Tag: Best camp in Maine sleepaway overnight girls camp

Self-Care: Integrating Time for You in the Hectic Schedule of Daily Life

Posted on by Pam Cobb

You are catapulting around, working from your hectic home circus, syncing schedules between

hybrid education for your children, after school engagement, managing zoom meetings, connecting with your partner and family, caring for your parents, and hey, by the way, what’s for dinner?

As a reminder to myself and all of us, taking time for self-care during the pandemic is critical. One easy way to ground yourself is through stretching, yoga, movement with meditation. It all starts by rolling out the mat. Can you get up 20 minutes earlier? Can you escape for a lunch time stretch? 20-30 minutes is all you need for restorative healing and self-care.

At camp we are so lucky to have alumna Kara Benken Garrod lead both adults and campers in yoga practice. She teaches yoga in Ohio in the off season and generously helps guide us at camp.  

When we are not at camp, we love at home yoga with Adrienne Mishler.  Her brilliant and accessible at home yoga practice and her annual gift to all of us – 30 days of yoga in January. It is available to you any time of the day for free. She is so generous and beautiful to share her vision about yoga as a lifestyle with millions of viewers.

There are plenty of ways to get your children involved too. Ideas about yoga with children include stories and play about yoga, to classes  Here’s a fun way to introduce yoga, either a deck of yoga cards with some ideas about connecting breath and meditation or a poster of yoga moves for children to do on their own. Just have them roll out their mat and enjoy the fun!

Meanwhile, you can take a deep breath (breath in love, breath out fear) and grab your afternoon cup of coffee to get ready for the next 8 hours of catapulting around!

Love, Aionur

 

 

 

 

 

Read About Runoia CRH 2020 – Featured by Camp Minder Blogger Sarah Braker

Posted on by Pam Cobb

By: Sarah Braker

Pam Cobb has been the director and owner of Camp Runoia for 34 summers. Situated on a sandy-bottomed lake in Maine, Runoia is an all-girls camp that teaches girls resilience and independence. Cobb and her team have always modeled these traits, but in 2020 they showed the Runoia spirit of determination and grit in ways they never imagined. They plan to do the same for summer camp in 2021 with COVID-19 precautions.

While many camps made the heartbreaking and difficult decision to suspend camp in 2020, Cobb and her team successfully ran camp for 80 girls. Like other camp directors who did the same, Cobb leaned heavily on her leadership team, doctors and other experts, and followed state mandates. She was also part of a group of 16 other Maine camps that were able to solicit advice and best practices from each other.

Cobb and her team faced innumerable and often overwhelming challenges, and she acknowledges that there is still so much uncertainty leading into the summer of 2021. As she herself plans for any number of scenarios for summer camp in 2021 with COVID-19 precautions, she hopes that her peers can learn from what worked for her at Camp Runoia in 2020.

For Cobb and her team, there was no question that camp was going to be very different in 2020. Instead of approaching summer with the goal of keeping as many things the same as possible, they leaned into these differences. They made some difficult decisions, but they ultimately helped her succeed. Specifically, they:

  • Adjusted the typical way that campers were organized 
  • Changed how activities were run
  • Limited off-campus activities and on-site visitors, and
  • Created plans for various levels of Coronavirus outbreaks among staff and campers

A New Name

One of the more innovative decisions suggested by Cobb’s co-director, Alex Jackson, was to give camp a different name in 2020. Jackson recognized that Runoia was going to be completely unique, and wanted to differentiate and acknowledge the forthcoming experiences of campers. Jackson chose the name ‘Camp Runoia Harmonyville.’

Read more of this blog by Sarah Braker at Camp Minder here and find out about Runoia’s protocols here

Find additional information about some of our Maine camp group in today’s WSJ article.

Love, Aionur

Teaching Children – Earning Your Own Dollar

Posted on by Pam Cobb

Earning your own dollar makes spending or saving it that much sweeter.

Whether you’ve had your own lemonade stand, done chores in your own home, helped mow a neighbor’s lawn, or shown up with a snow shovel after a storm to offer to remove snow for compensation, you know you learned about the value of money through the experience. For a child, you start to think “I am an entrepreneur!” Some children are naturally inclined to pursue how they can earn money and others may need a little nudge.

