Author: Pam Cobb

Camp as an Oasis

Posted on by Pam Cobb

We look back on the 107th summer at Runoia with a new lens of camp as an oasis for youth. On children and “screen time”, the National Institutes of Health reports: Most children spend about 3 hours a day watching TV. When you add in other screen time activities, it is closer to 5 – 7 hours a day. Too much screen time can:

  • Increase your child’s risk of becoming obese
  • Make it harder to get your child to go to bed and fall asleep at night
  • Increase the chance that your child will develop attention problems, anxiety, and depression

At Runoia, our focus is on creating profound experiences for girls building lifelong skills. While Runoia has always been about community living (learning to get along with others), active lifestyles (life sports like canoeing, riding and tennis) and exploring the world around you (through adventure challenge, wilderness trips and art), today’s emphasis includes having an independent experience with sincere adults other than your parents, building self esteem through trying new things in a supportive environment, being the “stand up” girl and thinking of others – not only yourself – especially in the case of bullying or other exclusive behavior.

Moreover, the relevance of what we do every day with building life skills at camp is in partnership with 21st Century Learning and the concept of preparing campers to be team players, problem solvers, seek solutions and independently manage their lives at camp. Who knew camps would be on the cutting edge of education (P21), be referenced in the importance of “no child left inside” and in Michael Thompson PhD’s book “Homesick and Happy” How time away from parents can help a child grow? Unstructured play time is a buzz word in education and youth development and guess what camp offers throughout our daily schedule? Yep! Safe, unstructured play time. Although Lucy Weiser and Jessie Pond saw the importance of providing a summer experience for girls outside of the sweltering heat of New York City, is it possible they inherently knew how important summer camp really would be?

Today camp is an oasis for children to assuage their fears of being away from home, get time off from “screen time”, have fun times, reflective times, inspiring times, hear the sound of a loon across the lake, smell the fragrance of pine trees and sweet ferns, and meet a friend who may end up being a lifelong friend she’ll share these memories with forever.  Camp – more relevant than ever!

Thanks to all of you who support girls going to camp – as parents, grandparents, donors and believers!

Pay it Forward – Overused Phrase? I don’t think so!

Posted on by Pam Cobb

I love November and it is tied to Thanksgiving and being thankful, being around loved ones and feeling warm and fed. Thankful being the key word.

When I saw a note that said “if you left your brand new board here, we have it, call us”, it reminded me when we returned a woman’s purse and how good that made US feel (needless to say the woman!). The fascinating part of that story is that we found the purse on a hiking trail in Carrabassett Valley. When we found the ID in the wallet, it was for a student from the Bahamas. Seriously – what do we do with that? Well, when back at the condo, we searched Facebook for the purse’s owner and I shared one friend with that young woman. What are the chances?  I texted my friend and viola! Purse returned. And, I digress.

November is the ultimate month for paying it forward (now a verb – the entire action of doing something for someone else after someone does something good for you).

We use the phrase liberally – giving to someone else when you don’t expect anything in return or passing along a good deed or surprising someone else with a good deed. Perhaps it’s a stretch from Lily Hardy Hammond in her 1916 book In the Garden of Delight, nearly a century ago. It was brought to current day society through Helen Hunt, Kevin Spacy’s sweet film based on a novel by Catherine Ryan Hyde – written and directed by two women, btw. Haley Joel Osment who launches a good-will movement. I hear the phrase more frequently now that social consciousness is a school yard and coffee shop subject. Maybe the film helped provide momentum for the movement – good stuff!

Overall, we just want to do GOOD. When I think of the camp experience and all the focus we have on helping others, thinking of others, including others, working as a team, giving to others, I feel #camp is all about Pay it Forward. As a camp business, we want to create good feelings, provide great experiences and hope that all the people we connect with do the same for others. #MaineCamps are exponentially doing good with thousands of campers and staff every summer and those campers and adults are going into their home communities and doing GOOD there. 

So, greet November with a warm hug – go do something good for someone else with no expectation and see how great you feel. Pay it forward is easy and effective and far from overused.

Finding Great Resources

Posted on by Pam Cobb

As a camp in Maine, we feel the change of seasons pretty much on the date the season changes. The fall is upon us at camp and we are missing your children and our campers at sleepaway camp here at Runoia. We know you are busy, busy with school, homework, after school commitments, sports, travel teams, social events, fund raising events, school governance and, um, WORK!

