Greening camp

Tuesday, August 24th, 2010

This is a post I wrote a few weeks ago about greening our camp for the FJC called the Campfire:

How do you start a green camp, from the ground up?  This is one of the questions we have set out to answer through the development of Ramah Outdoor Adventure at Ramah in the Rockies.  As a brand new camp, we have had an amazing opportunity to put into place green practices that will become part of our camp tradition.  As our summer draws to a close, I believe we have made steps in the right direction, but are still only beginning to become a truly “green” camp.  Perhaps the most important two lessons we have learned is that greening a camp does not have to cost additional money, and that at times good intentions do not always translate into practical solutions.

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Final update from camp

Sunday, August 15th, 2010

Our first Shabbat post-camp has come and gone.  Like each Shabbat at camp, it started with the lighting of the candles and ended with the recitation of Havdallah.  But unlike the nine at camp, this past Shabbat was lacking the hours of singing, the active learning and hanging out with friends that defined each of our Shabbatot at Ramah.

Over Shabbat I had a chance to reflect on the summer that has passed.  However, in this final blog post of the summer, I have decided not to attempt to recap an entire summer’s worth of stories, but instead focus on three vignettes that capture the spirit of Ramah Outdoor Adventure.

Vignette #1:

For those of us present during our first session, we will never forget Josh’s Bar Mitzvah.  Having arrived at camp only hours after his family moved from their house, Josh was going to be returning to a new city on the last day of camp.  Because his parents were in a new city, they had decided to postpone celebrating Josh’s Bar Mitzvah until they had found a home community.  When we learned about this at camp, we asked Josh and his parents whether they wanted us to mark his Bar Mitzvah at camp.  The answer was a resounding YES.  And celebrate we did!  This was one of the finest examples I have seen of a community coming together to celebrate one of its own.  Members of our staff worked with Josh in the two weeks before his Bar Mitzvah to help him learn all of his parts. The entire camp came to our 6:30 Shacharit service to see Josh called to the Torah, and to also join in the festivities and dance together as a community.  Josh’s bunk mates dressed in their finest (clean) clothes for the occasion, and presented him with a piece of topaz that they had found on the “chava,” or “ranch.”  His counselors then spoke to him about what this moment meant for them and hopefully for him.

As I have written numerous times, Ramah at its core is a place to experience intense and intentional Jewish community.  Josh’s Bar Mitzvah celebration was an unforgettable way to experience the transformative power of this community.

Vignette #2

Ask any of our chalutzim, and most will tell you that the highlight of their camp experience was going on their “masa,” or excursion.  These masa’ot were a chance for a small group of chalutzim to go out into the backcountry and experience the magic of the outdoors and the bonds that one makes with peers when one is on the trail.  As the director, I was not able to go on any of these masa’ot as I needed to stay back at the Chava to work on administrative matters and to stand ready should any of the masa’ot need help.  But remaining at base camp did not mean that I was not able to experience the sheer excitement present on these masa’ot.  On Fridays around 11:30 am, I would begin to hear singing and cheering.  As each group arrived back at the chadar ohel, they would march into camp singing the song that they learned on the trail or cheering as a group for having made it back to camp.  I loved listening to these sounds – these were the sounds of happy chalutzim who had just completed one of the most intense and challenging weeks of their lives.  Each time, I would run out and greet them, and ask them about their trips.  Invariably, the chalutzim would say “amazing” or “incredible” and then start talking at 5000 words per minute about all that had happened.  Their excitement was palpable, and almost contagious, even if I could barely make out a single word of what they were saying!!

Vignette #3

Our summer was successful for many reasons:  the program, the campers, the site, etc.  But above all, it was our staff that made our first camp season a success.    From the trainings that we began via phone months before camp started, to the last hug goodbye on Wednesday morning, our staff never ceased to amaze me!  Comprised almost entirely of upper class college students and professional educators, our staff worked tirelessly to ensure that our chalutzim had a transformative experiences both at base camp and on the trail.  While I could write pages about our staff, I will mention just two comments I heard at the staff banquet that I believe encapsulate the spirit of our team.