A classic read about developing a business thinking mind is Daryl Bernstein Better Than a Lemonade Stand or start young with the Bernstein Bears Trouble with Money

Talking about money is a great way to get started. The strategy of earning three dollars a week and putting one dollar in each jar, Save, Share, Spend develops empathy, the concept of saving for something special and the excitement of having some money to spend along the way.  The share jar is a project unto itself providing the opportunity for children to figure out where to share their money. Perhaps it’s your local church or synagogue or a family shelter or meals for seniors, or one of our favorites: World of Change, Maine Needs, Good Shepard Food Bank.

Opening a bank account, buying stocks, recording and balancing a check book bring up a lot of opportunities for learning and discovery. Forbes writes about five strategies for teaching children about money including talking about why you buy a generic food, or giving them 5 dollars to pick out the fruit at the grocery store:

Children as young as three can learn about money. Having a play store with a cash register at home is a great start.

As we all reel from the economic reprecussions of the pandemic, this topic may be harder to broach than others but starting simple and using the good intent of teachable moments will scare away the financial monsters we are all battling at this time.

Here’s to 2021 to good health and better lives for all.

Love, Aionur

Building life skills through adversity

Posted on by Alex

Building life skills is what we do at Camp Runoia. Little did we know that 2020 would test the skills that we had and encourage us to go far out of our comfort zone to develop new ones. We learned so much about ourselves, our campers and about the meaning and power of camp through being resilient  and adapting.

Looking back now we are grateful for the opportunity that a covid summer presented us to. We had to be flexible, grow, reconsider how we have always done things and be willing to modify, change and adapt in an instant. It turned out to be an amazing all be it exhausting summer and one that will certainly go down in the history books of Runoia.

     Takeaways from summer 2020:

  • We practiced doing hard things and did them well
  • We stopped sweating the small stuff
  • We learned new skills and revisited old ones that we hadn’t had time for
  • We reassessed what had value to us
  • We were more appreciative of the people and activities that we missed
  • It’s was OK to let some traditions go and know you can come back to them
  • We adapted and were flexible under ever changing circumstances
  • We used a growth mindset to challenge what we had done in the past and make it viable for the current situation
  • If you ask people will show up to help in ways you may not have thought of
  • You have to make the most of the moment in time that you have
  • Time with family is valuable but you need your friends too!
  • It may not be what you imagined but it can still be spectacular
  • Nature just keeps doing it’s thing. Sunset on the lake is beautiful.
  • Community comes in many forms, when we support each other we are all stronger
  • We maximized the opportunities that we did have rather than lamenting the ones that we didn’t
  • We had an amazing  summer on Great Pond that we never could have imagined   

As the year comes to a close we have deep gratitude for all that we have and look forward to 2021 with joy and eager anticipation. Happy New Year to our Runoia family, see you on Great Pond.

5 year Camp Runoia blankets

Posted on by Alex

 

Nights in Maine are very chilly, already there is a decent amount of snow on the ground and the dark settles in early. Evenings are perfect for a board game or cuddling up on the couch with a good book. Having the right blanket to snuggle up with is a crucial accessory. There are so many around to choose from,  a multitude of soft and fluffy ones, the scratchy woolen one to be avoided and the most popular recent addition a cozy sherpa fleece.

My favorite is my Runoia 5 year blanket, it’s a decent fleece, medium weight and a little old these days but it carries with it the warmth of summer. Amazing that a blanket can hold the memories of years on Great Pond.  The lifetime friendships, the hundreds of girls,  the joys and laughter all wrapped up in Runoia blue. 

Getting your 5 year blanket is a big deal for campers and staff, it represents your commitment to the place you have called your summer home, it’s an achievement, a milestone and a celebration. They are much anticipated and presented at cotillion on the last night of the season. You also get to be in the log photos for 5 years or more. You can’t purchase them and you only get one so need to take care of it reverently.

New 5 years in 2020
5 years or more in 2020

More than that achievement though it is the reminder of your summers you when you are not at camp. The blanket stays with you when you are at home in the winter or have long moved on from the shores of Great Pond. It elicits your Runoia a fond reminder of those long summer days. Maybe it gets pushed to the back of a closet for a while, or ends up in your dorm room at college. Perhaps it’s turns up in a carefully shipped package from your childhood home to you when you start your own life in a new place. Could be the dog steals it to curl up on or a younger sibling uses it for fort building. As time goes on it may get a little wash worn or frayed around the edges but it still has a warmth that only Runoia can provide. Alumnae still talk about their blankets and bring them back when they return as staff or attend a reunion.

