Lobster–A Maine Tradition!

This week’s guest blog comes from the Laurel camps and showcases something as synonymous with the state of Maine as summer camp–LOBSTER!

At the Laurel Camps, our mascots are moose.
But as everyone in Maine knows, lobsters are as much a part of the state experience as moose.

The first record of Maine lobsters dates to 1605. Back in the day, they were caught by hand. Four-foot lobsters were common. The record seems to be a 12-pounder. That’s a lot of meat.

But they were considered “paupers’ food” – unfit for most people to eat.

By the late 1700s, as tastes evolved, boats with open holding wells on deck allowed live lobsters to be shipped. The lobster market grew.
Maine’s industry got another boost in 1843, when the first cannery was built in Eastport. As demand grew, so did technology. Wooden pots and special boats helped lobstermen broaden their range. Soon, they were hauling catches in deep water, far from shore.

But demand outpaced lobsters’ ability to reproduce. Inevitably they became smaller, and more scarce. With 3,000 full-time lobstermen working Maine’s waters, worries about extinction increased.

Regulations helped. The number of traps a lobsterman could set was reduced from 1200 to 800. The number of licenses was strictly controlled. Small lobsters, and females with eggs, must be thrown back.

The effect has been dramatic. Lobsters are now plentiful. In fact, last summer prices plunged – to the detriment of hard-working, independent lobstermen.

While you will only find lobster at Camp Laurel and Laurel South at our annual, end-of-summer Steak and Lobster Banquet, it is plentiful throughout the “207” state at lobster pounds, supermarkets, restaurants – even gas stations – all year long.

Put on that bib, crack those shells, and enjoy!

The preceding blog was originally posted to the Camp Laurel blog on February 7, 2013

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Learning to Lose at Camp

Whether it’s a school spelling bee or a soccer game, as parents we want to see our children win not just to experience the joy of seeing them excel but because we know that they want to win.  Being raised in a competitive culture naturally makes us all want to be number one.  Children equate being number one with being the best.  However, as grownups we know that it’s impossible to win all of the time and that winning doesn’t necessarily mean being the best so much as being the best on that particular day.  The idea that losing, in reality, is closer to not winning in that it’s possible to “lose” yet gain something valuable from a contest or competition is one of the most difficult concepts for children to embrace.  Camp is a place where not only is this point driven home daily, but it’s a lesson learned at camp in a fun, constructive environment.

The pressure of anxious parents and coaches on the sidelines of sports competitions combined with the knowledge that school performance affects everything from what kind of classes they can take, extracurricular activities in which they can participate, and what colleges they will be  attend place a great deal of emphasis on children’s performance.  The ability for children to be able to process that good can come from not winning is clouded because the end goal is the emphasis.  The underlying message that children sometimes inadvertently receive as a result is that they will be valued or loved less if they lose.  Camp, on the other hand, emphasizes process and embraces novice.  One of the primary messages conveyed to campers is that winning is a great thing at camp, but it’s not everything.   Improving skills, finding activities one really loves, having fun and making friends are valuable attributes at camp.  In such an environment, winning
takes on less prominence.  Children are less likely to feel less valuable as campers for losing.

Camp leaders and staff work very hard throughout the summer to make sure this atmosphere is maintained. Children are encouraged for performance, accomplishment, and attitude regardless of being winners or losers in a contest.  Many special camp  games or competitions are also structured in a way that encourages children to work together in order to win and provide excellent opportunities for those children who may not be excellent athletes or extreme intellectuals to have their moments to shine.

Learning how to “not win” at camp makes it much easier for children to put “not winning” at home into proper perspective!

Camp Mom

Recently, we posted a blog how the staff who watch over children at summer camp.  To further expand on that point, our guest blog this week is from Lindsay at Camp Starlight regarding one of the essential members of not only Starlight’s staff but many other camps a well…The Camp Mom.

