Camp Merrie-Woode

Well it is hard to believe another summer has come and gone and a fall is here to take its place. As all of you are busy starting a new school year and working hard in your studies, we have started our autumn project of editing The Ripple, camp’s literary magazine. As you know, The Ripple will be mailed out at Christmas again this year.

We will still be accepting entries for The Ripple through September 20th. So if you find yourself sitting at home, missing camp and longing for the days of a summer by Lake Fairfield, take a moment to write down your thoughts. Compose a piece of poetry, a small reflection, or a comical view of camp life and email it to us. If you’ve used camp as an essay topic for a school assignment, that could have a wonderful place in The Ripple. Tell us the story of a campout gone awry, a day in the life of a camp dog, or why camp holds a place in your heart. The point is: get creative, think outside the box, and help make the 2010 edition of The Ripple the best yet!

We must receive all Ripple entries, from campers or counselors, by September 20th! You can email your entries or questions to: betsy@merriewoode.com or lindsay@merriewoode.com. Unfortunately, we will not be able to incorporate any artwork unless it is a pen and ink drawing on unlined paper…no photographs, paintings, or drawings in color please.

Well, it’s hard to believe, but another summer has come and gone. The summer of 2010 will leave us with plenty of warm memories to think back on over the coming seasons until next summer finally arrives.

We will remember fondly our dance parties in Castle, a blow-out 4th of July party at the Inn Site, and hilarious Banquet shows.
But, perhaps, one of our favorite memories from this summer will forever be the flash mob dance on the tennis courts. Every camper and counselor in Main Session managed to pull off a huge surprise for Jim, Denice, and Betsy.
As the final tennis match was about to begin, music started playing and people from all sides joined in to create one massive group all dancing to “Jia Ho”. It was awesome to see so many people joyfully moving together in a few moments of pure fun!

Things are really starting to buzz here at camp. We have had a wonderful week of Staff Orientation here at Merrie-Woode! The summer counselors are here and ready to kick of camp’s 93rd season! The bunks are set up in cabins, activities are stocked and ready to go, and camp has never looked better! We are all so excited to see the first campers arrive tomorrow morning!

Consequently, this will be our last post on the web site’s What's New page until the summer is over. You can look for daily summer updates and photos on the ECamp site. Get excited everyone; summer is finally here! Boo whoop!

May 7, 2010
Springtime Brings Exciting Changes to the Merrie-Woode Staff

As many of you already know, Christina Daniels resigned as our Development and Programming Director at the beginning of this year to focus on her job at home of raising a family. After much thought and consideration, we are thrilled to announce that Lindsay Garner Hostetler will become our new Development and Alumnae Relations Director. Lindsay has been working in the camp office for just over four years now. In addition to her new responsibilities in Development, she will continue to work with Alumnae Relations and the ongoing camp archiving project. Lindsay will also maintain her position as the director of camp’s theatre program, a position she has held for eight years now. We are excited to see Lindsay’s role here at Merrie-Woode grow as she takes on this new challenge. The Programming Director position will be filled for the summer by Susan Spence, last summer’s Program Office Manager.

We are also delighted to announce the addition of a new member to our Facilities Crew. Jody Pressley has now joined the year round staff of Merrie-Woode. Jody comes to us with years of experience working with construction and excavation equipment. The Pressleys have a long standing history with Camp Merrie-Woode. Jody’s brother, Cory, has been working on the Facilities Crew for the past four years. Their uncle, James Pressley, was the camp’s caretaker from 1947 - 1972, as was his father before him. Some of the projects James contributed to in camp were the building of Chapel, the stone pillars for the original camp gate, and the construction of Camelot and the big back line cabins. We are thrilled to have a new generation of Pressleys continue the family’s legacy at Merrie-Woode.

The Camp Merrie-Woode© Spring 2010 Newsletter is now available to view here on the Web site. (in .pdf format). Please let us know if an alternate format is needed.

Remember you can become a "fan" of Camp Merrie-woode on Facebook and be able to check out many pictures posted by alumnae fans.

We are thrilled to announce that this year’s June Session play will be Charlotte’s Web. The beloved children’s book by E.B. White will come alive on the Castle stage this summer. All your favorite characters will be there: Fern, the young farm girl who finds the meaning of love and compassion in her friendship with a newborn pig; Wilbur, the charming little pig who desperately wants to avoid the dinner table; Templeton,

the conniving rat who can be bribed into the occasional good deed; the comical Goose and Gander; the Arable and Zuckerman families; and, of course, a very special spider named Charlotte who proves to be “a true friend and a good writer.” This touching play about friendship and loyalty will have everyone leaving with a smile in their heart and the belief in the small everyday miracles of life as simple as an intricately woven spider’s web.

