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And that’s a wrap…

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Community Week is over. We had an amazing week with some not so amazing weather and everybody was able to enjoy putting some new spins on their favorite activities. We ended the week strong with a couple of everybody’s favorite activities: Luau night and dodgeball night.

We had the weather clear up for luau on Monday night and everybody had a blast with an outside dinner, tiki decorating of one of their teammates, and canoe races. The counselors managed to successfully keep the campers from finding out about dodgeball night and when the announcement was made I am sure that the people across the bay could hear the cheering. The girls and guys wore red and blue respectively and met at the gym for a fierce battle. I personally enjoyed the sideline dance party that we had going on for those of us who got out a bit early.

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The final day of camp was beautiful with the sun shining and the wind blowing. We had our usual chicken barbeque and presentation outside on the lawn and all of the campers got to say goodbye to their counselors and friends. The campers were happy to see their parents, but sad to leave us. A great time was had by all involved and we can’t wait to see what the rest of the summer brings us!

Community Week

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Camp is officially under way! The community week campers arrived two days ago from the surrounding towns here in Maine and camp is already in full swing. We had beautiful weather for the first day of camp. It might have been the best since I’ve been here and that is quite a few years. The sun was out and the wind was strong for the sailors and windsurfers, after the waterfront safety talk and swim test of course. The breeze also helped keep it cool for those out on the field playing soccer and ultimate Frisbee.

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The evening activity was counselor skits. Who doesn’t love watching people make complete fools of themselves on stage? I won’t say too much and ruin it for those of you coming later this summer, but I will say we had a little something up there for everyone and a whole lot of laughs for the whole group. We had a couple of campers rating each skit on a scale of 1-10 and when it was all over I asked them which skit won. The answer: Too many 10s to decide.

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Tonight’s activity is lip sync night! It is also Disney themed. The cabins eagerly prepared their songs and got their costumes ready during the day. The song lineup included: Do you Want to Build a Snowman, Under the Sea, I’ll make a man out of you and some other Disney classics.

The winning songs both came from Tangled. Little John won with an excellent recreation of “I’ve Got a Dream” and on the girl’s side, Isle au Haut put a new spin on “I See the Light.” Everyone did an amazing job and some teams got really creative with it, including a sugar verses medicine battle for Mary Poppin’s “A Spoonful of Sugar” by Acadia.

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Today is our first full day with regular activities. Everyone has been having a blast! We have been playing soccer, basketball, tennis, and ultimate Frisbee all morning and this afternoon we took out the sailboats in some pretty great wind. The skies are still a little cloudy but not enough to slow us down!

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Here is the link to the pictures we have uploaded to Picasa so far. Enjoy.

Community Program 2015

Here we go…

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The counselors have arrived! Last Friday most of the staff and counselors got to Chop Point and met each other for the first time. This year’s group is full of incredible individuals, a pretty good chunk of whom come from Georgia (did you expect anything different?). Everyone has been bonding and getting along great. The whole group has really started getting into the swing of things and are excited for the campers to come!

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We have been spending our days scraping and painting, getting the art room and the gym set up and taking inventory of the beloved costume closet. The list included things such as blow up cactus, palm tree made of lights, three sombreros, and a mullet. Kez is back as our camp nurse and went to town the other day to stock up on supplies to keep us safe and sound all summer long. The counselors have also been really getting into planning morning Bible discussion for the cabins. I have heard some great topics being brought up during those hours.

Saturday was swim test day for the staff and everything went well. One of the counselors even swam extra laps! For those of you reading this who have taken the swim test, you know that is pretty much unheard of. The water was a warm 55ºF, which has coincidentally also been the temperature of the air for the last week. Throw in some rain and you’ve got a typical June in Maine.

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On Sunday we all got to go to the local church to meet some of the people who have been and will be praying for us all summer. Kez also gave a small talk on her missions in Haiti. When we got back to camp we got to take out the sailboats for the first time! The wind was really going and no one capsized! I won’t talk about what happened on the second day… Yesterday we added windsurfing to the list of waterfront activities the staff is enjoying. Dave told everyone who was going that they would need wetsuits and one brave counselor decided that he would probably be fine. He changed into a wetsuit about 10 minutes later. Did I mention the 55ºF water temperature?

At night we have been hard at work on our skits. Not to toot our own horn, but they are pretty great this year. We have some super creative, funny staff members! One of our girl counselors has improv experience and has been teaching us all the ropes with some interesting games. I think the people across the Bay can hear the laughter, I hope they know that this is only the beginning…

Second Session is here!

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I didn’t expect Second Session to come so quickly, but I’m glad it’s here! The best way to quell the First Session blues is with a new group of campers that are all so excited to be at camp and are ready to dive in head first (in some cases, literally.)

