Tag: community

Diversifying our Camp Library

Posted on by Pam Cobb

Thanks to the Runoia Diversity Advisory Committee we are adding more books to our camp free-library that diversify our library by adding different authors and protagonist and subject matter.  Thandie Scott, Runoia alum from New York/Columbia University came up with a great list of books.

And Erin Lasher choose a selection of about 24 books we bought this year.

Books are coming into the office! and we are marking them and adding them to our lending library in the camp lodge.

All are Welcome is a favorite for Harmony Land Camp. The Watson’s go to Birmingham is great for our rising 5th grade group and Little Leaders, Bold Women in Black History is a great way to introduce amazing women to any age in a concise one-page presentation.

Campers and staff can borrow books from the library and leave them in the reshelving basket when done.

So, bring your favorite books (paper backs and hard backs as no e-readers at camp) and share what you’re reading with others. We read aloud every night in every cabin which is part of a wonderful Runoia tradition.

Do you have a favorite children’s series or book? Please post your ideas on our Facebook page and we might find them and read them this summer. Perhaps you have ideas for children’s books for certain age groups – please share your expertise! Are you interested in donating new books? Peruse our wish list of books and find one that is not highlighted and send our way – we would love that!

Ten for Two by Nina Budeiri

Posted on by Pam Cobb

Mid-August through Mid-June are a fine ten months of the year; filled with family and vacation and school and re-releases of our favorite Taylor Swift songs.

We get up each day and do what life expects of us- finish that report or group project, sit through that meeting or class, brush the snow off the car.

We enjoy holidays and concerts and road trips and time with loved ones. We grow and change and pursue our life goals.

And while these ten months are just fine, there are two months of the year that go so far beyond “fine”, that sometimes they are all we can talk about for the other ten.

At least once a day, something happens in “regular life” that reminds me of Camp

I’m positive that this experience is not exclusive to myself- How could it be when the summer months are filled with so many memories and unique experiences to share?

From hiking to pottery to nearly every water sport imaginable, to having so many sing alongs, laughs, and stories with our siblings for the summer. We celebrate achievements with excited screams and hugs. We sing silly songs loudly, every day. We gather by the fire and remember how lucky we all are to be together.

Campers and staff alike are currently counting the days to when we can all return to Runoia. Diligently performing our worldly duties for ten months until we can return to the place we all love most.

I look forward to the day when morning assemblies will again consist of weather reports, camper birthdays, laundry schedules, and Evening Programs. I can’t wait to see how much everyone has grown and changed, to hear about school and sports achievements, and their goals this summer at Runoia.

The countdown clock keeps ticking. We’ll be waiting for you all on Great Pond.

Nina Budeiri – Camp Runoia’s Director of Resident Life

Camp Runoia life skills go to college

Posted on by Alex

At camp we often talk with our campers about how you can learn things at 8 and still be doing them at 80! Imagine still paddling a canoe in your older years after first dipping a paddle as a young camper on Great Pond. Some life skills are technical or ‘hard’ skills  like learning a ‘J’ stroke while others are more subtle and referred to as ‘soft’ skills such as navigating relationships.

Camp provides campers of all ages the chance to learn, progress and master many skills that last with them long after their camp days are over.

In this week’s guest blog, Jen Dresdow talks about how years at camp prepared her daughter for a smooth transition into college.

In August, my husband and I became empty nesters as we sent our only child, Natalie, off to college. After many college visits her junior and senior year, Natalie chose Hollins University, a small private women’s school in Roanoke, VA, about 4 hours from our home in Alexandria.

As Natalie and I both worked at camp during the summer, we had about 10 days between arriving home from camp and her move-in date for pre-season riding. Natalie quickly organized herself for dorm life with the efficiency of a seasoned camp parent.

The transition into college life proved to be an easy one. After 12 summers at Runoia, Natalie found navigating the small campus and being where she needs to be on time an easy task. Similar to navigating her camp schedule as both a camper and a counselor, she quickly fell into the routine. From 7:30am riding lessons to evening French conversation groups to her work study in the gym, she is where she needs to be when she needs to be there. Camp taught her the skills needed for community living and navigating dining hall choices.

Natalie rides on the Varsity Equestrian Team, and just like camp, the barn bubble is her happy place. However, having a roommate who is not a rider, has been a great fit. Natalie used the school’s roommate match program to place with a roommate.  Years of sharing a cabin with others, learning to share, keep spaces tidy, and communicating effectively, have helped her to settle into dorm life.