We ended the staff banquet by sitting in a circle and sharing one lesson we learned during our summer.  One counselor commented that this summer was the first time she had been a member of a “community of individuals.”  I understood her comment to mean that at our camp, each person was encouraged to express his or her own individuality in such a way that was supported by the broader mission of the community.  We all were working for a common purpose, but we remained at our core strong individuals with unique personalities.    The second comment was made by one of our first time counselors (entering junior year of college).  She said that this was one of the only times she has been so completely dedicated to the mission of an organization that she was able to put her entire self into making it a success.  She was willing to work the crazy hours and continue to give 110% because she so wanted to see our community succeed.  As I listened to these two counselors, I smiled inside knowing that we had achieved one of the main goals of our camp: creating intense and intentional community where each person is valued for their contributions to the greater good.

In short, our inaugural summer was a wonderful success!  After a week off, we will be back in the office preparing for 2011.  Registration is open (we already have over 10 chalutzim registered for next year!)  If you’d like to register now, please click here.

The dates for 2011 are: 

n Session I: Tuesday, June 21st -Monday July 4

• This session is open to Chalutzim entering grades 5-11

n Session II: Wednesday, July 6th – Monday, August 1^st

• This session is open to chalutzim entering grades 5-11.

n Session III: Wednesday August 3rd – Monday, August 15^th

• This session is open chalutzim entering grades 3-8.  In the fall we are likely to be adding additional programs during these two weeks, so please check back soon or call the camp office for more information

Enjoy the last few weeks of August. Please be in touch if you want to talk more about camp. Our next blog post will be going out before Rosh Hashana.

Sincerely,

Rabbi Eliav

Update from camp #13

Sunday, August 8th, 2010

Wow! It is hard to believe that this time next week our ranch will be empty, except for the few people on our maintenance staff who will be helping to ready it for the winter.  What a summer it has been, and what a wonderful way to end the summer with this smaller once week program.

This weekend, our ranch has been filled with life!  All of our chalutzim returned from their Masa on Friday.  Overall, they had a wonderful time on their hike.  Like so many of the past few days, it rained for a few hours on their Masa, and the chalutzim had the opportunity to use their tarp building skills to stay dry.  I was told that they all slept out under tarps rather than put up tents.  Ironically, in rainy weather, a tarp will keep you dryer than a tent, and because we are so high in the mountains there are almost no mosquitoes to worry about.

In addition to the regular Metayalim (6^th/7^th grade program), we also have been running a small family camp here for the past few days.  For the most part, our two programs have remained separate, except for meals and some of the services (family camp sleep in a different part of the ranch about a 7 minutes walk from our chalutzim’s tents).  One of the nice aspects of having a family camp here at the same time as our chalutzim is that we really do feel like a big family.  Throughout the summer, the unifying element of every session has been the sense that we are one big Kehillah (community).  Even though many members have changed, the feeling has remained the same.  It is wonderful to see this same sense of community continue when we have so many “real” families here as well.

In what is perhaps a record for a Ramah Camp outside of California, we were able to conduct every Friday night service outside on our field, and not have to go to our rain plan even once for Kabbalat Shabbat.  This Friday, it looked as though we would be davening under our large white circus tent as it rained on and off all afternoon.  But about 20 minutes before services, when the sun broke through the clouds,  Stevo, our Rosh Shira, said that he would get some counselors to go and dry all the benches if it meant that we could conduct services outdoors.  And so sure enough, as the rest of us were up at the tents dancing our preshabbat Israeli dances, our staff readied our benches.  By the time we all danced down to the field, the sun shone brighter than it had all day, and the benches were completely dry.

In addition to the usual eating, singing and resting one of the highlights of Shabbat was the “Lorax” debate that the Metalyalim had about who should be responsible for the damage done by the people who cut down all the Truffela trees.  We actually had to cut off the debate after an hour and fifteen minutes because it was time to move to the next activity.  Given the pace of the camp on most other days, on Shabbat the chalutzim all appreciated being able to sleep in (until 8:00am) and having down time to sit and play cards or just to hang out and chat.

Today was a full day of programming including: paper making in arts and crafts, slack line and team building exercises in the low ropes, relay races in shmirat hagoof, soccer/ ultimate (our unique Ramah Outdoor Adventure sport) during sports, service projects on the farm (including time with the chickens) and much much more.  Tomorrow we have another full day– filled with biking, horseback riding and climbing– our last of the summer.  Our hope is that by the end of the session, each chalutz will have had a chance to experience each of the activities offered at camp.  Hopefully next year they will be able to return for a longer session and actually be able to choose a few activities in which to go in depth.

