Girl’s Camp

Last week I went with five of my girls from church to Raymond, NH for girl’s camp. It has been a lot of years since I went to girl’s camp, and I must say that it was better and much more fun than any year that I went to camp as a teenager. Well, I am not a teenager anymore, so obviously anything is going to be an improvement, right? Also, things are done a little differently here and I think most of them are improvements.


1. Grouping by level: Instead of camping with their own wards , the girls camped in groups according to what level camper they were. (1st year-5th year). For my friends who are not Mormons, a ward is like a local congregation of people who attend church together based on their geographical location. My ward attends church in Central Falls since we all live in that area. I was in charge of the 3rd-year group, or all of the 14-year-olds in Rhode Island and eastern Connecticut. Aren’t they cute?
 
This way of doing things gets all the girls in the region of the same age together for all activities, like orienteering (so much fun!):


 
I really liked this, because my own girls were able to reach out and get to know girls like themselves from outside Central Falls. When you don’t live in Utah and you don’t have other church members everywhere you turn, it is easy to think that you are very isolated if you are a young person who believes in God and participates in your church group. If we had camped in wards, they might not have had the opportunities to form those relationships outside their own congregation.  And I think some drama can be avoided when you are not in closed quarters all week with the same girls you go to church with all year long.

2. Inter-level activities: In the above photo, the 3rd years were using compasses to create a course for the 1st years (12-year-olds) to follow so they could find a prize hidden at the end point. This was great because they had to think about how someone else would read their instructions, and also show the 12-year-olds how to use a compass. This is not a skill that is taught very much these days, but I think it is still a very useful skill, because you just never know when you might be lost without your GPS! It was great for these girls to develop leadership skills and friendships with the younger girls.

   
3. No cooking over a campfire by wards: Although I always thought that cooking as a ward was a lot of fun, it is a huge and onerous task to take enough food for 12 girls for a week when you have no refrigeration. I give major props to my own camp leaders for pulling this off year after year. This camp has a dining hall and members from the region volunteer to cook for the week. I think these people have got to be the best people in the world. One of them was Dorothy, from my own ward in Central Falls, and she worked like crazy all week long! We love you, Dorothy!!!!

This whole dining hall idea is definitely camping on a wussier level, but in our defense the girls did have to cook a couple of things on the fire so they did learn some skills. And since the critters here are extremely brazen, we couldn’t have food at our campsites, anyway.

4. LOTS of activities: I remember having a lot of free time at camp, and I actually loved that and have some great memories of plants and animals observed while wandering around in the wilderness. However, there are dangers out there and also, teenaged girls are teenaged girls and they can get into trouble unsupervised. I remember one incidence when I was 12 involving a very scary fire in the woods where a fire had no business being started. I’ll say no more, but I will just reiterate that busy girls are girls who are not getting into mischief!

5: The Waterfront: There was a pond, of sorts, where I went to camp as a girl, but we weren’t allowed to swim in it. The most we could do was canoeing. That was fun, but the waterfront at our camp went quite far beyond what was available when I was a girl. Again, the waterfront was staffed by volunteer members from the Rhode Island/Connecticut area. They had to give a swim test to everyone in camp before they could swim out into the deep area of the lake. They were also available to teach girls how to swim, canoe, kayak, and row. They also served as lifeguards. I have two girls who could not swim when they arrived and by the last day they had learned the basics and had made real improvement.
At the end of the week the girls (and I!) were totally exhausted and they slept the whole ride home in the car. And apart from a few minor issues the girls came through unscathed. They did such a great job and I am very proud of them! I loved sharing the experience with them and can’t wait for next year, although I may have to be reminded that I said that next summer!