Camp is basically at maximum capacity at this point. There’s about 115 people collectively and we are using every single table in the dining hall. I’ve seen camp so full that we’ve had to open another cabin for the workers, but I’ve never seen camp so full that the worker cabin had nearly just as many people as all the other cabins.

It’s only been a couple days but I’d say the cabins are already well on their ways to becoming friends. We are just passed the “bonding” period of night activities and now we’re getting into the actual themed nights. Tonight, specifically, is Sports Night. Not all the campers are sports oriented but we make nights involving sports fun for everyone by leveling the playing field a bit. For instance, instead of using a regular soccer ball, we use a big yoga ball, which goes about a maximum of ten feet, no matter who’s kicking it.

We had the previously mentioned Wacky Olympics, and as far as levels of wackiness go, this group was the best I’ve ever seen! I’d go into detail, but it speaks for itself, really:

We’ve added a new activity to our repertoire, baking. I almost wish I was still a camper just for this class. It’s run by one of the cooks and just about the last person on earth you’d expect to be good at baking; one of the counselors of the oldest boys cabin, Pemaquid. These two help the kids in the class make the desserts for dinner every night. I think they’ve only made (melt in your mouth) chocolate chop cookies so far, but there are many more delicious baked goods to come.

The kayaking trip is about to leave, kicking off the new trip season. It’s just a one night trip, and only a little ways down the river, but it’s always been a camp favorite. In fact, there was a pretty long waiting list when sign ups were going on.

We’ve had perfect weather so far! Knock on wood. It’s been sunny and warm but not to the point of discomfort. I almost want there to be a day where it’s 95 degrees with no wind so camp can pack up and ship out to the sand bar, an area down the river a bit that is a perfect place to cool down. When the tides are right there’s a strip of sand everyone can hang out on and jump into the water off. We usually ferry people to and from the sand bar in our motor boats. It’s always one of my favorite things to do.

I think that’s all for now. Don’t forget about our Picassa albums and Facebook page  for quicker, shorter-winded updates. Much, much more to follow!

The Fun Never Ends

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We have reached  my favorite part of a session. It’s always somewhere right in the middle, where the campers have made great friendships and are all really close, but also where no one has realized that in a short week and a half we’ll be having to say our goodbyes.

On America’s birthday I left camp early with around 10 campers and staff members to watch them run in the annual 5 mile race. I can’t remember a time where the Chop Point racers collectively finished in under an hour and a half, but this year everyone was done in less than fifty minutes. In fact, one of our very own campers won overall in the women’s category, and another boy won overall for his age group. Success. The rest of camp joined us to watch the parade in town. To kick it off Chop Point was called to the front to dance the chicken dance, which was probably a bad idea, since half the campers had never heard of it before. They got the hang of it pretty quickly, though!

After the parade finished we headed home.

The evening activity on the 4th was Luau night, a camp favorite. It was basically monsoon-ing out so we had to move the decorations and cook-out indoors. I was one of the staff members running the night and in all honesty, was pretty nervous it wasn’t going to be as successful since we had to have it in the lodge. However, it just might have been the funnest I’ve ever had at a Luau night. In typical Luau fashion, all the cabins painted themselves and performed cheers, skits, and stories to go along with their paintings. We had a beach volleyball tournament where everyone had to sit, therefore remaining stationary while they played. It kind of leveled the playing field. Isle au Haut and Pemaquid were in the final match, and though it was back and forth until the end, Pemaquid pulled away with the win.

We then played “Musical Towels”, which is a lot like Musical Chairs, except with towels (I know, ground breaking). Also, instead of walking around the towels, everyone danced in the middle until the music stopped, and then scrambled to find a free towel to lay on. We ended the activity with a camp-wide limbo contest. A night well spent, as usual!

Yesterday was all switched around. We had a big soccer game in the morning, as well as some other activities. In the afternoon we tried some new never-before-played games at CP. We played kickball with kitty pools as bases and a slip-and-slide that took you to home. We also played a game where two teams threw wet sponges at one another to get people out, and if we caught  a sponge, one of our players was allowed to get back in the game. It was essentially dodgeball, but in this case, dodge-sponge. All in all it was a great way to cool off on a hot, sunny day.

After dinner we headed to Bath to go to the local fair and watch some fireworks (celebrating America’s birthday even though it wasn’t necessarily on America’s birthday). The campers had a great time buying fried dough and going on rides (I did a mixture of the two and it wasn’t necessarily the smartest decision I’d ever made). There was live music on the waterfront and for the last half hour or so a big group of Chop Pointers danced together. We definitely made fools of ourselves but it was worth it. The cherry on top of the night was the fireworks, and we all headed back to camp ready for bed.

Tonight is Cabin Theme Night, which never seems to disappoint. As I write this cabins are making their “plans of attack” in order to make their cabins the best they can possibly be. Updates to follow on how it goes.

Don’t forget to keep checking the Picassa account and Facebook page for more pictures and updates. More to come!