One of the most essential roles held in a summer at Camp Starlight is that of the Camp Mom. The Camp Mom is always alert and sensitive to the needs of Starlighters in their everyday routines. Her chief role is to pay that extra special bit of attention known as mother love to our junior campers, specifically our Junior Boys. She checks that the campers are clean and keeping up personal hygiene. She makes sure everyone is lathered up in their sunscreen before heading off to a day of fun in the sun, and she is always ready with her clippers to trim those fingernails when they need it!

Our staff at Camp Starlight is ever vigilant to the safety and well-being of campers, but as we all know, there are just some things that a mother does best. The Camp Mom has the freedom and flexibility to be where she is needed whenever that is. She drops into the bunks, stops by at activity periods, and of course does her daily rounds at meals to make sure everyone is having a proper meal. Counselors are aware and working to make sure the kids are happy and healthy, but only a mom can really go behind and make sure everything is just right. As important as these roles are, the position also steps outside of the everyday practical check-ups and really allows the Camp Mom and the campers to develop a caring relationship through the summer.

In addition to watching the physical welfare of the kids, a Camp Mom also takes on the role of a nurturing supporter. Campers realize she is there for them to talk to, to wish each of them sweet dreams at night, and to help encourage their independence and growth during their summer at camp. For all of these reasons, it is obvious why the Camp Mom is such an integral part of our youngest campers’ summers. All of our previous Camp Moms have shared their enjoyment of being mother to the many kids they met over the summer and being able to care for them during their time away from home. It is also a common feeling that a summer at Camp Starlight as the Camp Mom brought them a wonderfully warm experience personally because of becoming a part of the amazing people known as the Starlight Family!

Lindsay

*This blog was originally published to the www.campstarlight.com on February 1, 2013.

Building Courage at Camp

For many camps, it’s reunion time, that midway point between summers when campers and staff get together to reminisce and plan.  This week’s guest post comes from Camp Weequahic and highlights the reunion experience:

We were thrilled to recently host a Weequahic Northeast Reunion. Seeing our campers and their families during the year is certainly a treat for us. It was also a great reminder of Courage, one the Weequahic Core Values, we teach. Let me explain….

At camp, we define courage not as the absence of fear but rather as acting even though the fear is present. Our campers practice this often by climbing further up the rock wall than they thought they could, learning to waterski for the first time, getting up on stage in the play, or being on a team they’ve never tried before.

It’s not just on the fields of play where courage is developed but in the bunks as well. Most of our campers arrive without knowing anyone at camp. It takes guts to go into a bunk of all new campers and build friendships. Thankfully, by the end of three or six weeks, these friendships are not only built but cemented into place!

Back to the reunion… many of our campers return the reunion without having seen their camp friends for some time. “Will they remember me? Who will be there that I know? These are questions we all struggle with at times, especially when we are young.

Thankfully, with camp friends, this brief moment of anxiousness was overcome by an outpouring of courage and mirth – campers jumped and hugged and laughed there way around the bowling alley, even those who started nervous of how the day would go.

Weequahic campers hold the value of courage highly. They understand it is a muscle needed to be used and trained in order to be strong and available when truly needed. Thankfully, we have so many wonderful ways in which to practice at camp. Whether in the bunks, on the fields, in the lake, or Activity Center, Weequahic campers are courageous!

Making Decisions at Camp

If your child regularly spends a half hour in the cereal aisle of the supermarket choosing his breakfast cereal or takes the better part of a day debating whether he wants to go to the movies or have a play date with a friend, there is a somewhat underrated and under appreciated aspect of sending your child to summer camp that you may want to consider.  Camp helps children learn how to make decisions.

