Blast from the Past and the game of life

Hello, Skyline parents (and probably grandparents and definitely a few alumni who don’t even have campers here, but who still love everything about this mountain)! I will start by introducing myself. I’m Claire Marie Maceina, one of the Encouragers for 4th session. My job is, well, to encourage the counselors. The start of my affiliation with camp goes way back, however, to a time when Driftwood was still attached to Dog Patch by a hallway (why?), and when we had to wait on the pay phones on our counselor night out for someone to call (and hope no one was already on the phone when the call tried to come through). I was one of the first groups of mini campers to come to camp back in… well, a long time ago. I spent many years as a camper and then a counselor. Lots of my best memories of my childhood and adolescent years take place right here on this mountain, and I keep in touch with many friends I met and grew up with during those summers. And now, Skyline is the highlight of my daughter’s year too! I have never attempted a blog post before, but I’ve read Larry’s and if you’re willing to persevere through his, I figured I’d give it a go. ☺
Back home, when I mention I’ll be at camp for 2 weeks, I often get questioning glances… “what in the world do you do at camp for two weeks?” So, what better time than now to fill you all in. I’ll give you a little peek play-by-play of a day in the life of an Encourager at Camp Skyline. Like every morning, we start out at Morning Watch for a quick devotion to get our day started right! Unlike other mornings, I started with TWO cups of coffee after a night of check-in time for the counselors who had their nights out. It was fun getting to chat with the girls as they came in and talk about what they were up to for some off-campus time, but it was way past this lady’s bedtime. Brookwood delivered the devotion with a focus on grace. We could all give a little more, couldn’t we? And you are not seeing double today, it’s actually twinning Tuesday today, so there have been many duos around camp. There are a few groups of girlies matching with their counselors, and I even saw a Thing 1 and Thing 2! Classic!

After breakfast and cabin cleanup, it’s time for club meetings. This is also the time the staff meets together as a whole for reminders and information. My favorite part of this time is the Counselor Encouragement time. It’s just a couple of minutes where someone from the staff gives a little uplifting moment for the counselors and motivates them with some type of scripture or positivity. Today we listened to a song called Wild Rushing Wind. It was a beautiful time for reflection. Then I promptly rang the bell for 1st period… 5 minutes early. Those counselors looked at me like, WHAT IN THE WORLD is happening… oops! Onward to INSPECTION… dun, dun, dun! One of our roles is to inspect the cabins after they have cleaned to make sure the cabins are safe and sanitary. We use a checklist for each cabin every day. Then, at lunch, we announce the cleanest cabin for each side of the river. Today was Hillbillies and Summerplace Room 3! Nice job, ladies! Then, my favorite part of my job—visiting classes and talking with the counselors and campers. I get to know where they’re from, how the session is going, what are their favorite classes, and I even braided some hair and saw a bullseye in archery today. After lunch and rest hour, I got the opportunity to cover for the Home Science class. The plan was to discuss plants and plant an herb garden from seeds. I thought I would be doing a lot of teaching, however, the Leadership Training (LT) in the class totally took over—in the best way. It was amazing! She taught the lesson, led the planting, took us to paint the pots, and even had an activity ready for the fast finishers. The LT program must be doing a fantastic job getting our oldest campers ready for counselor life! To finish out the activities for today, we had a change of typical plans due to the anticipation of yucky weather. All the campers made their way to the gym instead of the usual camper choice time. During camper choice time daily, the counselors split into groups and cover different activities that are camper led. While part of the counselors is participating in those activities, the rest is spending some time with us, the encouragers. They have time to write letters, have quiet time, do puzzles, play board games, watch movies and, of course, chat with us. This is one of my favorite times of the day, and I am so glad camp has added this to the schedule.

With no weather to contend with for nighttime activity, we played The Game of Life. Now, this game does not have tiny cars with little pegs that fit into place. This is a life size game that spans the entire space of camp. They have 3 lives to make it across campus to the safe zone without being hit with a sock by a whole cast of counselors turned characters: brides, soccer refs, jungle animals and more! It has been a wonderful first two days at camp, rain and all! Counselors haven’t skipped a beat and neither have the campers. I hope you have enjoyed seeing what a day in the life of an Encourager can look like! Now it’s time for this old has-been to get some sleep to try to keep up with all your girls tomorrow!