The Camp Vibes are Rolling!

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Chop Point Camp 2014 has  officially begun! It’s been a crazy, fun filled past few days.

We’ve had an unprecedented amount of good weather, usually foreign to our first couple of weeks of camp. This time last year we were all bundled up in our winter clothes, trying to stay warm in 50 degree weather. Now it’s wavering just above 80 degrees with perfect sailing wind and the occasional rainy cool down in the afternoon.

We started the week off right with the semi-annual Wacky Olympics. Cabins showed up to the soccer field dawning their wackiest get-ups. The field was a mass of capes, neon, and inside out clothing.

We played some games to get the camp vibes rolling, including (but not limited to) tug-of-war, three-legged races, and the ever-popular Sharks and Minnows. Everyone had a blast despite the fact that they were sweltering from the many layers of clothing deemed necessary to look “wacky enough”. Whether they were at a suitable level of wackiness or not is up for debate, but I’m gonna say everyone nailed it…

A lot of our evening activities have been focused on giving the campers opportunities to bond, like Get to Know You Games and Girls and Boys night in/out.

We also did my all time favorite night: Lip Sync! It was focused on musicals this time around. My favorite song choice was probably “Do You Hear the People Sing?” from Les Miserables, but my favorite performance was definitely from the group of kids that had been on the biking trip. They did a perfect rendition of “So long, Farewell” from The Sound of Music, rivaling the Von Trapp family themselves.

It’s exciting to see so many new relationships being formed and how well the cabins can bond, even though it’s only been a week. Campers that had previously never sailed a day in their lives are now taking the reins, and by the end of these three weeks are bound to be experts. I could just be biased, but I’d have to say sailing is one of the best activities Chop Point has to offer. Some of the best conversations I’ve ever had were on those Sunfish.

Two trips have left and returned and I think it’s safe to say that the new staff have really gotten the hang of things and camp is in full swing. It’s shaping up to be an unforgettable session!

If you enjoyed the pictures there’s a bunch more on our Picassa account, and many more to come. Stay tuned for some more posts (hopefully soon!).

The End

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Chop Point Camp 2013 is officially over.

The second session crew packed up and headed out a couple days ago after a fun-filled last few days.

In the past we’ve had a few themed nights, such as Peter Pan Night and Harry Potter Night. Well, this session we had Disney Night. All the counselors and some of the campers were given parts from a bunch of Disney movies, like The Little Mermaid and Hercules. They went to dinner dressed as their part, which was extremely amusing to see. Some of the costumes were scary realistic.

The campers were divided into movie groups, and their goal that night was to search for the princess to their movie, following a scavenger hunt to clues. Once they found their princess (with some help from the prince), they figured out where their villain was hiding and set off to attack them (with water balloons, of course). This night is a new favorite of mine.

We ended the week with the usual beach day at Reid State Park. The sun was out and a bunch of campers went surfing and swimming in the Atlantic Ocean. That night the camp went roller-skating until 1 a.m. Luckily we were all allowed to sleep in the next morning.

After that we spent the day shopping in Freeport, and then to our semi-annual banquet, honoring our last night at camp. Once the banquet was over, we changed out of our nice clothing and went to have a campfire at our fire pit. Anyone who wanted had the opportunity to speak.

The end came much too quickly for my liking… or anyone else’s, for that matter. Goodbyes were hard for everyone, but there’s still the promise of next year. A huge thanks to the staff and campers this summer for making Chop Point Camp 2013 one of the best summers yet. Till next year.

End of the Second Week

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The last week of Second Session has come, no matter how much all of us didn’t want it to.

A few nights ago we drove to Pemaquid Point, a place that one of our cabins is named after. It’s a beautiful spot on the ocean, with huge climbing rocks and a lighthouse. Everyone explored the rocks, and many pictures were taken that night. It started to rain, so we all hunkered down under tree coverage for some singing and a quick chapel.

We’ve also had the semi-annual cabin theme night. The judges dubbed this the best cabin theme night in the history of Chop Point. Now, I’m not sure if I’d go that far, but it’s definitely in the running. The judges couldn’t let themselves just have two cabins as winners, so the next morning at breakfast we had an award ceremony. It was called the Oscars, though it was not very much like the real Oscars award show. Cabin awards were given out, as well as individual awards like Best Supporting Actress/Actor and Best Actress/Actor.

We’re starting the last week off right with chapel atop Maiden’s Cliff in Camden. To get to where we have the chapel is about a mile long walk, but the view is worth it ten times over. After chapel the campers were given lunch, and then let loose into the town of Camden for some shopping and sight-seeing.

Tonight we are going to the farmhouse for Christmas in July, where we have some Christmas games and eat really delicious food.

Hard to believe there’s only a couple of updates left before the end. Be checking our Picasa albums and Facebook page for more picture posts!