For many campers, sleepaway camp is their first real experience away from their parents. They find themselves faced with decisions every day, some of which are traditionally made by their parents.  Camps, for instance, often offer campers several different dining options each meals.  Without their parents there to tell them to eat salad because they don’t like tuna or pasta, children find themselves faced with the decision about what to eat.  This sounds like a small thing, and in the scheme of larger things, perhaps it is.  However, it’s not an exercise without long-term benefit.  Once children understand the decision is theirs, they tend to get adventurous.  As a result, many will try—and be surprised to realize they like—foods that they might not have tried at home if steered toward safer choices by us parents who, let’s face it, sometimes choose the path of least resistance if for no other reason than to maintain peace.  The sense of adventure gained also carries over into their daily activities.

Most camps programs are designed around camper choice.  While the level of choice varies from camp to camp with some giving campers exclusive control of their daily schedules while others plan part of the day and allow campers to choose a couple or a few activities, campers are still faced everyday with choosing at least some of their daily activities.  Making such decisions forces campers to consider whether it’s better to stick to a tried and true activity that they love or try something new.  While some campers are inevitably more adventurous than others, the ability to make decisions without the pressure of peers or parents and in the open, accepting environment of camp at which being adventurous is not only accepted but encouraged, children learn to choose what they want rather than what they feel that others want for them.  Again, this may seem like a relatively small accomplishment in the larger scheme of growing up, but many books about success emphasize that the children who grow up to become the most successful adults learned early to understand what they wanted and how to make the choices in life that would help them achieve their goals.  Additionally, when children know what they want, they’re able to be more assertive in pursuing goals and voicing when they’re unhappy.

So if you’re tired of perusing the aisles for the second, third, and fourth time while your child tries to decide between Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Cheerios or are frustrated about not being able to make evening plans because your child can’t decide what he wants to do, consider sending him to summer camp where he can get a crash course on learning to make decisions on a daily basis.

Camp Bucket List

The guest blog this week comes from Hayley at Camp Starlight.

Camp is a place filled with so many amazing and fun things to do. While most of the things you do at camp are structured, you still have so much you can do on your own to create memories that will last a lifetime. This Starlight Bucket List has been created so you get the most out of your experience at camp.

1.      Pass your Swim Test

2.      Dive to the bottom of the lake and touch the sand

3.      Go on the water trampoline

4.      Learn how to water ski

5.      Paddle Board

6.      Go down the Zip line

7.      Learn a new sport

8.      Get a bull’s-eye in archery

9.      Join a Wayne County Team

10.  Score in a Wayne County Game

11.  Sit in the toilet seat at Oz

12.  Ride all the roller coasters at Dorney

13.  Get up and shake your napkin

14.  Skip around the pole

15.  Raise the flag

16.  Make an announcement on the PA

17.  Lose your voice

18.  Wear a crazy outfit for no apparent reason

19.  Appear in the Week in Review

20.  Participate in a Conga line through the Dining Hall during a meal

21.  Wear a Fedora on Friday

22.  Participate in services

23.  Win Spirit of Starlight

24.  Land a spot in the finals of MTV Night

25.  Earn a Square Dancing Bracelet

26.  Run the Slope for Lope

27.  Wake up at reveille for Polar Bear Club

28.  Win Honor Bunk

29.  Become an Eagle/Mench

30.  Rush the Lake

31.  Find your favorite spot on camp

32.  Have a Slush Puppy with every flavor mixed in

33.  Eat a burger at cookout with everything on it (including watermelon)

34.  Start a new tradition

35.  Create a song or cheer about everyone in your bunk, and then sing it every year during Challenge Week

36.  Start a cheer

37. Win a Wayne County Championship

38.  Make friends with people outside of your bunk

39.  Make friends with people outside of your division

40.  Be an Olympic Captain

41.  Participate in Rope Burn

42.  Write an Alma Mater

43.  Find the hatchet

44.  Win Olympics

45.  Win Sing

46.  Be accused of something in Heavenly Court

47.  Make your camp siblings a gift in arts and crafts

48.  Watch the sunset over the lake

49.  See a shooting star

50.  Make friendships that will last a lifetime

What’s on your bucket list? Send us an email at [email protected] and let us know.  We may publish it in a future blog…Hey, you can even add that to the list… write a blog for Camp Starlight….

