Opening Day!
For the 56th year, Windsor Mountain opened its proverbial gates to throngs of happy campers ready for a fun, enriching, and exciting experience. Our new Meeting House was put to good use yesterday in preparation for rain but thankfully, we had clear skies!
After 10 days of orientation, our WMI staff were prepared and more than excited to greet this season’s amazing campers! The community of new and returning campers and staff gathered together at 5pm to officially open the season. With the help of returning campers, we talked about some of the values that are important to our community (kindness, fun, acceptance, responsible risk, etc.) and the staff of each department at Windsor Mountain debuted the song that they had been practicing for months. Actually, the staff had no idea that they would be performing a song based on the subject matter chosen by the campers in the moment (cleaning objects, vegetables, etc), but hey, it’s camp! Like I said, our staff are prepared for anything, literally.
After gathering, we all enjoyed a spaghetti dinner prepared by our talented and hard-working kitchen staff, and then ended the day with our first campfire of the summer. Stories like Hermie the Worm, a story by Grego about his mishaps in the kitchen (fiction) were shared and songs like Rattlin’ Bog, a rousing rendition by the inimitable John Fitzsimmons (a WMI institution) were sung. Bedtime came and went, and the day started anew with tasty pancakes and bacon.
Our first Morning Meeting today was groundbreaking. Led by Shimon (Bungalow K counselor) and other staff, we got the authentic “Bubble” morning meeting as we have never seen it before. I laughed, I cried, it was better than Cats. Today is Rotation Day, where campers rotate between a few different activities to get a sense of camp life and how it works. Later today, our campers will be introduced to Program Planning, where the magic of class choice happens. Rotation 1 starts tomorrow, and we are excited to show our campers what we have to offer!
More updates to come.. stay tuned!