General
• Paul Vasile from Music that Makes Community was on staff for the first half of the summer, teaching us the power of music—how we can make it more accessible to everyone (all skill levels) and how to use it to gather people. He taught the camp counselors that anyone can be a leader in music (not just the musically talented ones).
Weekend Camp for Families
• Fantastic inaugural year. Perfect opportunity for families to experience camp if they can’t commit to a whole week. Awesome way for the counselors to start the summer.
Generations Camp
• The summer art project—Botanical Prints—was a hit during Generations and throughout the rest of the summer. Families got to stitch their prints together and hang them in the chapel so we could appreciate them all week long. Campers each made their own (because they’re not as good at sharing) and also hung them in the chapel at the beginning of each week.
Family Camp
• First ever Family Camp picnic in Gina’s Orchard for dinner one evening. We got all participants out there—young and old—and had a happy hour, a short, reflective Eucharist, and dinner. On our way out there, we walked on part of the trails that some participants had worked on/restored as a service project earlier in the week.
BREAD: Explorers
• Campers enjoyed the new Discovery Group rotation entitled “Team Chill”, where they got an introduction to yoga and were treated to chilled lavender towels at the end.
READ Camp
• Read Camp was extended to a full day and had twice as many campers as previous years. With the help of Greta Mesics, librarian at Healdsburg Elementary School and neighbor of The Bishop’s Ranch, we created a reading-based activity rotation for the mornings. The rotation included the following activities:
• Nature and Nonfiction Walk: campers were led around the ranch, observing what plants grow where and looking for creatures (lots of lizard sightings!)
• Music: campers learned the lyrics and hand motions to fun camp songs, they also got to play around with hand drums
• Read Aloud: campers got to sit back and relax in the Ranch House living room while a counselor read a new chapter from a Magic Treehouse book each day
• Campfire: campers listened to scary stories and learned lots of loud, repeat after me campfire songs
• Readers’ Theater: each small group learned and rehearsed a short readers’ theater play, which they took turns performing for the whole group on Friday
• In the afternoons, campers got to play outside (soccer, volleyball, kickball, etc) or do arts and crafts (watercolors, friendship bracelets, shrinky dinks, etc) or take swim lessons. Also thanks to Greta, campers got to shop around the “book nook” we set up in the Pavilion and take home any books they wanted. The week ended with a much anticipated pool party on Friday afternoon.
BREAD: Adventurers
• During BREAD Camps, cabins competed to be the cleanest cabin of the week. They cleaned in the mornings and a counselor inspected their efforts meticulously, giving a detailed report at lunch. This year, at the end of Adventurers, two cabins were tied so we had a “car wash off” where the two finalist cabins each had to wash a car (both belonging to the “cabin inspectors” of course). They were judged on speed, cleanliness, and of course enthusiasm as “Working at the Car Wash” played in the background. They used sponges originally meant for sponge dodgeball—needless to say the cars ended up with a lot of soapy streaks but the enthusiasm was definitely there.
BREAD: Discoverers
• We had 29 campers—the most we’ve ever had for this camp! Tom and Krista Fergoso, our chaplains for the week, had us all pretend to be Martians traveling to Earth during morning program—so we had a lot of simulated rocket ship launches, which were quite silly.
By Marguerite Cauchois, Camp Director