We hope that there will be many more Runoia blankets to hand out. Celebrating 5 years at Runoia is so much more than receiving your camp blanket. We want all of our summer family to feel the warmth and love of camp the whole year through.

Light in the darkness

Posted on by Alex

What a year! One that none of us could have imagined this time last year as we were planning for the summer of 2020.  What we assumed would be a typical camp summer season turned into anything but and taught us lessons that will guide us as we prepare for 2021. We have so much gratitude for those that were with us along the way, there was so much team effort at all levels. What initially appeared to be a pervading darkness evolved with lots of hard work into joy and light.

The Maine summer camp community pulled together in ways never seen before. For the good of all Maine camps there was advocating at the legislative level and support for all regardless of the decision to operate camp for the season or not. Camps were offering resources and practical help to each other wherever they could. Calling and cheering on those that opened camp, celebrating the wins together and also mourning the losses.  Maine summer camps were definitely stronger together working to support each other in a time that created great hardship and an unprecedented struggle for many small family businesses. The resource sharing continues as we plan for the next season, those of us that opened sharing our journey and all forging ahead to ensure that as many children as possible get to have their summer camp experience.

Our Runoia camp community grew stronger too. Even though we were missing so many of our summer family, the support was incredible. The families that trusted us to take care of their girls and literally dropped them at the gate showed a commitment and bravery to the camp experience that we couldn’t have imagined. Our girls were brave and bold, flexible and willing to adapt to all of the protocols and changes. They showed up ready to have a blast at camp and did just that. 

The staff group that literally came together in May as we decided that yes we would open was such a dedicated and resilient group. We definitely couldn’t have opened without their commitment and flexibility. Our senior staff who after a zoom call about protocols and what camp would look like said ‘let’s do it!’ and dived in with gusto to create a fabulous and safe camp experience. The health team who planned and prepped and took all the protocols seriously and kept everyone healthy. Our amazing kitchen crew who masked up in the incredibly hot kitchen and kept us well fed. Everyone who pitched in, sanitized, cleaned up trash, kept kids entertained, figured out how to operate their program safely and stayed on site for 5 !/2 weeks without complaining! How lucky we were to spend the summer with this group of folk, many whom were feeling the sadness of their own camps being closed yet showed up for us.

 

In this season of lights and bringing in brightness to our homes on the shortest days we are grateful for the joy that camp brings to us. Although the year has been challenging in so many ways there is so much to be thankful for and so much light in our lives.

We are so grateful for the smiles and laughter of a summer on Great Pond, the  relationships that endure over the years and the promise that Runoia will be there no matter what.

However you are celebrating the holidays may you have light and love around you.

JMG – A college application essay topic

Posted on by Alex

The Junior Maine Guide (JMG) program has been a mainstay at Camp Runoia for decades. It provides older campers with the opportunity to participate in a Maine State, organized youth program that develops and tests their wilderness skills. It is a rigorous program that can take a couple of years to accomplish. Camp develops all kinds of life skills and becoming a  JMG is a huge achievement but the process also has great value.

This weeks guest blog is Lilly Grace’s college application essay that focused on her time working towards becoming a JMG.

Common App Main Essay by Lilly Grace
To the average person, building a roaring fire with a soaking wet billet of wood, an axe and just a few matches may seem like a nearly impossible task. After all, that’s what I thought as I was first learning how to make a “wet day fire.” However, what most people don’t realize is that the dryness of a billet is irrelevant to one’s ability to build a “wet day fire.” Rather, what is most critical to their success is practice, preparation, and an ability to persevere through
setbacks until ultimately satisfied. Building a wet day fire is a mentally and physically challenging skill that is just one of twenty-one tests to become a Junior Maine Guide. Although the process of becoming a Junior Maine Guide was only intended to teach me wilderness skills, I believe it was the most rewarding experience of my life thus far because I gained more than just a vast amount of knowledge about the wilderness. I also took this unique opportunity to
learn and develop critical life skills.

