Best camp in Maine sleepaway overnight girls camp Archives - Page 15 of 23

Making memories with traditions at home and camp

Posted on December 28, 2016 by Alex

Hopefully during this Holiday season you have found the time to be present in the moment and enjoy special family times and traditions with those that you love the most.

Whether you have favorite recipes that you cook together, a gingerbread project that everyone works on or a special place that you visit it is often the routine of tradition that is of most value to our kids. The fancy wrapped packages have been unwrapped and the anticipation of the moment has now passed but the activities that you do together will cement the great feeling of the season.

Hopefully you can take time to just hang out, play games, go for a walk and just relax together. We would love to see your photos of the family fun you have had over break.

At camp our girls love the times when they get to connect with each other, when they do something that they can only do at camp or that only happens once a session.

Maybe over the school break your daughter can take the time to write a real mail letter to a camp friend. Make a connection, start a tradition.

As the year ends the official countdown to summer 2017 is on. We still have spaces for our 2017 season sign up here!

The gift of Camp Runoia

Posted on December 8, 2016 by Alex

‘Tis the season for giving

When you gift your daughter a season at Camp Runoia she gets….

The legacy of Miss Weiser and Miss Pond

The beauty of Great Pond

Friends from all over the world

Summer in Maine

The chance to make independent decisions

Sisters for the summer

Free time to play

Caring adults

Choices

The chance to succeed

The smell of pine trees

Blues and whites

Sugar cereal Saturdays

A place to be creative

The sound of loons at night

Life skills

A lifetime of memories

A home away from home

Enroll now

Giving Thanks

Posted on November 22, 2016 by Alex

Gratitude – by Jeannie Fleming-Gifford

It is here. It is the time of year when we are expected to take a deep breath and stop and consider why we are thankful. Why are YOU thankful?

I, like many, will pause and reflect on my health, my family, the fact that I have a safe place to dwell, food on my table and my freedom to worship as I choose and to speak my mind freely.

As a mother, I easily turn my thoughts to my 9-year old daughter as well.

Raising a child is certainly an adventure that, most days, we are grateful for. The ability to see the world through new, energized, optimistic eyes…the ability to know that our child may further impact the good work in the world which each of us sets out to do. These things make parenting a wonderful, tiring, awesome, enthralling adventure.

As we delve into the holidays and the darkness of winter and cold that often accompanies these days, it is with fondness that I remember my gratitude for experiences like Runoia and its significance on my daughter and the other girls who find a second home in Belgrade Lakes, ME, each summer.

For 7 magical weeks of summer, there is a place where girls can go and be surrounded with the good of the world that will only make them grow stronger, supporting them in becoming the best people which they can be. Rich in the tradition and history of its camp founders, Miss Weiser and Miss Pond, Runoia provides the support, respect and confidence needed for girls to develop and grow strong.

There are abundant opportunities for girls to take risks – to take flight – from water skiing for the first time to archery to overnight excursions. There is independence within a safe, supportive setting. There are caring adults ensuring physical health. There are ample opportunities for physical explorations which promote health and wellness. And food? There are fresh vegetables and fruit, sprinkled with the sweetness of birthday cake which is delivered with song and smiles.

As the sun sets on each day of opportunity, there is time for reflection as girls connect about the day’s successes and those things which they will strive for again tomorrow. And as darkness falls, there is calm and quiet – except for the loons. As good nights are said and cabin lights dim, there is always a presence of gratitude.

Runoia is place which exudes gratitude for life.

Wishing you and yours a blessed day of thankfulness.

Life Long Skills – Winners and Losers Learn to Work Together at Camp Runoia

Posted on November 9, 2016November 9, 2016 by Pam Cobb

Camp Runoia has a tradition of the losing team cheering the team who wins. It’s almost a game to see who can cheer first. Who thinks of others before themselves? Who praises a job well done? And who accepts defeat with humble gratitude to all the players who helped the team get as far as they could? The value of children learning how to lose graciously or win with good sportsmanship builds life long skills.

Accepting the outcome of a swim race, an official’s call on the softball field or the fact that the wind wasn’t blowing enough to have a sailing race at all, is part of managing disappointment. Celebrating victory and a job well done is also part of daily life at camp. Placing in a horse show or not placing in the top six spots and learning how to ask your friend who is staring down defeat, “how did you ride today? Were you happy with your ride” rather than focus on “did you get a blue ribbon”. The examples go on and on… Cheering on someone else’s success for getting up on water skis when you are still struggling. Learning how to frame a win or a loss or a success or defeat is practiced at camp every day.

The ultimate learning experience may be admitting when the Gaga ball hits your foot and you’re out but no one saw it. Ethics is doing the right thing even when no one else is looking. Camp teaches this kind of self-governed morality. Without a doubt, the culture of camp affects who we become in so many ways.

At Runoia, this “win-win, you tried your best, go back out and try again” culture is pervasive beyond field sports. You learn how to humbly congratulate the actor for getting the lead role when you didn’t. You smile and congratulate the artist who gets tops votes for their art piece when yours didn’t get many at all. Perhaps you even study what they did and learn from their success. Your cabin group works together to get the best score in cabin clean up. If someone is not as good as sweeping as you, you help them out, teach them how to do a better job. Better for all.

