Week 3

Week three began on Monday the twenty eighth of June with flag raising when the whole of resident camp congregates on the upper field of camp and plays games and raises the stars and stripes over Camp Half Moon! What follows is a morning routine of breakfast, consisting of things like pancakes, waffles, french toast, eggs, hash browns, as well as cereal and fruit, before heading back to the cabin to tidy it up. The number of dirty socks, wet towels and flip flops that congregate on the floor every day is astounding! After that the day really starts, and the campers head off to their activities and the counsellors head off to teach them. In the morning there are three hour long activity periods, followed by lunch and a subsequent rest hour spent in the cabin, and a further three hour activity periods.

My schedule for the first week of camp was a great mixed bag of:

1. Photos - Walking round camp taking photographs of all the different activities and the campers and staff doing so. I really enjoy taking photographs every day, as it's a great way to interact with so many campers and counsellors in one hour, and I see every activity being taught! All the photographs are collated at the end of the day then uploaded onto a secure website that the parents can log on to and view the fun their children are having. I think it's a great idea.

2. Photos.

3. Drama - Teaching drama games and performing skits with campers, mostly younger ones. I have never taught drama until now, and was a bit worried about doing so, but my co-teacher was a great help and it ended up being a great week worth of lessons!

4. Lake Guard - On the lake every period there are classes of canners, kayakers, snorkelers, sailers and campers playing in the water, so of course they need guarded. I loved my first experience of guarding on the lake, in the sun, with some amazing friends from last year, and some awesome new ones from this year. The waterfront seems to attract my favourite type of people, for the most part. so I love spending time down there. One of my best friends from Edinburgh and camp was back down at the waterfront this year, and it's awesome to be with her again!

5. Yearbook - By the end of the summer, the camp would like to produce a yearbook from the seven weeks of campers, so it was my job this period to try and sound out what people wanted to include in it, and then get the campers onto the job of doing it. It was difficult to do, especially on the Monday of week one where nothing had happened, but some of the ideas were really good, so hopefully we can incorporate them into the ideas from the rest of the summers classes.

6. Guitar Freeswim - Freeswim is the sixth period where the campers are free to go wherever they want on camp for a more chilled out hour of semi-structured lessons. My campers from last year tended to come and join me on my guitar deck in the sun this period every day to sit and chat, make friendship bracelets, write letters and of course, occasionally play guitar. It was my favourite period of the week, and I just smiled even wider than I normally did throughout this period.

After sixth period we have reflections where boy camp and girl camp separate and go off to our respective areas and reflect on important issues and personal stories. But what happens at man camp stays at man camp, so reflections must be kept under wraps really!

On Tuesday night we had a hip hop group come to entertain us. They told the camp the story of hip hops history through dance, and included the campers in it, which was really good. Some of the moves they pulled were awesome, and I certainly wanted to have a bit more rhythm by the time they left.

The middle of the week saw my right hand swell to twice it's normal slender size due to a reaction to a bug bite from some undisclosed insect. The were murmurs of hospital visits if the swelling spread to my fingers, but it stuck around the back of my palm for a few days then slowly went down. My first Benadryl experience was interesting, as it [like with everyone else] made me so sleepy, but I had to stay up until all the staff went to bed as I was supervising cabins of sleeping campers for the whole night…fun!

On Wednesday, me and three other staff went on a trip to go white water rafting with twenty campers. Sat nave malfunctions, late leaving and a few wrong turns lead us to Crab Apple rafting company, and we rafted down ten miles of grade one, two and three white water. In the calm stretches, the rafts had water fights with buckets on board, and we sang camp songs down by the river being entertained by our river guide. The lunch was INCREDIBLE, and we had pizza on the way back from the trip for dinner which, although the campers were lusting after the golden arches of MacDonalds, was really good. On Wednesday night the camp split up into it's two tribes, Cherokees and Mahaiwes, and played a massive game of gold rush, which is a game involving hiding coloured tubes around camp for the campers to find, and then run them to the guitar deck without being caught by counsellors. It was a great game, and a great way to finish the awesome day!