We are grateful for all the lifelong skills built at Runoia over the years that allowed Natalie to take a well stocked “toolbox” to college.

First week of fun – Great Pond camp life

Posted on by Alex

Our first session girls arrived last Sunday on a hot and sunny Fine Maine Day! After unpacking and meeting/getting reacquainted with their cabin mates, everyone got a chance to take their swim tests and enjoy a quick dip in the lake – our fabulous 8,000 acre Great Pond. Supper was a delicious combo of spaghetti and meatballs, salad and vegetables, garlic bread, and brownies, and it was wonderful to hear the laughter of new and old campers alike ringing through the dining hall and outdoor tents. Evening program for our junior end campers included a game called “Mostest” in which each cabin worked together to create cheers and songs and even wrote and performed a commercial for Runoia! Senior end played Family Feud, while our oldest girls in senior village had their own special campfire by the lake. Milk and Crackers were enjoyed by all before returning to cabins to make community contracts and gain a better understanding of what each of us need to be our best selves at camp this summer. Counselors began reading their cabin books aloud as girls settled into beds for the night. We miss our loved ones who are not with us here at camp, but homesickness is easily overpowered by all of the fun and excitement everyone is having doing activities and spending time with friends. 

The first full day of camp was another hot one! We started with an orientation in which we found out (or were reminded) where everything was around camp, practiced vehicle safety evacuation drills, learned how to put on our PFDs for when we go out on the blue waves in boats, and played many get-to-know-you games. Activities started after lunch and rest hour, and we had almost all campers swimming in the lake for recreational swims! Horses walked and trotted around the ring up at the barn while a fleet of kayaks, canoes, and paddleboards, aka “Floatilla”, headed out into the cove. Our Harmonyland girls took a little hike to our Fairy Ring campsite and built fairy houses out of leaves, sticks, pine needles, and birch bark. After supper, our junior end girls enjoyed a beach night on the waterfront, and our senior end girls got to play a variety of land sports and even got in an evening swim to cool down before bed. Campers fell asleep looking forward to the first activity block starting the next morning.

The first activity block flew by with shacks going together to give each area a try, from flotilla’s on the lake, climbing in the trees and learning the art of shooting sports everyone found something they loved and an activity to work at throughout their session here. The heat meant lots of lake time and evening programs were modified to include much appreciated swims. The sounds of splashing and laughing in the cooler evening air could probably be heard by our Camp Runoia alumnae neighbors over in Echo Cove.

 

A bit of rain and cooler weather provided opportunity to focus on our arts skills, work on fitness and get some impressive dance routines going! Nothing stops us and we kept activities running and the fun going. The gaga pits are full at free time with some intense games going on and everyone being included. 

We are so grateful to have camp full again. To see our girls that we missed last summer, to welcome new friends into the Runoia family and to be able to spend amazing time together on Great Pond. In person, unplugged life in the woods is pretty fantastic! We have been able to watch a nest of baby barred owls learn to fly and hunt in the evenings over the kickball field. How lucky we are to live’in harmony with nature’ and get to have these experiences on our beautiful lake in Maine.

We are ready for another week of fun and frivolity, growth and learning and deepening the friendships that we have started to make.  Making life long memories and developing life long skills every minute of the day!

 

Is it camp time yet? the anticipation is real!

Posted on by Alex

I am nervous there are butterflies in my stomach, my nights are often sleepless and I start my days in great anticipation.  It is almost time for camp!   I have spent the whole year since the end of last August preparing for this.  The stage is set and I eagerly anticipate the curtains opening.

I know some of our girls are feeling the same way. I’ve been zooming with new campers who have a list of questions and are excited but also a little nervous about what to expect. The new staff are still a little unsure what to expect and are focused on wrapping up school and figuring out their travel plans to get to us. Even returning folk are apprehensive the world has changed a lot since the last time we were all together. 

These days in June become a blur; with long hours both in the office and out on site.  We are preparing, checking, double checking, chasing down information, finishing up the last projects and filling the waiting with work. Crossing the days off on the calendar is both exciting and a little terrifying. The time gets shorter while the ‘to do’ list seems to get longer. We know from experience it will all get done but still in the moment it can feel a little overwhelming. We want it all to be perfect for our girls!