Over the past few days, I have also had an opportunity to speak with each member of our staff individually to hear about how they would like to continue with Ramah Outdoor Adventure.  It warms my heart to know that most of our staff want to return for another year, and many of them are planning on doing so (“sadly” some of our older staff members are beginning fulltime jobs that will not allow them to return for 8 weeks next summer).  As I have written so often in these blog updates, the success of this summer is due in a large part because of the extraordinary staff we have here at the Chava.  Our staff are some of the most committed group of camp counselors I have ever seen.  They each see the success of this camp as being part of the legacy they would like to leave.  And therefore, so many of them are working late into the night putting down their ideas and programs on paper so that on the off chance they do not return next year, whomever takes over their position will be able to continue the work they are doing, and not have to worry about recreating the programming that the inaugural staff already implemented.

The next update I will send, the last of the summer will be a much more nostalgic one.  For now, we are working to ensure that our last day of full programing is as well run, challenging and meaningful as our first few days.  We operate at 100% until our last chalutz leaves the chava  on Tuesday morning.

Final thoughts on session II

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Sitting here in my house listening to the constant drops of rain, it is hard to believe that it is August 1^st and that we are now in our intersession before our last session.  Yet, this morning, we said goodbye to 56 of our campers, all of whom were here for our session II.  Like so much else this summer, it was an amazing session filled with countless highs and occasional lows.

At Havdallah, on Saturday night, one member of each ohel (tent) shared a high point of the summer.  While there were mentions of the masaot (excursions) the theme that emerged again and again were the close friends that chalutzim made during their time at camp.  I sat there smiling thinking about all the conversations I had with potential chalutzim and their parents over the course of the year.  The concern that emerged most often was “will I be the only person who does not know anyone?”  And 100s of times during the year I reassured potentialchalutzim that most people coming know one or two people at most.    Sure enough, over the past two weeks, we were able to transform ourselves from a group of 56 individuals into a single united kehillah (community).

Ironically, our kehillah became even more united after the week we spent in small groups on massaot (excursions).  During these massaot, chalutzim had a chance to become very close to a few other people with whom they spent 24 hours a day and on whom they relied to get them through the day.  What we witnessed on Friday, when everyone returned from their Massaot, was that chalutzim not only felt connected to those on their own masa, but that they also felt a closer bond to those who were not on their masa.  I believe that this “trans-masabonding” was due to the fact that they all had similar experiences (like cooking dinner over a camp fire, huddling together during a thunderstorm, waking up early and working to the point of exhaustion in the late afternoon, encouraging each other to keep going  etc).

Our last Shabbat was the perfect way to end the session.   We had time to sing together as a Kehillah, time to relax, time to study, time to play sports, time for some group bonding activities and of course, time for a festive Seudat Shlishit, AKA final banquet.   Packing on Motzei Shabbat posed an interesting challenge because there is no electricity in the camper tents (they live in a technology free zone).  We figured it would be easier for them to pack if they had bright lights, and not just their flashlights.  So after Havdallah, we drove seven cars over the camper tents, pulled them up to the front of them and turned on the lights on bright.  It was quite a scene to see all the chalutzim packing by the light of headlights with the din of the running motor in the background.  The extra lights enabled everyone to pack in time to make it to the 10:30 slide show.    After the slide show, chalutzim had a choice between going to sleep or coming to the field to “cloud gaze” (sadly there were no stars on our last night).  Not surprising, most chalutzim chose to stay on the field until 1:00am chatting in small groups before we sent everyone to sleep for a few hours.

This was the first time any of us on staff had ever run a two week camp program.  Overall, I believe it was a successful trial, one that we will replicate next year during session I & III (June 21-July 4^th & August 3-15^th) .  But I think I speak for many of us (chalutzim and madrichim) when I say that one of the challenging aspects of this session was that just as we were really coalescing as a kehillah, just as we were really getting to know each other on a deeper level, it was time to pack up and leave.  As I have written before on the directors blog, much of the research on the effectiveness of Jewish camping shows that three and four week sessions are far more effective in the long run at instilling a deep sense of Jewish identity and Jewish passion than are two week sessions.  The reason appears to be that campers who come for longer build deeper relationships with each other and have additional Jewish experiences with their pears.  My hope is that many of our session II campers from 2010 will return to our Kehillah next summer and be able to continue building the friendships they began this summer and continue to have intense meaningful life changing moments with each other, both in our adventure activities and in our Jewish activities.  Of course, because the sessions for next summer are different from this summer (session I & III are two weeks and session II is four weeks) we will have to see how the different communities we created this summer will come together next year during the different session.

