The international camper perspective:

You may wonder what drives our international parents to send their girls thousands of miles from home; to a place they have often never been; to have an experience that is not only challenging in itself but must be conducted with English as a second language!

This Runoia parent sums it up beautifully:

“I have been wanting to get in touch with you since the girls came back from their camp experience to let you know what an amazing, rewarding and joyful experience it has been for them! Even V. who had a more difficult start, came back announcing she wanted to repeat next year! And the friends they have made: they are already in contact via mail with some of them, and plan on keeping it that way…

And from my side, I feel they have not only improved their English, but gained self-confidence about their capacities to go beyond their own initial limitations. So once more, thanks for all of that! And indeed I will enroll them for next summer.” (Camp Runoia Mom from Spain)

While improving English skills may be the initial drive it is apparent that the whole camp experience is what the girls take home.

10351077_10152530144254509_5548788663595687066_nInternational campers and staff add diversity to our Runoia population and provide opportunities to share cultural exchanges.

In 2014 we had campers and staff representing more than 10 different countries!

It is a win, win for everyone.

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Networking

Yesterday the Director  team was lucky enough to spend the afternoon networking at Migis Lodge on the shores of Sebago Lake in Raymond with a hundred or so other camp directors.  We embraced the late summer sunshine while enjoying our end of the season Maine Summer Camps organization meeting, lunch and fellowship.

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It is always great to hang out with other directors to hear about their summer adventures, trials and successes.  The conversation themes are often common ones: how awesome 4th of July was, homesick campers, how well new site or equipment worked and either reveling or bemoaning the weather!  Although the style and affiliations of our camps vary greatly we all share a true passion for engaging children and youth in the camp experience.

10540998_10204840069381858_6361567739214661736_oIt is empowering to spend time with like-minded camp professionals, to get validation for the work that we do and to share our challenges and successes amongst others who truly understand .  We learn from each other,  are always willing to share our knowledge and ideas and work for the common purpose of getting more children to have access to a summer camp experience.

1379585_10152711276289509_6205014475655900113_nWe hope that as you are networking on the soccer sidelines, at  PTO meetings, in the office, at the gym and everywhere else you travel in your daily lives that you will speak to others about the intrinsic value camp has had for your daughter.

As open enrollment begins October 1st a plug for Runoia is always appreciated too!

Fireworks on the Lakes – Seeking a Balance with Belgrade Select Board

Camp Runoia prides itself in being active in our local business community helping to bring people to the area, being involved in our local conservation groups, The Belgrade Lakes Association and the Belgrade Regional Conservation Alliance and believing in sustainable practices at camp and in our communities. All of our year round employees serve on boards, volunteer at events and/or coach sports or participate in races, fund raisers and friend-raisers around the state, in New England and beyond.

Peaceful Moment by Great Pond
Peaceful Moment by Great Pond

Here’s a recent letter to our Select Board representing the importance of balancing fun and life on the lakes:

Belgrade and the lakes in and around Belgrade is such a beautiful place to enjoy with your family and friends. I can see how everyone wants to show off the fun of fire works when they come up for the weekend or have friends or family visiting. With fireworks readily accessible, we are hearing fireworks nearly every night and certainly every weekend night of the summer on Great Pond.

Fireworks used on a continual basis are disruptive to people, animals and the environment.

Our Camp Runoia campers are frightened by the loud booming and cracks and whistles that carry on nightly. Their sleep is disrupted causing adults to have to console them and stay up with them until they can fall back asleep with hopes that another round across the lake doesn’t wake them again.

Our horses, a herd of over a dozen, who are stabled during the day for lessons and out in pasture at night, run in fear during the fireworks causing injury and overuse of adrenaline, wearing on them and making them not fit for work the next day. Often we have to get the horses from the pasture and bring them into the stables during fireworks that are close by.  Additionally, the loons, the wildlife around the lake and the lake itself are experiencing loud noise, chemical exposure and plastic and paper fragment waste on a regular basis.

Campers Enjoy The Lake Day and Night
Campers Enjoy The Lake Day and Night

We hope Belgrade will be smart about fireworks and restrict usage to a few key dates of the summer for people to enjoy them and for those of us with people and animals who are disrupted by them can be prepared and keep everyone safe while enjoying the beauty of the lakes in each and every way.

The Natural Beauty of the Night Sky Wows Us
The Natural Beauty of the Night Sky Wows Us

Bittersweet Endings at Camp Runoia

Bittersweet Endings

The end of camp is also a beginning.

The end of camp means saying “see you later”.

The end of camp feels like an amazing high quality chocolate bar that you never want to end and savor it to the last nibble. And ultimately, can’t wait until you allow yourself to taste it again!

