Whew! What a great week at camp! This is my fifth year working at Girl Scout camp. The first 3 years I had the ‘tag-a-longs’ (volunteers’ kids, mostly boys). Then last year I had 3rd year Juniors, which I really enjoyed. This year I had a group of 30 Brownies. I work with Brownies during the year even though my daughter is a Junior. This way she gets a break from me. (LOL)
Each year a group of about 3 to 4 girls who are working on their gold award, the highest GS award, plan, organize and basically run camp (under the director’s supervision of course). Camp was exceptionally well thought-out and organized. The theme of this year’s camp was Earth, Wind and Fire. All the activities centered on this. The underlying theme was ‘Survivor’ with challenges based on the TV show. Each unit came up with a tribe name, designed a banner and had their own colored ‘buffs’(bandanas). The girls swam, hiked, did archery, and made new friends. This year the Carolina Raptor Center from Huntersville came to camp and thrilled the girls with an educational program about rescued birds of prey. It was an excellent program and I plan on taking my own children to the Center sometime this coming year.
The weather was VERY hot and sticky and it only rained one afternoon at the end of camp when the parents had come to pick the girls up. Boy did it rain! It was like a faucet had been turned on and we were soaked through and through, but it was a relief from the heat.
Aside from a bit of heat related illnesses, there were no serious injuries this year. Last year a girl in my group slipped down a hill and broke her arm, so I was thrilled there were no repeat incidents.(Have you ever noticed that camps seem to be always built on the sides of mountains?) We had one girl cry everyday that she wanted to go home until we distracted her with the activities. There were also a few girls who definitely danced to the beat of a different drummer, but for the most part it all went well.
The director will be taking all her volunteers out to dinner at the Olive Garden (my personal favorite) on Thursday. This is always great fun. If you have ever worked at any camp you know how rough you can look and it’s nice to see people under more ‘civilized’ conditions. LOL The camp is for three districts, so we really don’t see much of each other during the year and this dinner is an appreciated event.
