Orientation Week - Part 1



The final staff to arrive entered camp on Friday the 20th. That evening was a bit crazy to say the least. Our camp director put on a various activities, designed to get to know each other. These were mostly round a campfire, and included songs, games and inspirational tales from the director.

One of these stories included 'the magic of the mountain'. Our camp lies near Bear Mountain, in the lower Hudson River valley. When towards the back of the camp, you can get things to echo of the mountain. We managed to get nearly all 100 staff to shout the camps name at the mountain in unison. The response was an eerie but incredible.

One of the games we played involved us lining up in order of distance away from camp (ie Americans at one end, English/Europeans in the middle, and the Australians/New Zealanders at the other end) to show the diversity of the camp. We then, in turn, shouted our name and where we came from. Naturally, being from gods own county, I have a fair amount of pride for where I live. Along with the other Yorkshire folk, we ended up chanting "York-shire, York-shire, York-shire". We were far far louder than anyone else, and I'm probably going to be called Yorkshire for the rest of the camp. Talking of Yorkshire, there are other staff from Sheffield, 2 other waterfront staff from Goole (near Hull) and Wakefield, and even someone from Richmond, North Yorks. Plus, I've met someone at the same Durham Uni College (St Aidan's) as one of my best friends from the uk! It's a small world...

That night, we were also introduced the the Camp Director's favourite Americans (which, besides Obama, are also mine) Ben and Jerry. Needless to say, several jaws dropped at this point. If you don't know of Ben and Jerry, they make the greatest ice cream known to man. There is nothing like meeting new friends with several tubs of cookie dough ice cream...

The next day was more focused on meeting our hills or units. The camp is split into 4 hills - split by age and gender - into uppers and lowers, males and females. My hill is lower boys, named Sherwood Forest. The other 3 hills are Fairies, Sisters of the Nile and Mt Olympus. There were various team building games. I even got special praise from the Camp Director for my communication skills!

I'm also getting on well with the other people in the Waterfront Team. There are 6 lifeguards and swim coaches, a canoeing instructor and our waterfront director. I'm the only new lifeguard, but I seem to be slotting in well. We are already quite close, and have been having a real laugh together. Instead of doing all the team building stuff, waterfront staff have been on a slightly different schedule, as we aren't normal councillors. This means we've been doing lesson planning, tidying the beach and bits of maintenance. Another important task we did on Saturday was swim testing, and hence life guarded for the first time in the US yesterday. Swim testing involved lifeguarding 1-2-1, whilst a swimmer performs a series of basic tests to determine their ability, from confident swimmer (blue) to non-swimmer (red). All staff and campers have to do this (except lifeguards, as we kind of wouldn't have a job otherwise...)



Last night (Monday) was finished off with a bonding session with one of the other units. This involved speed dating, where we chatted to each person in the other unit for 2 minutes, followed by a camp fire. This was really fun, and much needed at the end of a long day



Training so far has been rather intense, with the rest of the week set to be the same. We will have more days of training, with campers finally arriving on Saturday. Exciting stuff!