News

March GATA Webinar

March 4, 2021

For this month's Gold Arrow Teacher Academy (GATA) webinar on Wednesday, March 10 at 5pm PT/8pm ET, we are focusing on Growing Grit! Grit, which is another word to describe the important character trait of "resilience," is predictive of student well-being and success. In this webinar, we'll cover ideas and strategies for helping students grow the grit muscles they need to thrive both in and out of school. We know from decades of research that one of the most useful predictors of student success is how persistent they are when faced with a problem. This was catapulted into the public conversation by Angela Duckworth and her groundbreaking research on grit. Many of you have probably seen her TED talk in a professional development meeting! In this webinar, we'll share what we've learned about teaching kids to develop grit at camp and share ideas for how you can help kids develop grit and how you can recognize kids for using grit in your classroom. This webinar is free for all GATA members! If you are not yet a GATA member, you can join here or register just for the webinar here. Even if you're not able to attend the live webinar on Wednesday, you'll be able to access the recorded webinar and the accompanying resources.

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Soy’s Well-Deserved Recognition

March 2, 2021

We are so lucky to have such amazing staff at Gold Arrow Camp, and every so often they are recognized for their incredible work outside of GAC. We want to take this opportunity to congratulate our very own Andy "Soy" Moeschberger on being awarded not one, not two, but three awards this year! He has worked so hard on many projects, especially legislative work to keep camps running and at the forefront of discussions amongst our political leaders. His work does not go unnoticed and we are so glad that it was noticed on a national level! Grant Gerson Service Award - WAIC (Western Association of Independent Camps) -The Grant Gerson WAIC Service Award pays tribute to those who make an extraordinary contribution to WAIC and to the advancement of the camp movement, and who have played an important role in the success of the association. Southern California/Hawaii Service Award - ACA SoCal/Hawaii (American Camp Association) -The Service Award is given as recognition to exceptional service to camping and the local area. National Service Award - ACA (American Camp Association) -This Service Award is designed to recognize continued and increasing service beyond the field/affiliate office level.

Strength Spotting: Becoming Your Best Self

February 23, 2021

We are excited to be able to offer some of the friendship and fun from camp in a new setting - Outschool! Gold Arrow Camp has recently become a partner organization with Outschool in order to teach our own courses on their platform. Outschool is a wonderful marketplace that offers live online classes for children. There is a variety of over 100,000 live online classes to choose from and we are thrilled to offer one of those (& hopefully many more soon)!

Our first course offering, Strength Spotting: Becoming Your Best Self, includes some of the most popular activities from our Junior Counselor workshop on character strengths and was also a well-received part of our online camp sessions last summer. Led by long-time year-round staffer and strengths guru Delta, the course helps kids identify their strengths and learn to lean into them as they navigate school, friendships, and life. It’s a one-hour course that promises to be exciting and social.

If you would like to sign up for our character strengths course, use this link to get a $20 credit toward your first Outschool enrollment. Once you sign up with Outschool, the credit will automatically be applied to your first course. Check out all of the great academic and non-academic courses offered on Outschool, and we’ll let you know when we have more of our courses available for you.

We hope to see you in one of our upcoming strengths courses!

New GAC Program – GACpacking!

February 2, 2021

Does your camper enjoy backpacking and hiking in nature? If so, this program is a wonderful way to do all of that and more. GACpacking provides an introduction to backpacking skills and life on the trail in a fun and compact one-week trip. Our GACpacking program is designed to serve as a bridge between the one-night backpacking experience offered as a regular part of our camp program and the Outdoor Leadership Course. On the trail, our hikers will have the opportunity to prepare their own meals, practice map and compass navigation, apply Leave No Trace principles and ethics, participate in sustainable backcountry living, and study wildlife biology. Each day there will also be time for reflection, dialogue, and discussion. For more information about the GACpacking program, please visit https://goldarrowcamp.com/why-gac/gacpacking/ or email mail@goldarrowcamp.com with any questions.