Making do with what your have or changing and trying harder and doing better the next time is all part of camp outcomes. How fortunate are we to be in a position where this happens day after day for a session or a season and hopefully year after year? Very.

The way Runoia gals cheer the winning team with a “Bobo” or “Kemo” is tradition. We cherish the way Blues and Whites hug each other on our final Cotillion night when the summer scores are revealed and campers find out who won the competition. Again, tradition.

We could all learn a thing or two from the campers and staff who play together well. Building life long skills through the camp experience is more than just fun and games on a lake in Maine. _dsc3192

Camp Runoia’s Pioneering Women

Posted on November 2, 2016November 7, 2016 by Alex

How grateful we are that our Camp Runoia founders were brave women who dared to venture out of their comfort zones. Pioneers of their time they chose to take a path that not many women had walked and left us a great legacy of strength and fortitude.

Early residential summer camps were primarily established to provide an opportunity for children from urban areas to be away from the cities and have an experience in nature. Initially it was boys who were provided with this opportunity but it wasn’t long before girls’ camps opened alongside them. It was strongly believed that living away from the conveniences of home in the ‘wilderness’ would build character and strong moral values. Perhaps unique in Runoia’s case was that women were our primary founders.

The 1907 world that Miss Weiser and Miss Pond lived in seems a million lifetimes away from the lives that our campers lead today.

Can you imagine that in 1907…

Women’s life expectancy was around 50

English suffragettes stormed British Parliament and many were arrested

Julia Ward Howe was the first woman elected to National Institute of Arts & Letters

Theodore Roosevelt was president

The passenger liner RMS Lusitania made its maiden voyage from England to NYC

Katharine Hepburn and John Wayne were born

Rudyard Kipling received the Nobel prize for literature

Good Housekeeping magazine cost $1 for an annual subscription

Trade unions were established

Oklahoma become the 46^th state

It is amazing that the values promoted by residential summer camps in 1907 are the same as they are in 2017

Camp helps build self-confidence and self-esteem

Camp is a safe environment

Camp is a place to build social skills and make friends

We hope that Camp Runoia will continue to provide girls with the opportunity to bravely follow in the footsteps of the pioneering women who came before us. We hope that we may all have strong female role models and be them too.

Majors and Minors at Camp Runoia –what’s the rhyme and reason?

Posted on October 31, 2016November 2, 2016 by Pam Cobb

Camp is unplugged. Camp is spontaneous. Camp involves free play. Why is there a daily schedule?

Majors – picked weekly, allow campers to focus on one activity five times in a week. For long term projects (baskets, stained glass, the camp play) it allows time in the week to accomplish the project. More importantly, a major allows depth of knowledge in an activity (archery, riding, sailing, windsurfing), consistent training and a commitment to learn and develop. Campers attending for one session will have three majors in their camp summer. Swimming lessons are like a major in that they happen the same activity period every day. In a typical week, campers have 4-5 swimming lessons depending on trips and weather. The depth of both majors and swimming lessons build life long skills.

Tag up! Our minors are activities in the other-than-major activity periods that campers get the chance to pick and change every day. Campers are called to the tag board and get to choose from a number of activities every day. Since you can’t pick the same activity twice in a day, a camper gets to try a variety of different activities in any given day or week at camp. From art to the water sports to land sports to camp craft skills, climbing tower or an improv class – life is full and exciting during camp. So much to learn and try and do.

As a Runoia camper, you get to specialize in three majors plus do about 45-50 minors in a summer! So much choice – so much to do! You’d better come back at least a few summers so you can do it all. And with all the friends you’ll make and the beauty of the campus and the lake, you’ll absolutely want to return summer after summer.

Camps As Socializing Agents

Posted on October 5, 2016October 18, 2016 by Pam Cobb

The Camp Experience and Coming Together as a Team

What does camp as socializing agents mean and why does it matter? Coming together at camp, where everyone is treated equally levels the playing field no matter what neighborhood you live in or school you attend. When you spend a few weeks of your year with peers and older and younger children where you live together, play together and work things out together, try new things together or support someone else trying something new – you get to know people very well.

When you spend your days overcoming a challenge together – be it scaling a difficult mountain, crossing the “Peanut Butter Pit” or righting a capsized sailboat, the experience draws you closer. When you spend the summer living in a cabin group where everything from sharing the duties of “shack” clean up to planning for a competition for Evening Program and then having an evening dance party together afterwards makes you a team.

Sports and Team Building Build Lifelong Friends

Getting out of socialization cycles means walking in someone else’s shoes or at least glimpsing what that walk for someone else may be like in their world outside of camp. Creating allies at camp with thoughts and feelings like “I’ve got your back” or “I’m a stand-up girl helping another girl” lets children understand through experience that they can affect change and not create enemies because of differences. It teaches them they

can be part of the solution. Sure, our girls have conversations about prejudice; unequal pay for equal work for women, Black Lives Matter and other important social topics and just being at camp makes a difference; being with a group of different people in a culture where everyone is respected and everyone gets a turn makes a difference. Camp is a place where everyone eats the same food, sleeps in the same cabins, uses the same bathrooms. There is no social-economic advantage at camp. You do your morning job and look forward to the fun activities and learning you’ll experience with your friends on any given day.

