Let’s say you love horseback riding, and you spent just about everyday at the Rockbrook Stables when you were at camp this summer. Certifiably “horse crazy” —that’s you! OK, but now that you’re back at home and not riding as much (if at all), what can you do to keep up with what you learned over the summer? Horseback riding at Rockbrook is great, but what can you do now that you’re back at school?
One thing you can do is watch the instructional horseback riding videos on Youtube. There are several really cool short videos about English horse riding with titles like How to Improve Your Classical Seat, How to Canter, and How to Tack a Horse. Several were filmed at Wimbleton Village Stables in London, and are very well done. Click on over and have a look at a few of these videos. You’ll really enjoy it!
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!
For quite a while, we’ve been writing on this blog about the benefits of summer camp for children. For more than 100 years now in the United States, sleepaway camps have been organized and generations of children have grown stronger, more confident, become leaders, forged close friendships, and acquired all kinds of physical, personal and social skills as a result. There really is little doubt that the sleep away camp experience of “getting away” for a few weeks is valuable for children in long-lasting and profound ways.
Even while recognizing all of this, however, there is a growing awareness that certain modern forces are threatening this great American tradition. Today, much more than a generation ago, there is competition making claims on our kid’s summer time. A recent article by Mary Beth McCauley in the Christian Science Monitor entitled “Sunset for Summer Camp?” claims as much. Quite correctly, the author observes that demand for shorter camp sessions is increasing, as opposed to longer “all summer” camps. A number of factors are contributing to this trend. School systems are shortening summer vacations. Competitive school sports teams and their coaches driven to win are requiring summer workouts (e.g., soccer “camp”) and scheduled practice days before school opens. Parents are reserving parts of the summer for family travel and vacations. Students are taking summer classes “to get ahead” (SAT prep, for example), and local, short-term day camps abound. With so many options, each claiming to be most important, it’s easy to understand why some parents find it difficult to place longer camp sessions at the top of the heap.
Fortunately, understanding the camp experience, seeing the dramatic positive effects it provides all year round, there are those, and so many Rockbrook parents are among them, who know camp is one of the most important things you can do for your child. For these parents, camp isn’t just a summertime diversion, some kind of extended amusement park; it’s a core part of their child’s personal development. It’s a place for kids to grow and discover who they are. Sure it’s fun, but it’s the kind of fun that means something long afterwords.
We hear it all the time from our parents; camp means the world to their daughters, and they are committed to providing a camp experience for them. This helps explain why, despite economic pressures and competing summer demands, Rockbrook enjoys strong enrollment, with sessions filling and waiting lists forming each summer. Camp is important to our families, and to the girls who attend and make Rockbrook their own. Around here, camp is stronger than all of the forces that may be threatening the traditions we’ve all come to appreciate.
We wanted to pass along just a sample of the feedback we have been receiving through the end-of-camp survey recently sent out to parents. So many wonderful comments, happy campers and thrilled parents, it’s enough to make all of us at camp blush! But also, it means a lot to know that the deep feelings we have for Rockbrook are shared with so many of our camp families. We can hear the appreciation and enthusiasm in your voices! Here’s one parent’s comments.
I would sacrifice just about anything to allow Emma to attend Rockbrook every year, and RBC is not an insignificant expense for us. I love so many things about Rockbrook: the activities that are only available to my daughter at camp, the confidence that she is developing over the years as she participates in different activities that push her comfort level, and the camp friendships that she is building from year to year. I truly believe that Rockbrook Camp is helping shape my daughter into a stronger, more confident person. I am so glad that we found it!
Nurse Jenny had her baby! On August 13th at 3:33pm, Anna Rebecca Emerson was born. She was a little premature and weighed 4lbs. 11 oz., but is healthy and strong.
Nathan and Jenny are both happy and proud, and we’re all excited to welcome this newest Rockbrook girl!
This is a very special day for Jeff and Sarah Carter because it’s their wedding anniversary. It’s also a special day for Rockbrook because the Carters are the only owners and directors of camp who were also married at Rockbrook as well. So in a way, it’s Rockbrook’s wedding anniversary too!
Here are just a couple of photos from the wedding— August 17, 1996. Friends and family members came for the whole weekend with some staying in cabins. The ceremony was held in the upper lodge and the reception in the dining hall.
Sunday at Rockbrook offers a change of pace. It is a much more relaxed schedule that allows both time to recuperate and to reflect. Everyone got to sleep in an extra hour this morning and come to the dinning hall in their pajamas where we were all treated to donuts at breakfast. After our leisurely breakfast, all the girls and staff had plenty of time to return to their cabins and change into the traditional Rockbrook Sunday uniform of white shorts, white collared shirt, and the red sash tied in a square “friendship knot.” When the bell rang, the whole camp lined up around the flag pole to watch the color guard raise the flag. The privileged honor to perform as the color guard is one of the many responsibilities reserved for the the oldest group of campers called the “Hi Ups.” After the flag raising, and the pledge of allegiance, the campers and staff walked in silence down the lower line to Rockbrook’s open air chapel in the woods where they sat on rustic log benches. This week’s chapel was led by the Middler and Junior lines on the theme of “friendship.” Campers and counselors from these lines prepared and presented readings, personal stories, and songs centered on the topic of friendship. Sarah Carter read a book, “Our Friendship Rules” and led a brief discussion about the story before opening the floor to any campers who wished to add their own thoughts or experiences about friendship. Chapel at Rockbrook is always a positive welcoming environment where campers are given the chance to observe, express, discuss, and reflect on some of the many experiences they are learning about here at camp.