Hayley


Who is Watching Your Children? A Look at Camp Staff and Leadership

If you submit prospective babysitters through background and reference checks just for a date night with your spouse or significant other, then you probably have an extreme interest in just who will be taking care of your children at summer camp.  Thanks in part to movies and television, many parents have images of young, barely out of high school teenagers filling counselor roles.  However, the truth is that camps conduct searches for months to locate and fill leadership and key staff roles with mature, knowledgeable professionals, many of whom work with children in some capacity year round.

Even though camp is still six months away, chances are that your child’s summer camp (or prospective summer camp) has already kicked its recruiting season into high gear.  To find counselors, many camps traverse college campuses across the country searching for college students and recent grads who are pursuing careers in education, social work, youth athletics, or other fields related to working with children.  In order to avoid staff members that are too immature—or mature—the target demographic for counselors is typically between 20-25, although some camps will vary from this in certain scenarios or for special needs.  A successful camp counselor works 24/7 and must be mature enough to make split second decisions that concern the welfare and well -being of children.  Although counselor staffs tend to have relatively high turnover rates from year to year because college students complete college and move on to full time jobs that they cannot leave for an entire summer, leadership staff tends to return more regularly.

Camp leadership is often comprised of seasoned teachers and coaches who have been involved with summer camp in some capacity for several years or even decades.  Some of them grew up as campers and worked their way into leadership positions beginning as counselor assistants or counselors.  Others began as counselors and loved the experience so much that they have returned from year to year.  Still others are hired directly into their leadership roles after extensive searches by camps to find the best candidate for the role.  However their camp experience began, one thing that all camp leaders have in common is that they not only have extensive experience working with children, but thorough knowledge of the intricacies and behind the scenes goings on of summer camp.

Aside from leadership staff, other mature individuals are employed to staff health and dining facilities as well as offices.  In fact, parents are sometimes surprised to learn that so many mature, experienced professionals spend their summers at sleepaway camp.  But, for many, the experience, as it is for the children, is beyond compare.  Those who return each year will tell you that they wouldn’t consider spending their summers anyplace else.  They love what they do, they love their campers, and they love their camps!  How many traditional jobs can boast such high morale and collective years of experience?

Play

We recently listened to a man who has spent many, many years studying the effects of play on humans. While it sounds a lot like our job as camp directors, he’s got the Ph.D. so we thought to give him our attention. We are glad we did.

Dr. Stuart Brown said several fascinating things about Play:

  • It overrides what is sometimes fixed in our natures – it brings individuals together in ways which allow them to expand their knowledge of others and the world around them.
  • If the purpose is more important than the act of doing it, it’s probably not play.
  • People who have not played with their hands (fixing and building) do not solve problems as well.
  • The basis of human trust is established through play signals. We begin to lose those signals as we age.

When you look at camp through the prism of these statements on play, you encounter a big ‘duh!’ moment. Watching our campers play together shows you how the common act of laughing together, or playing gaga, or chase, or different table games allows the kids to spread their wings and learn.

While we have a good bit of unstructured play at camp but, there is also a great deal of play within teams such as soccer, basketball, baseball, dance teams, and more.  Campers build trust with their teammates, learn from mistakes, and are taught to keep a great attitude throughout their time at camp.

In woodshop, robotics, and ceramics, we give kids a great opportunity to explore with their hands and make, fix, and tear apart things they don’t normally at home. These experiences lead to wonderful outcomes both over the short and the long term.

Thankfully, Dr. Brown reminds us that we, as humans, are designed to play throughout our lifetimes. We couldn’t agree more. And, since play signals help build trust, we hire camp counselors who show the right mix of maturity and experience while keeping playfulness close to the surface.

We are excited to remain a place where play leads to several much needed outcomes: relationship formation, the development of confidence and independence, and a community in which campers know they are accepted. Whether through our traditions, choice based program, evening activities or during free time, our campers laugh and learn while playing!

