Big Campfire
“Big Campfire” is a highlight of the session for campers here at GAC. At Big Campfire, each cabin group performs a skit, song, or dance. The evening provides a fun opportunity for kids to work together to provide a fun, entertaining performance for the community.
Our younger campers (Bears & Tigers) celebrated Big Campfire on Saturday evening, and our older kids (Lions & Eagles) had their Big Campfire on Monday evening. Here are a few highlights from this session’s Big Campfires:
Whadda Week!
My office is above the dining porch, so as I write this recap of this first week of Session 2, I’m listening to our Junior Counselors sing along to Taylor Swift songs on the Dining Porch while they package up popcorn for the Bears and Tigers cabin groups for Big Campfire (Saturday evening). Our Junior Counselors are a terrific group of young adults with a huge number of years of GAC experience between them.
WOWs
We’ve had a terrific week full of new friendships, new challenges, and a whole lot of bucket filling! One of our favorite ways to fill each other’s buckets has been writing WOWs. Each morning at assembly, Cheerio reads a few of the WOWs from the previous day, and then all of the notes are delivered in the camp mail. WOWs are a fun camp tradition that reminds us to thank, compliment, and celebrate each other.
Whadda Day! Podcast
Our daily podcast features campers and staff talking about what’s happening at GAC. Campers (usually with their cabin group) serve as hosts for our daily update, which is usually recorded right after Morning Assembly. You can listen or subscribe here.
Stat of the Day
A new and fun addition to morning assembly 2019 has been the “Stat of the Day.” Each day, Soy and the other hosts present a stat challenge question. Each cabin group can put one guess into the yellow “Stat of the Day” box. The winning guess gets the special “Stat of the Day” trophy on their dining table for the next day.
Special Events
We love having special celebrations here at camp. They give us an excuse to dress up (or stay in our jammies) or just get a little crazy. Here are a few picture highlights from some of this week’s special events:
Tigers Social & Bingo Night
Crazy Cranium Day
Big Campfire
Carnival
Coming up in Week 2
We’ve got more fun planned for the second week of the session, including International Day (Tuesday), the Sports Dance (Thursday), and our end of session celebration banquet and Appreciation Campfire (Friday). We’re also going to be focusing on some important friendship skills, including asking questions & listening, staying calm, and being a great friend.
The second week of the session always flies by here at GAC, and we are going to make the most of our time together by remembering to have fun, make friends, and grow!
Be sure to download the Campanion App if you want to view photos and keep up with this week’s news on your phone!
Water Conservation in Action
Our water provider, China Peak Ski area, had some issues with their water system on Friday morning, and we found ourselves without water for a few hours. Fortunately, we were able to get water delivered to camp within a few hours and kept a steady series of water truck deliveries on Friday and Saturday so that we always had plenty of potable water for drinking, hand washing, dish sanitization, etc. As of yesterday afternoon, the water problem was resolved at China Peak and our regular water delivery from China Peak resumed at the normal level.
During the short period of time (a few hours on Friday) when we did not have running water, our operations team used creek water to keep toilets flushing properly.
Because of the water deliveries, all normal water use was encouraged, including showers. We did encourage campers to use “start-stop” showers (turning off water while lathering) to conserve water, and many campers enjoyed the option of taking a “lake shower” (with biodegradable soap we provided). Many kids thought that was pretty fun.
At Saturday’s dinner, to be cautious with our water supply, we turned off the juice machines to conserve some water, which probably had the most impact on the campers, who really like their juice. As of today (Sunday), all regular water use (including the POG juice machine, hot chocolate machine, and regular showers) is back to normal.
During the short period of time on Friday morning when we did not have water flowing throughout camp, we provided campers with fresh drinking water in igloo containers throughout camp and had plentiful baby wipes and hand sanitizer available at all the bathrooms and at the dining porch.
Campers were never without drinking water or the ability to sanitize their hands. Our food service operated as normal, albeit with paper plates, and camper activities were not affected. And our operations team were heroic in their efforts to keep water flowing through all of our bathrooms.
We now have a 5,000 gallon back-up tank installed (specially delivered Friday evening and installed by our operations team) in case we ever have another issue with our water provider. Rest assured that the juice machine and hot chocolate machines (two camper favorites) are back in action.