In 2004, Fritz Orr III, Doug Cameron, and Jim Dunn worked with Rollin Thurlow at his shop in Maine to learn how to restore and build wood and canvas canoes. Highly regarded as one of Maine’s finest craftsmen, Mr. Thurlow works as a lecturer and instructor and is the co-author of the book The Wood and Canvas Canoe. Last summer, we began teaching this craft to some of our older campers who are deeply interested in paddling. Campers and staff members helped to restore a 1946 Old Town wood and canvas canoe in the camp workshop. A majority of the ribs were replaced, along with roughly 1/3 of the planking. New canvas was stretched, sealed, and painted while the interior was stripped, sanded, and re-varnished.

This past February, Camp Merrie-Woode was featured in an article in Wooden Boat magazine. The restored canoe appeared in the “Launchings and Relaunchings” section of the January/February edition.

We are thrilled to announce that this year’s Main Session musical will be Into the Woods! This brilliant musical by the great contemporary composer Stephen Sondheim originally opened on Broadway in 1987, winning three Tony Awards, and was revived in 2002 where it took home another two Tonys. Into the Woods begins as a retelling of the fairy tale stories of the Brothers Grimm – a princess who must dash from the ball at midnight as she loses her shoe, a childless couple that must lift a curse by an evil witch, a boy and his magical beanstalk, and a little girl in a red cloak on her way to grandmother’s house. The second act of the play then explores what happens to these characters beyond the pages of the storybook and into tales of what happens after “happily ever after”.

Camp Merrie-Woode first produced Into the Woods in the summer of 2004. We are excited to remount this show on the Castle stage for a new generation of campers to discover.

March 15, 2010
And the Winner of the Third Annual CRAZY CAMP PHOTO CONTEST is..... GRACE WIENER!

In an effort to make the summer forms process easier on parents and save a few trees, we are sending our “Camper Forms Package” out via two e-mails this year. PDF files have been sent to all parents and must be returned to Phyllis in the camp office by May 1st.

Parents, if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to email Phyllis at phyllis@merriewoode.com or call at (828) 743-3300. Thanks for helping us to keep the “green” in our “green and grey!”

Long time camper and counselor, Amber Skye, has released a new single on iTunes.
Her song, “Locked in Love” is already becoming a hit!

This past Valentine’s Day Amber donated 100% of the proceeds of “Locked in Love” earned that day to the Queen of Hearts Foundation. This is an organization devoted to promoting healthy heart awareness and education of the risks of women’s heart disease, the leading cause of death in American women.

You can find more information at the following link: The Queen of Hearts Foundation: http://www.QoHF.org
To listen to some of Amber’s music, click the YouTube link image above or visit: http://www.myspace.com/theamberskye

Camp Merrie-Woode has joined over twenty North Carolina summer camps to form a trade association to represent their interests with local, state, and federal policymakers. The North Carolina Youth Camp Association seeks to strengthen and expand the educational, environmental and recreational opportunities provided by North Carolina 's camps. The Association will encourage cooperation among camps, sponsor camp-specific research, communicate camp industry information, and build relationships with various private, non-profit, public, and governmental agencies.

The Association is being formed at a time when summer youth camps are facing a wide range of challenges. Changing school calendars have condensed summers, primarily in the southern states, and have made it more difficult to operate financially. Public lands for paddling, biking and camping which were once freely available are sometimes no longer available to organized camping. Building codes require camps to construct buildings which are more like motel rooms and restaurants than camp cabins and dining halls.

The NCYCA will be a source of information for parents about North Carolina 's camps and will also be the voice of these camps with local officials, in Congress and the state capitol. It will also keep camp directors abreast of the public policy issues affecting their camps.

The Association has a Board of Directors made up of camp directors representing a variety of summer camps---boys camps, girls camps, coed camps, non-profit and for-profit camps, and camps associated with agencies. The Association will operate as a 501c (6) organization---a trade organization.

The NCYCA has launched a website, www.nccamps.org . The website will give parents information about the Association's member camps while being a resource for camp directors and legislators on a range of public policy issues.

Jason and Christina Daniels welcomed a new baby boy to their family this week! Leighton Edward “Eddie” Daniels was born on Tuesday, February 9, 2010 at 5:42 pm. He measured in at 20 inches and weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces. Congratulations, Christina and Jason! We are so happy for you.

