each cabin joining creative forces. Good camp fun.

Climbing, Kayaking and Cabin Day

First let’s mention the muffins.  They were another Rockbrook original today, this time invented and baked by veteran baker Annabel: Tootsie Roll Muffins.  Yes, after some experimenting, she figured out how to include a piece of the chewy chocolate candy in each muffin before baking, and man were they awesome.

The morning kept us all involved in our regular camp activities. Since it was the third day of the sequence, we were finishing up lots of craft projects, improving our shooting skills at archery and riflery, and tackling more advanced outdoor adventure challenges.  For example, down at the lake, Kelsey held a kayaking roll clinic with the kayakers.  This is learning to roll your kayak back upright after it turns upside down.  If you’ve never done it before, it’s a challenging sequence of hip, head, shoulder and paddle moves, all coordinated to roll the boat up.  It’s not easy, and ordinarily takes lots of practice, but several of the girls made good progress and now can almost do it unassisted.

Tara, Katherine and Kiersten took a group of girls rock climbing on Castle Rock for the morning. This is the big outcropping of granite on the camp property that you can see from the hill. It’s just a short walk up behind the dining hall, and since it’s on our property, access is really easy and always guaranteed. We have 6 different routes established on Castle Rock, and for this trip they set up the 3 called “Whim,” “Wham” and “Bam.” Bam is the longest and most difficult of these three— about 90 feet beginning with a gentle dihedral that turns into an exposed face climb at the top.  The view of the French Broad River valley is incredible from the ledge at the finish.  Don’t worry; getting down is a simple matter of the belayer lowering the climber down on the rope.  There were several really good climbers in that group!

After lunch, we had our Wednesday “cabin day.” This is a time when we do special activities together in our cabin groups instead of following each camper’s individual activity schedule. This allows each cabin to decide what they’d like to do and to enjoy a little extra time together.

Some cabins just hang out and play games in their cabin, while others choose to go on a hike to Rockbrook Falls, or Stick Biscuit Falls on the camp property. Some head to the gym for a game there and others make some kind of snack in the dining hall… cookies or “Puppy chow,” for example. Occasionally, we’ll take an entire age group out of camp for a special trip, like today when we gathered up all the Seniors and headed to Sliding Rock. A brief thunderstorm moved out just in time for us to enjoy a few trips down the rock, and to stop at Dolly’s Dairy Bar for an ice cream cone before heading back to camp for dinner.

Oh, and speaking of dinner, it featured some of Rick’s homemade pizza. You should see the gigantic blob of dough he makes for the crust! Pepperoni, Veggie, Cheese, even Pesto; they were all great. With a big green salad and Annabel’s puff-pastries for dessert, the girls loved it! They even busted out the “Cook’s Song,” something they sing when inspired by an especially yummy meal. Good stuff.

All in all another great day in “the heart of a wooded mountain.” Feel free to leave comments on these blog posts. We always appreciate hearing from you!

All Fun Camp Activities

The first day of camp is one where everyone launches into the regular in-camp activities. After selecting their first set of four (2 in the morning and 2 in the afternoon) the day before, it’s fun to see the girls divide up into lots of little groups and head off to the different parts of camp where activities are held. This could be one of our 100-year-old log cabins, one of our stone meeting lodges, “hiker’s rock,” the gym, the lake, the equestrian center, or the alpine tower. The whole camp gets busy and spreads out to have fun! Naturally, during the sign up process, the girls often sign up for things because their friends have also selected a certain activity, but also because it’s something new this year, or it’s something they’ve always wanted to try. During this regular activity time at camp, if you wander around, you’d be amazed by what the girls are doing. Just about everywhere you look, there’s something cool going on.

Girls swimming in the lake, making pottery, learning a new dance, shooting arrows, painting and drawing, playing dodge ball, canoeing, kayaking, climbing and riding horses. The list goes on!

Today at “Muffin Break” (the 15 minutes between 1st and 2nd period) we all enjoyed a classic blueberry muffin. Did you know that our kitchen has a baker, Liz? She makes all of our muffins, cookies, and desserts each day from scratch. It’s always the talk of camp to find out what kind of muffin she’s made for us that day. What a treat!