Thursday, a chilly day, actually saw some of the guards wearing gillets on the waterfront…madness! It was the day of campfire, which I love, as all the campers and counsellors do songs, skits, stories, dances and poems for the rest of camp. For a first campfire, it was awesome!

On Saturday the juniors and intermediates went on a trip to Zoom Flume water park in New York state, in the Catskills. I dealt with my first vomit related incident on the journey, which was interesting! It was a beautiful day, and for the fourth of July weekend it was not hay busy. The campers that I had on the trip, as well as the staff, were fearless, and they went on everything. Nice to be out of camp for a bit, even if it was a tad stressful. Nothing much had changed since last years visit, other than the introduction of a new wave pool which was cool!

Once we returned from the trip I was off duty, so went into town for dinner at the local Chinese restaurant followed by ice cream and a night out in the local bowling alley/bar. It was a great first night off, and I am looking forward to the others this summer. Waking up on the fourth of July in America was followed by amazing bagels in town for breakfast and a wander round town. We had ice cream sundaes at SoCo creamery in town, which is definitely my favourite place for ice cream. The ice cream was amazing, and a parent of a camper bumped into us there and ended up buying me a tshirt! Only in America! The afternoon was spent on the waterfront chilling out with my friends, and then painting the American flag on my face for going back on duty. We had a cookout dinner in honour of the fourth of July, before playing games with our campers in the dining hall and upper field.

The weather this week has been incredible, really hot and sunny. Long may it continue!

We had a brilliant first week at camp with the campers, and I am so looking forward to the next six weeks with them. The boys in my cabin have been super awesome stars, and I can't wait to spend more time with them.

Loving the mail from Katie, Alison, Shuaib, Sarah and Emma. Please get in touch in any way possible when you can, I miss everyone back home and would like to know how everyone is doing!

Love

Andrew

Camp Half Moon

PO Box 188

Great Barrington

MA 01230

USA

x x x

Week 2

Week two started on the twenty first of July, which dawned hot and sunny with a swim in the bath-like pool water! Lots of people are up for early morning exercise this year, which I hope continues. I don't want anyone to have cause to call me chubby when I return to Scotland, here.

The week of orientation went really slowly, but not in a bad way at all. I love that the time is going slowly, that there seems to be more hours between sunrise and sunset than there should be naturally, that the shadows of the trees creep so slowly across the basket ball court. I would be perfectly happy if the summer never ended, so content am I here.

Not that I don't miss you all at home, cause I do. All my uni and Hawick crew, you are sorely missed. Solution…y'all should come out to the Berkshires and become part of camp!

Orientation week involved lots of setting up camp and socialising. It was a great week of weather and chat, games and food, smiles and hugs. Some of the maintenance things we had to do included putting up ping pong tables in the new youth centre, discussing our activity areas and lesson plans, more guitar maintenance, assembling beds, general organisation, and my personal favourite…raking pine needles off roofs of the cabins!

We also had lots of sessions about camp rules, possible scenarios, special events, and general information, which was nice to sit and listen to in the sun! It's amazing how quick the things come back to you.

Some of the fun non-maintenance work we did during the week included trust walks with blind folds, tip-testing in kayks and canoes, lifeguard training, camp songs sessions, dance competitions, chilling out at the pool, a camp fire, tribal games, practice lessons [I taught a kayaking lesson], playing games in practice for rainy days.

As well as that, we had lovely informal chats, time spent playing in the sun, watching epic thunderstorms, trips into town for essentials [snacks!]. Everyone is gelling together like some amazing happy clock, which is awesome!

We had some time off over the weekend, during which time we had a great meal out in town, a night out in the local bowling alley, and breakfast in town the next morning. One of my good friends has a car here with her, and she has been kind enough to ferry us around which is awesome! Wandering around Great Barrington was like stepping out of a time machine that had landed a year ago. SoCo is still there [the home of the infamous brownie sundaes], the people are the same, the place has not changed at all. It's awesome…I would love to come back here to live at some point!

The weather for the week was incredible, so we had loads of fun in the sun. The summer tan is coming along quite nicely, and it really brightened everything up and made all the hard work easier. Awesome!