Runoia Giggling
Runoia Giggling

The summer season in Maine ends with cool nights, bright days and feel of autumn high in the air. The bittersweet vine begins to form its bright berries that make us smile in the darkening days of fall. The golden rod flower stands erect and bright in the mellowing sun. Afternoons end all too quickly and dusk settles in as we yearn for the long summer days.

Ending anything great is hard to part with – like the end of a good novel or a challenging game or a zip on the Runoia Dragonfly.breakwater walk

The good news about the end of camp is you have your memories, your friendships, your totems of the summer experienced. Be they symbols as in an award for accomplishments, an emblem like your art projects, a feeling you hold near and dear, or the growth others notice in you, these parts of summer stay with you like the bittersweet vine continues to grow.  The good news about the end of camp is that Runoia will be there for you in 2015 and beyond.

Although camp ending is bittersweet, Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem In Memoriam:27, 1850 sums it up so well:

I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

And as we sing at Runoia “And when I get back home again, I’m gonna study hard and then, back to canoes and paddles”

Runoia paddlers
Runoia paddlers

Happy Back to School!

 

 

 

Spring is in the Air!

GH1Spring time is a happy time at Camp Runoia. It’s basically a celebration! We are excited about the summer season and everyone arriving and getting busy with camp fun. We are busy as bees buzzing around getting buildings spruced up, lawns and trails cleaned up and ordering equipment and supplies for the fun summer ahead.

 New in 2014? Lots of things. Among them honey bees! You may have heard a buzz at Runoia and it’s true. We have two bee colonies located in two hives. Both hives are healthy and producing honey and taking care of their queen and producing more honey bees.GH2

Our honey bees will be pollinators for local farmers (as well as our own farm and gardens) and hopefully they will produce honey we can all taste and share at camp!  We are learning as we go and with the help of other bee keepers in Maine, we hope to keep our hives alive and healthy!

Honey bees are hard workers and aren’t the type of bees that want to sting people or animals.  They are very busy doing their jobs which include guarding the hive, being field bees and pollinators, nursing the queen and other drone activities. If you are worried about a friend who is allergic, we will let you know where the bees are and how to avoid their area! Meanwhile, if you are a bee enthusiast, feel free to share anything with us at Camp Runoia about bees if you’d like to. We are all learning together!

This summer campers can don the bee costumes and learn more about bees. It will be a fun time on the Runoia farm!

Here’s a picture of us checking the bees today:

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Info for 2014 Parents

Hello Parents!

The daylight stretches into the evening hours now which means summer is just around the bend.  We are seeing a lot of parents working hard on their forms for camp. Thank you!three in a tent

Did you know on your Runoia Camp in Touch (CIT) dashboard you can find all your forms? In addition to the forms we need from you, your dashboard gives you some critical info for planning and packing for overnight sleepaway camp in Maine at Camp Runoia. Between the forms page on your dash board and the www.runoia.com page on FAMILIES, you will find:

There is an explanation of “What to expect on opening day” at Camp Runoia.

You’ll find the official Camp Runoia Packing List.

Check out the options for sending emails to your camper and where you can look at photos posted every 3-4 days during the camp season.

A link to the official outfitter of Camp Runoia – Lands’ End.

Looking for vintage Runoia gear? It’s classic and revered. Go to Amerasport.com and search for Runoia to order your throwback Runoia gear.

Abbie and swim class
The Parent/Family Handbook – this is a handy document to peruse and bookmark for future reference.

The Camp Runoia app is also available on our FAMILIES page.  The app allows you to keep in touch with picture posting in the summer, connect with your CIT dashboard and see scenes from around camp.you have jumped off the LOAF

There’s much much more on your dashboard so be sure to check it out. Just picture us in the Runoia office eagerly awaiting your forms!

The Runoia Team

The Gift of Camp Keeps on Giving

The Gift of Camp

A package arrived in the mail this week from a camper.  The box was addressed:

Camp Runoia – the most wonderful gift of all

Inside was a beautiful tree ornament of a glass kayak. The family wrote a note describing how every year they pick out an ornament that represents something important in their lives. This year, the kayak symbolized camp and how important camp was to their daughter. They thought it appropriate to mail one to camp to show their gratitude and appreciation.

At Runoia, we are thankful for the thoughtfulness of this family and also feel the gift of camp is an amazing, life changing, skill building, educational and fun experience you can provide for your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. To all our families and all who believe in camp – thank you!

Peace on earth and goodwill to all,

Camp Runoia

Kayak of Gratitude
Kayak of Gratitude

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

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.

The Camp Runoia Kickball Field in Maine

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!