With this joyous news, however, comes the announcement that Christina has decided to resign as the Programming and Development Director at Merrie-Woode. Christina would like to spend more time at home raising Eddie. While we will all miss Christina here at camp, we know that this next adventure awaiting her will be one of the most rewarding of her life. We wish Christina all the best in her new role as a mother. We look forward to many visits from Christina and baby Eddie at camp this summer!

Camp Merrie-Woode was covered with a blanket of thick snow this week. This has been our second major snowfall of the winter, the first arriving just before Christmas. This is the most snow camp has seen in quite a while! While the snow may be pretty to look at, we are all bundled up in the office yearning for the warmth of long summer days and the company of our Merrie-Woode campers!

Well, it’s that time of year again!The Third Annual Crazy Camp Photo Contest has begun! Here’s how it works…you send us your favorite goofy camp picture from the summer of 2009. It can be anything from evening program silliness to wacky cook-out costumes. The only requirements are as follows:

1. The photo must have been taken in the summer of 2009.

2. All names of people pictured must be listed, as well as the name of the photographer.
3. All entries must be submitted by March 1, 2010.

Email all entries to Lindsay@merriewoode.com. Winners will be announced and showcased in March right here on the “What’s New” page on the camp web site. Winners will also receive a prize in the mail! So flip through all those crazy camp pictures and pick out the best one to send us! In the meantime, here are some of our favorite pictures here in the office for you to enjoy.

Last week, a group of our year-round staff traveled to Chattanooga, TN to assist in the construction of a home for Habitat for Humanity. This home is being built in memory of Chris Horne. Chris and Mandy Horne moved to Cashiers, NC about two and a half years ago after Chris was hired to be the Director of Summit Charter School. Many of you will remember that this is the same position Jim held before he came to work at Merrie-Woode. Just before Thanksgiving in 2007, Chris and Mandy took a vacation to Mexico. They had been married for four months, had settled into life in Cashiers, and had grown to love the community of Summit School. While they were in Mexico, Chris was tragically killed in a car accident. Mandy was severely injured and returned to her hometown of Chattanooga to recuperate with her family. Our local children of Summit School lost their dearly loved director, the community lost a leader, and Mandy lost her cherished husband. We at Merrie-Woode grew close to Mandy as she worked in the camp office part time the following spring.

When we heard that Mandy’s family, the Hullanders of Chattanooga, was sponsoring a Habitat for Humanity house in Chris’s name, we knew immediately it was a project we wanted to be a part of. So last Tuesday, eight of us piled into the camp Suburbans and headed off to Tennessee. We spent Wednesday and Thursday working on the exterior of the new home and were very impressed with how far it had already come along. We worked with members of a team from the Hullanders’ siding and window company, Hullco Exteriors. By the time we left, the siding was finished on the house. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Chattanooga was gracious enough to put us up in their building for the three nights we stayed.

As the house nears completion, a single mother and her two daughters are beginning to look forward to moving into their new home. We were thrilled to meet the future homeowner, Michelle, and enjoyed seeing her excitement as construction progressed. We left on Friday with a feeling of accomplishment and pride in the work we were able to do in memory of Chris. Our short time in Chattanooga reminded us that out of pain and loss can come fresh beginnings and renewed hope, and healing can often be found through the productivity of helping hands and a generosity of spirit.

To see more photos of our time in Chattanooga, please visit Camp Merrie-Woode’s Facebook album.

Well it has been downright frigid here in the mountains over the past couple of weeks as Jack Frost has made a long and prominent visit! Lake Fairfield is now frozen solid. The ice is so thick that you can walk out between the docks. It has been a long time since anyone can remember the ice being so thick. Normally you can crack it easily just by throwing a rock. Luckily, though, the temperature is supposed to start rising back up above freezing this week. We are all ready for things to start thawing out – including our fingers and toes!

Christina and her husband, Jason, are thrilled to announce they will be adopting a baby boy, due in February. His name will be Leighton Edward Daniels, and they will be calling him Eddie for short. Camp hosted a baby shower for Christina and Jason on Monday evening at the Dunn's house. Strollers, baby clothes, diapers, and teddy bears soon filled the living room as excitement and anticipation grew for a new member of the Merrie-Woode family. The party was filled with good food, good friends, and warm wishes for the excited parents-to-be. We can't wait to share baby pictures with you all in the next month!

Happy New Year, everyone! A new decade has arrived and camp will be here before you know it. We are already busy, working to make the summer of 2010 the best ever! We will be out on the road again in the coming weeks as we visit college campuses to recruit counselors. Go check out the Campus Recruiting Schedule to see when we’ll be in your area.