The highlight of the week has to be my first waterskiing experience to test out the camp equipment. I had never done it before, but on my fourth attempt I got up and went a good long distance before a spectacular wipe out! Was such an awesome thing to do, and one I definitely want to do again and again! I think Morgan may be rubbing off on me, turning me into a water baby more and more every day. Which I am fine with.

And then on the Sunday the campers arrived. It was such a buzz to stand on the camp road and watch all the new and familiar faces come in, hear people shouting my name, reconnecting with the campers and their parents and getting such nice conversation! Happy days. I am in a cabin with nine and ten year old boys who are all awesome...I am so excited because two of them were in my cabin last year! I can't wait to reconnect with them, and learn all about the new ones. Let's hope they are a good bunch.

I hope everyone's summer is going ok, and no one has had more horseshoe related incidents, or road crashes, and everyone is staying out of trouble. I would really love some mail to read, thank you to Alison for my first piece! If anyone wants a letter, post your address on the old bookface and I will hit you up!

Love!

Week 1

New summer, new session at Camp Half Moon…these things can only mean one thing…a new blog for the summer.

Summer two thousand and ten started at four in the morning on the 14th of June when I got up for a [terrifying] drive to Edinburgh airport from Jane! What followed was a smooth check in to a direct flight to New York from Edinburgh, and the flight itself was uneventful. Landing in New York was so exciting! Felt like I was coming home again…yay!

When I landed in New York, my good friend Lea picked me up from the airport with another two returning counsellors, Jack and Lucy. Seeing them again was incredible, and it was like no time had past since our last meeting in March. Smiles all round. We spent the next two nights at Lea's house in WestChester county, north of New York City. The street could have been the set for Desperate Housewives, and her house was lovely, Definitely started off the summer with a grin from ear to ear. We spent the first evening picking up the camp essentials like bug spray, sleeping bags, and of course Reece's Peanut Butter Cups before crashing out.

On the Tuesday we caught the train into Grand Central Station [wow] and met up with some more returners [Amy, Brittany and Tara] and also my flatmate Kev [who I hadn't seen in over a year] to spend the day in the city with them. Highlights included visiting a new park on a disused above ground railway line called the HighLine. Cool doesn't quite cut it, I would definitely like to think that some time in the future I will spend my lazy Sundays there! Dinner at Chelsea Riverside Park was followed by an afternoon of shopping in SoHo, buying team hoodies from American Apparel and other clothes! Like I need any more..=] After a Thai meal out and a meet up with some of Leas friends [one of which was a real frat boy] we headed to bed on the eve of our arrival at camp.

The bus journey back to Great Barrington was awesome, with banter with all of the returners and excitement mounting. By the time the bus stopped, I was buzzing to arrive back at camp… The arrival did not disappoint! It did just feel like I was coming back to where I belonged, There were a bunch of new people there, and they were all super nice. Amazing to meet them all, and to be reunited with the returners like Morgan and Craig!

So that was the Wednesday night, and for the Thursday and Friday pre-season was our life purpose. After the campers leave in August, camp pretty much shuts down until we arrive in June. Consequently, there is a lot of work to do before the campers arrive! Our pre-season involved setting up canopies all over camp to shelter various areas, setting up the waterfront area, rescuing kayaks that had washed up on the lake shores, assembling and sailing all the sailboats to the docks, taping up kayaks, as well as meeting all the amazing new people, catching up with all the returners, having mixing games, team building exercises, song leading times, dining room chats and general greatness. Then on Saturday at 5pm orientation officially started with all the official introductions to all staff, some games and a camp tour, the likes of which carried on to Sunday, with guitar maintenance, head staff question and answer sessions, lifeguard training. On Sunday evening we played a game of dodgeball and then chilled out in the pool!

The weather for the first week was absolutely amazing, and way better than last year…so warm and sunny. Makes a change from not being able to dry our clothes outside, and having perpetually damp towels…the sun definitely makes me happy!

For a first week it has been absolutely fantastic. A lot has changed from last year, with new faces, new ways of doing things, new camp buildings [with air conditioning…luxury] and the like, but I am more than willing to roll with it and embrace the change. What's the point in having a summer identical to last year? I am so excited for a new experience at the Best Little Camp in the Berkshires!