Here are a couple of resources we found that might help you out:

Feeling like you want to inspire your daughter? Consider a call to action:

Hardy Girls Healthy Women have a bunch of links to awesome social action sites with ideas about perception of girls in the media and girls making their voices heard, how to be a stand up girl and help others and much, much more: www.hghw.org

Consider bringing Dunk Your Kicks – fighting pediatric cancer –  to your community. They came to summer camp at Runoia this summer (and we rocked it): http://maxcurefoundation.org/dunk.html

Is your daughter growing and wondering what’s going on? Cozy up on the couch, share this great site with her and let her know you want to help her understand her changing body: http://www.girlology.com/index.php

Is your daughter wondering (are you wondering) how she can be helpful? Set up a lunch station in your fridge or pantry – great ideas here: http://www.applegate.com/community/posts/10-tips-to-make-packing-lunch-a-breeze

Are you struggling with your daughter every day? Do you fight and come head when getting ready for school, carrying out tasks, making social commitments? Check out our friend and peer in education and camp, Ross Greene and his collaborative problem solving ideas: http://www.livesinthebalance.org/

Do you have suggestions for resources for other camp parents about simple struggles like: what she can wear, how much time online she can spend, her data usage bill? Let us know your thoughts through comments here or email us children@runoia.com – we’d love to hear your ideas.

Happy school days. It’s awful quiet at camp and we miss you.

We hope this helps you get connected and solves some problems. We miss you too much and can’t wait to see you in 2014! We’ll be posting every month now – so be on the look out for our blog!

The Runoia Team

The Camp Runoia Kickball Field in Maine

Posted on by Pam Cobb

It’s a sad sight seeing the empty “Kickball Field” at Camp Runoia, Belgrade Lakes, Maine. This grassy area outside the dining hall is the center of camp in many ways. Although desolate (but nice looking grass I might add) this time of year, it’s a bustling town center in the summer.

The Runoia Kickball Field is where Pet Shows, Name that Tune and Miss Tacky Runoia take place.

It’s where outdoor summer meals including lunch picnics and evening suppers and even Camp Runoia’s Sunday morning sleepy pajama breakfast are served.  Of course we can’t forget the infamous saying “dessert will not be served until the kickball field is clean!” which is shouted with glee by all at the end of a Maine camp supper.

On closing days it’s the central stop for parents, families and campers reunite. A place where on quiet nights a random porcupine might be spied.

And yes, we play kickball games on the Kickball Field! We can’t wait until the Kickball Field is full of faces and fun at camp in 2014!

Connections

Posted on by Pam Cobb

Camp Runoia, being a girls’ camp, is so much about connections. Girls from all over NE, the US and the world come together and find so many things in common!
Yesterday was our opening day of camp in 2013. Imagine our surprise when a dad of a new camper met another dad of a camper and recognized that one dad was the other dad’s camp counselor from his camper days at their camp!!!

The day before yesterday a dear childhood friend of mine emailed me a picture of her tour of Harlem she had just taken. In the picture, she was standing with a Runoia camper and the camper’s mom in front of the Apollo. In the process of taking the tour, they began chatting and made the Runoia Connection!

We joke about 6 degrees of separation from Camp Runoia. It seems no matter where we go, there is some Runoia connection!

Enjoy the start of summer, we are busy finding out what we have in common with each other here at camp on our second day of Runoia’s 107th camp summer!

Aionur

And Thus Ends National Poetry Month

Posted on by Pam Cobb

Celebrate all the poets in your life – young, old, published or those who write verse in there heads.  Poetry truly is a window to the soul.

ODE to the JMGs
Trees and first aid we know you will beat
Runoia cooking testers love to eat
Your essay will explain
You’ve got the map of Maine
Campfires with other campers is your treat
Off to testing camp you go
With the power of knowledge, your tests you’ll devour
Wet day fires will blaze
Your canoeing will,
Any tester, your skills over others will tower!

April
April showers bring May flowers
What does May bring???
Us one month closer to CAMP!!!!

Maine – The Way Life Shoudl Be –

Posted on by Pam Cobb

Runoia
Living the good-life
By Nature’s side on Great Pond
Will all of my friend
– Jane Tegeler, 2011

Maine
Maine is a wonderful place
I love living here
There are lots of wide open spaces
And plenty of animals at which to peer
In it is Camp Runoia
In the wonderful Great Pond
There are no boys to annoy ya’
Of Camp Runoia I am so fond
I want to stay all year here!
-Lily Waddell, 2011