We’ve talked a lot about camp being a place where people can be their true selves, where the value of camp has increased due to aspects like “unplugging” and building 21^st century skills. Now add to that as the United States experiences a new era of civil rights, campers are talking about what’s it like to grow up in a my neighborhood, why strong female characters are an important part of growing up and why role models make a difference in our lives – that’s value added that grows better citizens as well as profound experiences together.

If you’d like to explore ideas about teaching your children about social justice and why it matters, check out this article from Edutopia and American Camp Association’s idea of camps as social justice platforms or perhaps you are a teacher or youth educator? Check out 10 activities to work with youth on social justice:

Making the world a better place, one camper at a time!

Until next week,

Aionur

Fall in Maine

Posted on September 30, 2016October 18, 2016 by Alex

Season of bounty

I truly love living in Maine, mostly because of the distinct change in the seasons. Remember I grew up in England where 50 and drizzly is the most common year round weather! Each season in Maine has unique offerings and a diversity of outdoor activities that are specific to it. While the summer and overnight camp is obviously top of my list each other season has it’s own feel and events to look forward to.

Fall is truly a quick change, from long, warm summer days by the lake to days that become crisp, cool and seem suddenly so much shorter. Early Saturday soccer matches are often spent wrapped in a fleece blanket to ward off the chill and what would be E.P time at camp is already PJ’s and a book time.

There is certainly at this time of year more leisure time in my schedule. I love to be out in the crisp Maine air enjoying a hike or a drive through the foliage.

One of my favorite Fall rites of passage is to go apple picking. There are many local orchards and we often go a few times just to make sure that we hit all of our favorites spots. The bakery at a couple of places is an added incentive. The picking doesn’t take too long but sorting and figuring out what to make afterwards is often an enjoyable all-day event. Some apples are designated for eating, we always make plenty of cinnamon apple sauce, apple crisp is a big favorite and then we enjoy scouring Pinterest for random recipes to use up the rest.

I often wish that camp lasted into these late September days so we could share the bounty of Maine with our Runoia family. Wherever you are I hope that you Fall is fun and filled with quality family time and outdoor fun.

Stretching comfort zones

Posted on September 21, 2016October 18, 2016 by Alex

I spent this past weekend at the annual retreat for my women’s chorus. It was a beautiful Maine weekend and we stayed at a camp by the coast with the typical set up of bunks and group dining. I have been a member of this group for ten years and enjoy spending time with a diverse group of women whose only true commonality is their love of choral singing.

During the two day weekend we were challenged musically, engaged socially and built community together. For many of the women being away from the comforts of home with a group of people they don’t know all that well is quiet a step out of their comfort zone. Not unlike the first day of camp at Runoia we played name games, shared details about ourselves that others did not know and worked together in order to break through some of our nervous reservations.

I am always amazed by the outcomes that happen in such a short space of time. By the second night most of the group had the confidence to participate in the ‘talent’ show and had bonded in a unique way. It seems that when we can put aside the rigors and familiarities of our everyday lives then we are more able to open ourselves to stretching the boundaries of our comfort zones.

At Runoia we challenge our girls every day to step beyond the safety of their comfort zone. Even for the adults and regardless of how many summers they have spent on Great Pond they are also stretched and push the limits of their own comfort zone. A sleep away experience provides us all with an opportunity to grow both individual and as a great part of the whole group. Seeing what a group of sometimes reluctant to participate middle aged women got out of two days at ‘camp’ reinforced for me how life changing a session at Runoia can be for young girls.

While I am certainly already counting down the days to Runoia 2017 and seeing my summer family again I am glad to have had the opportunity to continue being challenged in a different group which is just as dear to my heart.

Routines and schedules

Posted on September 7, 2016October 18, 2016 by Alex

One of the greatest things I love about being at Camp Runoia all summer long is the routine and schedule! You never have to worry about when or what you are going to eat, laundry goes out and comes back right when you expect it to, you know when to get up and when to go to bed and the ringing of the bell dictates everything in between.

The other really awesome thing about camp when you are the family manager and chauffeur is that no one needs to go anywhere! Sleep away camp gets all of your needs met in one place. Everyone is quite happy and busy, there are no practices or play dates to squeeze in or Birthday parties at the same time in two different directions or grocery shopping to be done. It is a formal schedule but not a hectic one. Within the routine and structure at camp there is also plenty of time to take a minute to enjoy someone’s company or stop and pick some blueberries.

Don’t get me wrong I have enjoyed the last few weeks of summer, lazing around in PJ’s eating whatever, whenever and being on the relaxed plan for what to do when. I am now ready to embrace the Fall with the new sometimes hectic schedules, weekend adventures in the beautiful foliage and a routine all of its own. The days are getting shorter and the nights are definitely chillier but I’m sure before I know it we will be back on Runoia time again.