A Former Camper and Counselor on the Value of Summer Camp

In our guest blog this week, former Camp Weequahic camper and counselor Steve S. reflects on how his camp experiences have added value to his life.

I have been a part of the Camp Weequahic family for 13 years, as a camper from 1995 until 2002, and as a counselor from 2003 until 2007.  These were the best summers of my life and I would give anything to simply be a kid and do it all again!

The memories that come back to me every June when I realize a whole new generation of campers get to experience the same things that shaped my life when I was a child and young adult.  These experiences that campers and counselors gain during their summers at Weequahic are priceless; whether it is teaching a camper how to do an activity, learning from counselors and staff that hail from all corners of the world, or just simply having fun with your best friends.

We all looked forward to the traditions that have shaped our summers, including Carnival, MTV Night, Miss Weequahic, Tribal War, Olympics, The Dance, and the hundreds of other activities that all enjoyed.  And the bunk trips were always a favorite, kayaking or canoeing on the Delaware River, camping out in tents and building a fire, going to a baseball game, or riding the coasters at Hershey Park; they all were great memories.

The last days of camp are always the hardest, when we remember all of the fun we had during the past weeks as we watch the candles float out onto Sly Lake or the giant “W” burning on main campus.  As the summer comes to an end, we know it is time to go “home”, but in our minds “home” is the few beautiful acres in Lakewood PA nestled in the Pocono Mountains.  And as the busses leave camp, driving down Woods Road and driving away from the place we call home, we knew it would only be ten short months until we returned.

-Steve S.

If you are interested in further exploring the value and rewards of spending a summer working at camp, visit any–or all–of the websites of America’s Finest Summer Camps: Camp Weequahic, Camp Starlight, Camp Laurel, Camp Laurel South.

And Now for a Holiday Olympic « Break »…

Happy 2013!  It’s a officially a new year and the summer of 2013 is creeping closer.  To get through a cold January, we’ve chosen a guest blog this week from Hayley at Camp Starlight about which she reflects on one of hottest events the Starlight summer: Olympics.

1, 3, 5, 6! WE WANT OLYMPICS!

It is the point of the summer when Olympics is the only thing that you can think about. Who do you think is going to be Captain? Who do you think is going to be General? Sing Leader? Lieutenant? Everyone is discussing their favorite breaks from the years in the past, and talking about how they would want Olympics to break this year. If you’re in upper camp you’ve probably told all the juniors and inters that you actually know the break because you “overheard” David and Allison talking. Then you will probably tell them about your ideal break, convincing them that it is going to happen this way.

1, 3, 5,6! WE WANT OLYMPICS!

You’ve now limited your list to the times and locations of when it could possibly break out. You now start to look around for any clues to what the break might be, (even though the “clues” you think you’ve noticed have been there forever). Any change you notice in camp must be a part of the break. Was that bench here two days ago? I don’t know… must be Olympics! David never stands over there…it has to be for Olympics!

1, 3, 5, 6! WE WANT OLYMPICS!

We can’t even take it anymore! Please just break Olympics! Everyone is already doing Olympic cheers; outfits are already picked out for the first day; people are wearing one blue and one white bracelet to immediately rip off the bracelet of their opposing team once they finally find out which team they are on. We’ve all narrowed down that tonight is the night (since it didn’t happen all the other times we predicted.) It has to be breaking tonight!

1! 3! 5! 6! WE WANT OLYMPICS! 1! 3! 5! 6! WE WANT OLYMPICS!

And finally the moment is here! It’s Olympics! The floor starts to shake. Everyone is jumping and screaming, some even crying! It’s the best break yet! You rush to find the paper to reveal the team you’re on and rip that other bracelet off! You run over to congratulate the captains! Generals are announced, and then sing leaders, and lieutenants! Finally, the best part of the summer is here!

Hayley M.

This blog was originally posted the Camp Starlight blog on December 11, 2012.