The wet day fire test
One thing that I learned quickly upon arrival at the five day testing encampment is that candidates must be organized, disciplined, and confident in order to succeed in this environment where there is little structure. I had three full days to complete twenty-one tests at any time and in no specific order. I lacked those three essential qualities that I needed, and JMG presented additional challenges that I had never had to tackle before in school. However, as I had learned from my past experiences, success is something that does not come easily to me and has always required more time, effort and motivation on my part. Therefore, these challenges that I was presented with were simply just a few hurdles in reaching my goal.Throughout the three summers, I was committed to gaining the skills needed to succeed.
I overcame my organizational challenges by making study and testing schedules that were essential to keeping myself motivated and on track throughout the summer, and I made sure to stick to them. I learned how to study in more exciting and efficient ways that developed my self-discipline. For example, when learning locations on the map of Maine, my friends and I would place M&Ms on the different locations and if we guessed the location correct, we were
rewarded with the candy. As for my time-management, I learned that using a watch was extremely beneficial to budgeting my time and ensuring that I was able to complete every test in the short time frame. And once I learned that I could build a Wet Day Fire and solo a canoe with ease, I knew I had the confidence to take on anything.

Becoming a Junior Maine Guide has been, by far, the proudest moment of my life, as I knew it was something that I worked so hard to accomplish on my own. This rigorous program typically takes two years to complete, however it took me three. While some people may perceive my additional year in the program as a failure, I choose to see it as a blessing in disguise. I struggle with ADHD and weak executive functioning skills, which is something that affects my everyday life, but I clearly have never let it stop me. In fact, I believe that I have made more improvement with my executive functioning skills through trial and error in the JMG program than I ever have in a school classroom. In the end, I proved to myself and others that I am exceedingly capable of persevering through my learning challenges to accomplish anything that is important to me. It just might take some additional time and effort.

The Work

Posted on by Pam Cobb

We started our work this summer with the pressure of COVID and a full-on effort to provide camp with physical and emotional safety for campers and staff being paramount.  The rest of the world was going on outside our bubble including the tragic killings of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Ahmaud Aubery, Dion Johnson, Travon Martin, and too many others. We were all consumed in our mission about Camp Runoia Harmonyville 2020 and not thinking about the message silence was creating for our organization.

On June 2, I received a wake up email from three of our 15 year old campers. “We are disappointed you have not made a stance on Black Lives Matter. What is your stance?” We were so focused on how we could operate camp during a global pandemic that we had overlooked the importance of sharing our belief that Black Lives Matter and moreover, being a strong female organization where girls specifically need to be lifted up, that Black Women Matter. Thanks to Emily, Keira and Margo for helping us to get to work.

And we went to work. I didn’t even know the expression, The Work, I’d known Diversity, Equity and Inclusion work but not The Work. Hello! I like it. For 30 years we felt we started the work. We had reached families of color to include them to attend camp, we reviewed our hiring practices to try to find more people of color for summer camp jobs in with college students majoring in education, health care and social work. We provided staff training about celebrating differences and inclusivity. I’d been on conference panels about diversity in camp in our very white northeastern privileged resident camps. We were doing work other camps hadn’t even considered. In the late 1990s we added our Community Statement in our Staff Manual – a statement that needs revising and updating:

Camp Runoia has fostered a culture of celebrating diversity and encouraging campers and staff from around the world with a spectrum of socio-economic backgrounds as well as different religious backgrounds.  Each person in the community is treated with respect and acceptance regarding their race, religion, country of origin, sexual orientation, creed, socio-economic standing, gender, disability, and culture.

Our work so far is just the tip of the iceberg. We need to do more. This summer we did a few things immediately to support Black Lives Matter thanks to the prompts of our 15 year old campers. We researched and made a plan. We celebrated Juneteenth with staff (camp was not yet open on June 19), we implemented a three part anti-racism training for staff during our upcoming staff training with anti-racism trainer, Love Foy.  We added books to our library on diversity and inclusion as well as novels with black protagonists. We created a Black Women Matter advisory board to the Runoia administrators with four alumnae who are people of color, plus a representative from the 15 year old group and one Runoia administrator. We removed the old bell post at camp that clearly screamed cultural appropriation that we had never seen before. It had just always been there and was carved by two women back in the 1930s. It seemed innocent although I never liked that there was a man at the top of the bell post at our girls camp. Blinders are hazardous. We took it down to go in our future museum and our 16 year old CITs with no prompting proposed they make a new bell post. they did it! Incredible!

When I read the newsletter, Ideas in Progress, by Crystal Williams, Vice President and Associate Provost for Community and Inclusion at Boston University, I realize we have so much more work to do. Our book club just met to discuss How to be An Antiracist. I purchased it from a black owned bookstore. If you’ve not read the book and want to visit with Brene Brown and Ibram X Kendi, here’s the podcast. Supporting black owned businesses is another way we are doing the work. I need to pace myself because I feel we are so far behind it is overwhelming. After just attending a conference on DEI, in virtual breakout rooms I heard from others that they feel overwhelmed. We can take small steps toward affecting change and success. Here’s one way we can start. Share with your family about 10 phrases that are racists that you may be surprised to learn and practice removing them from your vocabulary. Be kind. Be patient. It takes time to unlearn.