Then this afternoon, they changed out of their uniforms to dress up and show off their talents at the much anticipated Miss RBC pageant. The campers were given a few days notice to prepare a performance of their own invention. Cabins worked together as groups to come up with dances, skits, and songs to perform for the rest of the camp with everyone from the cabin participating. Today we saw lots of impressive gymnastics, circus tricks, dancing, singing, and fun. Many of the silly costumes campers brought from home came out of their trunks today to make an appearance and add to the fun, colorful atmosphere of the pageant.
o you know how to build a fire? Well if your camper signed up for the activity we call “WHOA,” which stands for “Wilderness Hiking Outdoor Adventure,” there’s a good chance she’ll have learned to here at camp. The counselors talk about the importance of heat, fuel and oxygen. They demonstrate the importance of dry wood (having it pass the “snap test”), and they give plenty of examples of how to stack the wood to insure the smallest twigs light first and the heat generated will rise up and ignite the larger sticks. The girls pick up on it pretty quickly, and when there’s the prospect of roasting a marshmallow, they are surprisingly motivated. 🙂
It has been such amazing weather these past few days! Cool in the mornings with a little fog early, and then warm but not too hot in the afternoon. We had one of those welcome afternoon thunder showers today, making everything moist and cool. With the creeks up again, Jessi decided to take a group of girls on a hike to Rockbrook Falls before lunch. This is the largest waterfall on the Rockbrook property, and is formed as Dunn’s Creek cascades down below Dunn’s Rock. You can see it on the camp map. The girls first hike the trail to the creek, but then make their way upstream by hopping from rock to rock, back and forth across the falling water. The falls are a good ways up and really beautiful to see.
OK, if not fire building, what about stacking 4 apples in a column? Juggling feathers? Eating an oreo cookie without using your hands, and that happens to be placed on your forehead (!)? These are just some of the games we all played after lunch in our all-camp “Minute to Win It” game. Starting with each age group in their lodge, each cabin dressed as a team and competed in several different crazy relay races. Ordinary items like golf balls and boxes of tissues became props for physical challenges. It was wonderful to see how much fun we could have, how hard we could laugh, trying to do these tasks. Even those of us watching, get a kick, for example, out of seeing someone being wrapped up in toilet paper! It was good camp fun, being with friends and enjoying silly games you wouldn’t likely do at home.
After dinner was a highlight of the session for many of the girls, for the senior girls in particular— the dance with Camp Carolina. We held two simultaneous dances with our Seniors going to Camp Carolina and their Middler and Junior boys coming to Rockbrook. Splitting like this made the dances less crowded and allowed us to tailor the music for each age group. The showers at camp got a real workout before the dance, and all 200 hair brushes got used as well. It’s quite a phenomenon! Overall, the whole affair was lighthearted and fun. Tonight the counselors dressed up like traffic crossing guards, and we saw more camp tie dye t-shirts than anything else. Group dancing is mostly the name of the game so everyone can be included. As you might guess, the girls stick together— safety in numbers!
It was a little late for us, but what a night to wrap up another great day in the “heart of a wooded mountain.”
Let’s flashback to the 80s. That’s exactly what the whole camp did on Tuesday night this week! The word went out at dinner that everyone should bust out their best 80s attire, that they should go back in time and transform themselves into jazzercise junkies and big-haired beauties ready to bop to the top pop of our favorite retro decade. There were so many tie-dyed, oversized t-shirts torn and slung from one shoulder, lycra tights and sweat bands, jean jackets and Ray-Ban sunglasses, it would make your head spin. But is was also hilarious to see how well the girls could look the part and how many of the songs they could sing— 867-5309 Jenny, I Want Candy, Mickey, Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, and of course, Thriller. The counselors had just as much fun as the campers dancing, making a conga line, and leading different group dance moves. Just like working out in the 80s, we all were sweating and having loads of fun.
It’s been a couple of days of wildlife sightings here at Rockbrook. The coolest was a peregrine falcon spotted down near the Castle Rock Lodge. We’ve known that a falcon was nesting up on Dunn’s Rock, but this was the first time someone had seen it near camp. Up until 1999, the peregrine falcon was listed as an endangered species by the federal government, and even though it was de-listed then, the NC Wildlife Resources Commission has kept the bird on North Carolina’s list of endangered species because peregrine falcons have not recovered fully in North Carolina. Last night Sarah caught a glimpse of a gray fox cutting across the hill. We’ve seen these shy, bushy-tailed, nocturnal animals at camp before, but they are rare, so it’s a nice treat to be reminded that they are roaming around these hills. Rockbrook really is a wildlife sanctuary of sorts. With more than 200 acres of wooded land that remains undisturbed most of the year, it’s easy to see why.
For our Wednesday afternoon cabin day, the Juniors held a swim party down at the lake with Luau music and games. A perfect way to spend a hot afternoon, but also made complete by a quick trip over to Dolly’s for an ice cream cone. The Middlers’ cabin day was a trip to Sliding Rock up in the Pisgah National Forest. We carted the entire line, eighty something people, to the rock after dinner when we could have the place to ourselves. I think most of the girls were able to slide 6 or 7 times before it was too dark to continue. Naturally, we all had to stop at Dolly’s on the way home for a cone of “Rockbrook Chocolate Illusion,” or some other yummy flavor. Everyone was eager to pick their favorite flavor even after dunking ourselves in the cold Looking Glass Creek water of Sliding Rock.
Oh, I forgot to mention that Rick and his kitchen magicians amazed us all again with a dinner of homemade pork barbecue, beans, coleslaw, fresh cut fruit, and chips. It takes all day to prepare the barbecue, but it’s worth it. We’ve been hearing the “Cook’s” appreciation song sung a lot these days!