Even though I have done this many times it is always so new, so exciting and just a little nerve wracking.  I will be met with a new audience while some faces are the same the mix is different.  Will I recognize returning faces?  It has been two years since I have seen some of our girls; they will surely have grown and changed. Will all run smoothly? Will the sun shine?  

I am fully confident in Runoia’s ability to run smoothly like a well-oiled machine as it has for 115 seasons.   We live for and store up our energy for this moment when the gates open and summer camp really begins.  Great Pond is looking beautiful and ready for our summer campers.

We truly can’t wait, staff start arriving this week and our campers will be here in 26 days. We truly cannot wait to have all of our Runoia community together on Great Pond.

See you all soon!

 

Spring Equinox Is Almost Here by Guest Blogger Mark Heuberger

Posted on by Pam Cobb

The first day of spring is March 20, 2021, which coincides with the vernal equinox. According to astronomers, this is the moment when the sun crosses exactly over the earth’s equator and the length of day and night is approximately the same.  The days then start to become longer than the nights, leading to those long summer days at Camp, when the sun does not set until 8:30 PM.

For Camp Runoia, the first day of spring starts us thinking about the fields, forests, and lakes warming and recovering from winter. We will soon start seeing the tiny sprouts of the ferns emerging from the earth; some ferns will grow to three or four feet high. The trees slowly become colored with buds, flowers, and leaves. We begin combing the woods for lady slippers and trillium flowers.  We are counting the days until Camp (100 till first session 2021!).

And of course, the first day of spring means that “Ice Out” is soon.

Some readers of this blog may not realize that the lake freezes over completely in the winter, covered in several feet of ice. Enough for trucks to drive out on the lake towing ice fishing huts.  At some point in spring, the ice suddenly thaws and disappears. Soon the loons will return and we will hear their calls again. Boats and docks will reappear on the lake and in a few short months we will be swimming, paddling, sailing, and skiing on Great Pond.

According to the Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands, who keep records of ice out dates on all Maine lakes, “Ice Out” is defined as the first day when you can navigate from one end of the lake to the other, even though there may still be ice in some coves or along the shoreline.

Ice Out dates for Great Pond over the last 20 years have typically been in middle to late April, but in four of the last 20 years, ice out has been in March, as early as March 20 in 2010, the first day of spring!  When will ice out be this year? Stay tuned.

For many this winter has been especially challenging. The coming of spring, the long warm days, the new beginnings, and the new opportunities are almost here and are welcomed.

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.

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

 

 

Camp More Than Ever

Posted on by Pam Cobb

Dear Runoia Families,

We all know things are changing day to day, moment by moment. Camp and the camp community continue to be an anchor for many of our campers, alumnae and staff.  We care about you and your families. We are connecting with campers and staff online and it feels good to all of us.

What we are doing now:

Our Team: We continue to plan, hire, maintain camp, order supplies and prepare to open safely. Over a dozen Runoia staff are remotely planning online programming for the upcoming weeks.

Afterschool Activities: We are offering online camp activities on our YouTube channel. New releases every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 4 pm EST. This week: Faux Stained Glass, Making Congo Bars and Basic Horse Grooming. Next week new projects and experiences from Barb, Callie and Alex. Jen is working on a scavenger hunt and/or crossword puzzle from the camp “logs”. Stay tuned!

Campfire: We are broadcasting on Facebook Live Sunday night at 7 pm. Join in!

April/May:

We think that by the early to middle part of May, we will know a lot more about what the summer holds for us and the timing of the start of camp. We realize we may have to be flexible with camp start and end dates, lengths of sessions, new health check in protocols, etc. We will continue to send you messages as we make decisions. We will work with families on transportation needs and challenges as needed. Meanwhile, it feels like April will be a long month – we will be in touch often.

Final Thoughts:

Camp is a place where campers are able to be themselves and connect with others.  The importance of camp has never been more real. It is a safe place for campers to unplug and come together to learn life skills and feel part of something bigger than themselves. Summer camps may, in fact, be one of the safest places for any child to be this summer, since they are generally protected, remote and closed environments with resident health professionals.

We believe in our mission statement now more than ever:

“Building lifelong skills and empowering campers and staff to live

in harmony with themselves, each other, and with nature.”

Be safe and stay healthy, wash your hands and best wishes for your shelter in place experience for the next days.

Until we meet (online) again,

Pam and Alex