In summary we have a lot to do. Alex and I have been connecting about how to honor the people who lived and walked on the land our camp is on before we arrived. Stay in touch and we’ll have more to share!

Love, Aionur

Our Alumnae Organization Has Been Busy!

Posted on by Pam Cobb

We are excited to share the Camp Runoia Alumnae Organization’s new website. Here they share about their mission and action plan which provides campers with financial assistance to attend camp, the upcoming 115th reunion for alumnae, the most current alumnae news, featuring the president’s letter, operating camp in times of Covid in 2020, our work with Black Women Matter and the replacement of the Bell Post – the CIT project of 2020, wedding and birth announcements and more!

A big congratulations and thanks goes out to Roberta “Boop” Tabell Jordan, the CRAO president, who organized and inspired the help of Marie-Claude Francoeur, Betsy Nicholson (both serving as co-chairs to the 115th reunion), Jenny Sachs Dahnert, Chad Diamond. We give a special shout out to Sofia and Zipporah for sharing why camp matters to them.

The goal of the CRAO board in our 115th year is to inspire 115 NEW donors to donate to Runoia. Might you be able to join in and be a new donor? One of the most exciting bits of news is a few generous alumnae donors have agreed to pool together and match every dollar donated with three dollars! So, if you donate an amount like $25, it will actually turn into $100!! $50 becomes $200, etc. It’s very exciting to have people believe in the experience of camp and broaden the Runoia experience to girls who may not be able to afford camp on their own. No gift is too small! Do you need inspiration to give? Listen to Jen Dahnert’s compelling video message. Roberta has also done tremendous work on camp genealogy. Check out some of the Runoia Family Trees Boop has created – they are so cool!

You can also explore the camp logs  and learn or sing-a-long with some of the camp songs. As Jen says, click around and see what we’re all about! There is also information about the 115th reunion. For alumnae over the age of 18, you may sign up for the reunion. Gather your camp friends and come together! Alumnae under the age of 18 need to have an adult staying at camp with them during the reunion.

More information on Maine history and Maine camps is on the Maine Memory Network!

That’s the news for this week!

Love, Aionur

 

 

Living Leadership – a unique CIT summer

Posted on by Alex

Providing opportunity for leadership and growth in personal development is a key component of all of Camp Runoia’s programming. Multi age classes and self directed goals allow campers to navigate their own skill development and girls of all ages are given a chance to have their voices heard. Older campers often take on the role of friend and mentor to younger girls and share their skills and love of camp activities with those that are in need of help. Skippers in sailboats, captains of teams, helpers at the barn and other opportunities to be up front all allow campers to gain leadership skills while working on their own goals.

The Counselor in Training program (CIT) is often the capstone of camper years and allows for a very intentional, full summer experience with a leadership focus. In typical summers CIT’s live as a group with their CIT Director and work together in and around camp to build skills. 2020 proved to be a whole lot different. Four amazing young women who were up for a new and evolving challenge joined Harmonyville for a different kind of CIT program. 

 

With the creation of ‘households’ and restricted interactions of groups it meant that in order for the CIT’s to get the best experience of actually working with campers they spent much of their summer living in cabins.  The CIT’s also joined us for staff training and were able to live together during that time and get some very intensive skill coaching before their move to live with campers. It was a very different approach yet worked incredibly well under the unusual circumstances. This group of young women were able to navigate not only the transition from being campers to taking on a more comprehensive leadership role but also having to be separated from their peers and fellow CIT’s. They truly were living their leadership development as they actively engaged with all aspects of daily life in camp.

This fabulous four accomplished so much over their unique CIT summer. Even with a reduced amount of time at camp and additional responsibilities they passed archery instructor training, managed to navigate a socially distanced lifeguard class, made connections with their campers, took classes in child development, homesickness and a multitude of other camp related situations and did it all while maintaining and building their personal friendships. Their growth was amazing and they worked through the hard parts and saw the benefits of being at camp even when it wasn’t what they had originally imagined. They built life skills that will serve them well as they head out into their junior years and begin to navigate what life after high school may look like.

 

We hope that this tenacious group will be back for more Runoia summers. Our counselor staff group will benefit from their skills, capable competence and true Runoia spirit.