The other big event today was our “Swim Demonstrations.” Ordinarily, we do these on the opening day of camp, but yesterday a couple of afternoon thunderstorms made that difficult, so we postponed to today when the weather was excellent, sunny and warm. The swim demo is an exercise where each camper demonstrates her swimming ability to the water front staff. This involves swimming about 60 yards and treading water for 30 seconds. Doing this well earns a red buddy tag with your name on it and permission to swim in the lake without a life vest. If a camper can’t quite do this with confidence, the swimming staff will offer her swimming lessons and in the meantime restrict her to the shallow part of the lake and require she wear a life jacket. We don’t insist anyone go swimming while at camp, but if they want to swim or go on any water-related trips (whitewater rafting, for example), they must “pass” the swim demo.

One of my favorite times at camp is right after dinner, during the hour we call “Twilight.” It’s just a bit of free time between dinner and the start of evening program, or some other all-camp event. But it always feels so good. The sun sets on the hill, there’s often a cool breeze and the girls are free to play in the creek, play tetherball or simply hang out. We also always offer one or two optional activities during Twilight, like tonight when Becky led group games down on the archery field and Molly took a group of girls down to work on the garden. These are optional, but still nice if you’re looking for something to do.

Camp is off to a great start. Be sure to check the photo gallery each day to see more of what’s going on. You can also follow us on Twitter for little snips of camp life.

Balancing on the Rock

You’ve probably heard that “balance” is one of the most important skills to have for rock climbing. It’s true; a lot of the technique involves balancing on your feet, and usually one foot, as you move up the rock. But it’s not only that simple. It’s also important to learn how to hold yourself still, to use your muscles to shift your weight from one foot to the other slowly and smoothly. Generally, as you climb, you’ll keep your torso stationary and move a hand or foot up to the next hold. This is sometimes called the rule of “3-point contact” and refers to the practice of only moving one foot or hand at a time while your other limbs stay on the rock. For example, you might keep both feet on the rock, hold on with one hand, and shift your weight to the left or right to reach a new handhold.  Likewise, you might hold on with both hands, keep one foot set, and lift your other foot up to a new hold. The trick is to stay smooth, keep your body still, and shift your center of gravity from left to right and up. It’s this deliberate and precise moving that we meaning by “balancing.”

Are you rock climbing this summer?

Puzzle Answers

Here they are! It’s the answers to the crossword puzzle published in the last newsletter. Trivia and names from around Rockbrook. How’d you do?

Kids Grow Better Outside

Spotted this bumper sticker the other day in Asheville, NC. Isn’t it awesome!? It’s put out by the Buncombe county partnership of the Smart Start Program, an “early childhood initiative designed to ensure that young children enter school healthy and ready to succeed.” The sticker shows that, like we have claimed many times before, playing outside is really good for kids.  Here are some of the benefits the Buncombe County web site recognizes.

• Kids are better able to play with other kids and work problems out with them.
• Kids benefit from physical activity by experiencing healthier weights.
• Kids have fewer problems with hyperactivity and are better able to pay attention.
• Kids experience less stress than other kids their age.
• Kids score higher on standardized tests.

It’s not too hard to see how “children will be smarter, better able to get along with others, healthier and happier when they have regular opportunities for free and unstructured play in the out of doors?”  And it’s a simple step to realize how important summer vacation from school, and summer camps like Rockbrook, are for kids.  All children really benefit from time outside, away from school, and certainly at camp.

Are your kids getting outside?

Summer Camp Archery

So let’s say you get to summer camp and you’ve never tried archery. Sure you’ve seen it on TV and you know it means pulling back an arrow in a bow, releasing it while aiming at a target, and hopefully hitting the target in the center. But you’ve never really tried it before.

At first, it’s kind of funny. After learning the basics about the equipment and how to shoot, you give archery a try and shoot arrows over, under, to the side, and anywhere but on the target. Slowly but surely though, each round lets you make small adjustments. A little coaching gets thrown in, and you are soon scoring points on the target.

Next thing you know, you’re hooked, and you’re selecting archery again for one of your daily camp activities. Archery becomes one of your favorite things to do at summer camp.

That’s cool, but what do you do when you get home from camp? How can you keep shooting, and improve you archer’s skills? Well, there might be a local archery club near you. You could also form an archery club and join the Junior Olympic Archery Development (JOAD) organization.  If you can find an adult supervisor, set up a safe archery range, and gather the proper equipment, you can begin to practice shooting archery all year long.  This might be tough to do by yourself, but if you can get several friends and their parents to get excited about the idea, you can do it!  Your club can then compete in local or regional tournaments, and you might even be able to join the youth world team and compete in other countries representing America.

Archery can be a lifelong sport, and just think, it all started at summer camp.