Safe & Sleeping at GAC (No Earthquake Impact)
We’ve received a few calls asking whether we were impacted by the earthquake near Ridgecrest. We are all safe here at GAC. A few people felt the quake, but most of us didn’t. We were at Appreciation Campfire celebrating the end of Session 1. Here are our newest 5-Year Campers with their blankets! Campers are sleeping and will be heading home (Session 1) or to Shaver Island (monthers) tomorrow morning.
Big Campfire Fun
“Big Campfire” is a highlight of the session for campers here at GAC. At Big Campfire, each cabin group performs a skit, song, or dance. The evening provides a fun opportunity for kids to work together to provide a fun, entertaining performance for the community.
Our younger campers (Bears & Tigers) celebrated Big Campfire on Saturday evening, and our older kids (Lions & Eagles) had their Big Campfire on Monday evening. Here are a few highlights from this sessions Big Campfires:
Carnival Day was a Blast!
As always, Carnival was a blast for all campers and staff!
Whadda Week!
We’ve had a terrific start to Session 1 with a week full of new friendships, new challenges, and a whole lot of bucket filling!
WOWs
One of our favorite ways to fill each other’s buckets has been writing WOWs. The WOW record was set this week on Thursday, when there were 134 encouraging notes written in one day! Each morning at assembly, Cheerio reads a few of the WOWs from the previous day, and then all of the notes are delivered in the camp mail. WOWs are a fun camp tradition that reminds us to thank, compliment, and celebrate each other.
Stat of the Day
A new and fun addition to morning assembly has been the “Stat of the Day.” Each day, Soy and the other hosts present a stat challenge question. Each cabin group can put one guess into the yellow “Stat of the Day” box. The winning guess gets the special “Stat of the Day” trophy on their Dining table for the next day. A few of the stats from this week include:
How many big boxes were delivered in our food service delivery?
Answer: 254
How many individual cereal box servings were in the commissary?
Answer: 798
Special Events
We love having special days here at camp. They give us an excuse to dress up (or stay in our jammies) or just get a little crazy. Here are a few picture highlights from this week’s special events:
Cabin Theme Day
Crazy Cranium Day
Singing & Dancing
We’ve been belting out lots of songs, including Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” on the Dining Porch during meals. Campers and staff have also been showing up early to morning assembly for some extra dance time.
Have you been keeping up with Whadda Day?
Our daily podcast features campers and staff talking about what’s happening at GAC. You can listen or subscribe here.
Coming up in Session 1, Week 2
We’ve got more fun planned for the second week of the session, including Carnival Day (Sunday), International Day (Tuesday), the Super Hero Dance (Thursday), and our end of session celebration banquet and Appreciation Campfire (Friday). We’re also going to be focusing on some important friendship skills, including asking questions & listening, staying calm, and being a great friend.
The second week of the session always flies by here at GAC, and we are going to make the most of our time together by remembering to have fun, make friends, and grow!
Be sure to download the Campanion App if you want to view photos and keep up with this week’s news on your phone!
Unplugged Friday
Due to a planned power outage by PG & E, GAC, our campers won’t be the only people unplugged here at GAC tomorrow.
Our office staff and everyone else here at camp will also be unplugged all day Friday, June 28. We will post photos and news after we get our power back online, but please be patient as we will have some catching up to do!
Enjoy your Friday and relax in the knowledge that you do not need to keep refreshing your photo feed. Maybe you can try unplugging a bit, too! 🙂
Happy #unplugged Friday!
About Those E-Letters…
We’re excited to be offering the “e-letter” option this year. You can add an “e-letter” form to an email you send your child, and it will be printed out with your email and delivered to your camper with the regular mail (after dinner each evening except Sunday).
A Few Reminders…
Sending your camper an “e-letter” form does not mean they are going to write you back right away. Just like with regular letter writing, sometimes campers get busy, are having too much fun, and don’t have time to write you back right away!
There is a lag between the time you send your camper an email (with or without an e-letter) and when your camper receives it. Sometimes campers are out of camp at one of our outposts (Shaver or Backpacking) for a few days. They will eventually get it, but not right away.
Your camper is not sitting by a computer or phone receiving your email or the e-letter form. They will receive a printed out copy. We’re old-fashioned up here!
Your camper will need to write the letter and drop it off in the mail slot in order for us to be able to scan and send it back to you.
Many years ago we offered a similar service, and parents started contacting us to say they hadn’t received anything back from their camper. Know that we do not require campers to respond just because you’ve sent them an e-letter. This is not something we can track.
We will make sure that your camper writes home (via letter or e-letter) every Wednesday and Sunday evenings for our “Mail Meal” dinners.