Giraffes, Penguins and Alligators, Oh My!

Hey, it’s Lexie reporting to you directly from the Middler line… and beyond!

Many girls held their breath this morning as they nervously climbed the steps of the Dining Hall. The cast list for our play, The Wizard of Oz, had just gone up and everyone was anxious to see. The initial craze of shouts and laughter has died down since breakfast and the girls picked up their scripts at dinner from our director, Elise. Now all they have to do is memorize their lines and attend a few rehearsals, and we’ll have our play ready on Saturday, July 21st, for any and all parents who wish to attend. Good luck, girls!

Apart from the excitement of the play, we all dressed up in our hairiest costumes for Animal Dinner! We had everything from elephants to bears to flamingos dining together in harmony. I think I saw a lion stalking a zebra, but there are no fatalities to report. Stay tuned for more intense eyewitness accounts brought to you from Rockbrook Camp!

Happy Birthday to us!

What could possibly be better than celebrating your own birthday? Why, celebrating everyone’s birthday on the same night of course!

The campers were so excited when they entered the dining hall for dinner to find that it was Birthday Night. We all sat at tables according to birth month, so that we could all celebrate together.

Dinner was delicious, but the best part was the birthday cake! There was enough for everyone to have all they wanted, with plenty to spare. Overall it was a spectacular bithday.

Happy Birthday!

Summer Camp Information

Here’s something cool— it’s the cover page from the 1925 camp catalog. Rockbrook’s first summer was in 1921, so this is very early in the history of the camp. You can see the founders listed right there on the bottom: Nancy Clarke Carrier and Henry Carrier, her husband. No doubt the photo is a canoeing trip on the French Broad River at the foot of camp.

Loom Weaving at Summer Camp

One of the most traditional arts and crafts activities at Rockbrook is weaving. It’s been something girls have done at camp since the very beginning back in 1921. In the craft cabin we call Curosty (which even pre-dates camp!), there are several table-top and floor looms we use to teach basic weaving techniques. It takes some time to set things up and to learn how to operate the looms, but you can make really cool designs. Bits of yarn and string, even natural fibers you gather around camp, all come together to create fabrics, place mats, belts, and other straps. Weaving is a lot of fun, and if you really enjoy it, it’s something you can do at home too.

All the Staff of Camp

Another common question we hear is about the number of counselors at camp. At any girls residential camp like Rockbrook, it is important to consider the camper to counselor ratio. With 200 campers enrolled in each session, people are often surprised to hear that we have close to 100 employees during the summer, with about 50 of those being cabin counselors. The others are special activity staff members, maintenance, housekeeping and kitchen staff, and other support staff members. The typical cabin arrangement is 2 counselors and 8 campers per cabin— a 1:4 ratio. A couple of the cabins are larger, and in that case, we’ll have a CIT (counselor in training) stay in the cabin as well. 26 different camp activities, 200 campers, 200 acres of forest, and almost 100 employees… there’s a lot going on!

Summer Camp

Another fantastic summer camp photo emerges from the archives! …archery class down at the sports field. Judging by the clothes and the car in the background, we think it’s from the 1930s. Still a popular summer activity at camp, it’s fun to see how things used to be.

Sleepaway Summer Camp

Snow in Brevard! We thought you’d enjoy this photo of Goodwill taken after our recent snow “storm.” “Goodwill” is the old cabin just below the dining hall that has the camp library. It’s where the Journalism and Photography activities meet as well.

Overnight Traditional Summer Camps

We often describe Rockbrook as a “traditional” summer camp. Being founded in 1921, its age is one good reason for this. Likewise, when you step into many of the buildings at camp, each of the three stone lodges or the “Goodwill” cabin for example, you have that feeling of being back in time. Then, of course, many of the camp activities have deep roots going back to the earliest years. Girls today still enjoy horseback riding, hiking and camping overnight, archery, canoeing, and crafts, for example. Perhaps most significantly, there are many special events and aspects of daily kids camp life that make it uniquely itself. For example, there’s the end-of-camp “Spirit Fire,” the camp songs sung in the dining hall, and the encouragement girls find to try new things, meet new people, and live simply with an appreciation of the natural world.

There are certainly modern aspects of camp as well, but understanding these features, you can see how Rockbrook is, at its heart, a “traditional” summer camp.