Speaking of next summer:  Registration is already open and chalutzim have already registered!

Session I: Tuesday, June 21st -Monday July 4
This session is open to Chalutzim entering grades 5-11
Session II: Wednesday, July 6th – Monday, August 1st
This session is open to chalutzim entering grades 5-11.
Session III: Wednesday August 3rd – Monday, August 15th
This session is open chalutzim entering grades 3-8.  In the fall we are likely to be adding additional programs during these two weeks, so please check back soon or call the camp office for more information

As a thank you to our founding families, we will not raise tuition for you in 2011.  We will even offer the same early bird discounts to our founding families that we offered in 2010.

Until January 1 the rates are:

Session I: $2,000

Session  II: $3,800

Session III: : $1, 800

To register, please click here:

Update from camp #10

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

We had a wonderful weekend!  Our Shabbat preparations began on Friday afternoon when each edah (age group) gathered in small circles to reflect on the week that had just transpired.  We then moved into a larger circle for Israeli dancing.  At 6:30 we began to sing a niggun (wordless melody) taught by our Rosh Shira, Stevo, and danced down to the field where the benches were set up for Kabbalat Shabbat.  For the first time at our Ramah camp, we held a Kabbalat Shabbat service with guitars and drums.  A few times during the service, we all got up to dance together in the field.   By the time we got to Maariv, we had put away the instruments, and the storm clouds began rolling in.  We davened a relatively quick Maariv and then went into the chadar ohel (dining hall) for dinner.

While the rains never came, we were privy to an incredible light show in the middle of dinner.  About 20 minutes into our dinner, most of us went onto the back porch of the dining hall to watch the sky.  In the distance were fast moving black storm clouds with lightening.  But overhead was blue sky.  And between the blue and the black was an incredible array of orange and red lights mixed with white clouds.  We stood on the porch together watching the passing storm.  We also said the bracha that one recites over seeing a natural wonder.

After the meal (salmon, grilled vegetables, potatoes, salad and brownies) we sang together, including some of the new Ramah Outdoor Adventure favorites.  That night, one of the counselors reported that his 8^th grade camper did not want to go to sleep because “this had been the best Friday night of his life!”

Shabbat day was again filled with song, learning, prayer, free time and sports.  Because Shabbat does not go out until 9:00pm in the Rockies, one has time to do pretty much anything one wants to do on Shabbat; campers read, played gaga, Frisbee, soccer, cards hung out etc..  Havdallah was lead by our Bogrim girls who reflected on how far they have come as individuals and as a group in the past six days.  Click here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pb2CCNG9cW8 to see some grainy footage of our Havdallah service.  As always we ended our Havdallah with a singining of the camp song, which you can see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLa2zLexWhc .

This morning we had one regular activity period followed by a special bunk activity period.  By midday we transitioned into masa (excursion) mode.  The Metayalim campers (6/7^th grade) boarded a bus at 2:00pm to head to the Arkansas river for the night before they set off on their rafting/farming/hiking trip.  They return to camp on Tuesday evening to resupply before heading out Wednesday morning for two nights of backpacking.  The older campers split up into their four groups (rafting/biking, climbing, hiking and horseback riding).  These groups spent the afternoon preparing group gear (and food).  Tonight we had a Bar-B-Que together before each group returned to putting their finishing touches on the packing.  Monday morning we have a regular wake up (6:00am) followed by an early service and breakfast so that the groups can spend the majority of the day on the trail.

It has been a privilege to watch this group of campers build a community here at the Ramah Chava.  Only a week ago, our campers were in their homes wondering what it would be like at camp.  Six days ago almost no one knew anyone else.  And in this short amount of time, we have been able to build strong connections within our group.  Campers from Israel, Canada and 15 states have come together to create yet another strong Ramah Outdoor Adventure community.  As I wrote to our first session campers, we cannot wait to see them here again next year, but for those of us who are lucky enough to be here all summer, we feel  blessed that we have been able to be part of this community as well.  And as we look ahead to session III, that begins next week, we are excited to think about how this third community will build upon the successes of the first two.  Our task in the coming years is to integrate all of these communities as our camp grows and our sessions expand.  Because in each session our community is built on shared values, my hope is that when we begin to integrate campers from different sessions, we will have a common framework from which to continue the community building we are doing during our inaugural summer.