the green spot blog

Perhaps it was the snow that inspired me late last week to get all of our Pond Hockey Tournament information ready. We're less than four months away from one of our favourite winter past-times. The work begins now though. The sheds and cabins have been moved, boards are being prepped. Both the hand Zamboni and Quadboni are being prepped for another season of hard work. Surfacing and leveling for Rink 2 will be done very soon. Then we wait for the cold to come. We look for a consistent temperature of about 15 degrees before our the first water trucks get called out. And then it's all about making ice day in and day out until Pond Hockey. We are looking forward to a full tournament again this year. We've already heard rumblings of new teams looking to enter. These events only get more and more exciting as we grow. Our Pond Hockey Tournament isn't just about the hockey. It's also an Open House. A great day to come see the site, meet our staff, and get a feeli...

Sometimes when people ask me if things have settled down at camp I want to chuckle. Not because it's a silly question - more because it can feel crazy how far in advance we are planning. Not only that, but a few short days after Impact ended we were training our Fall staff, jumped right into Summer's End Family Camp, and then started receiving Guest Groups on site. There really isn't a "settling" that happens here. Just transitions into the next season. Summer has been packed up in my office, it's true. I've rolled up the signs that read Lost and Found, Registration A-K, The Nurse and stored them for the winter. Summer planning takes a cat nap in September. By October, registration forms for 2018, speakers, and volunteers all start getting worked on. It's exciting to watch plans build and develop. Summer camp isn't the only thing we plan for right now. In fact, it's only one piece of what we do. Retreats and Fundraisers are being planned...

I think sometimes September is the month of "don't forgets". Don't forget your notebook. Don't forget your lunch. Don't forget your gym clothes. Don't forget to check your class schedule. Don't forget your locker code. I was watching the staff this last weekend as we served a large Guest Group. Each week seems little more busy than the last.  There's a lot of things to remind the staff as we welcome a new group on-site. There's a lot of... Don't forget to check your schedule. Don't forget to turn off the dishwasher. Don't forget to grab the activity binder. Don't forget the keys to the challenge course. Don't forget the code to the Playing Field Shed. Don't forget to check in with the Kitchen. That's a lot of remembering. It doesn't matter if you're a student at high school, college, or university - it doesn't matter if you're a staff member at Camp Evergreen. September is full of...

Summer 2017 has officially come to an end.  There were so many amazing things to be thankful for... One of them has to be our Staff Team. They are a phenomenal group of young people who put in an unbelievable amount of work to make camp happen. There are a lot of skeptical people out there who would say that camp isn't a real job, but when you account for the 16 or 17 hours a day that these young people are running around after campers, dressing up for atmosphere, drying tears, finding bandaids, telling stories to homesick campers, leading activities, giving their testimonies, teaching about God, and more... Looking at our staff - these are World-Changers. The other group of people I want to thank are our volunteers. Our volunteers come to us in different ways. Maybe they're one weekers like our nurses or kitchen staff, maybe they're high school kids who have given up working somewhere for the summer to serve at camp, or they're retired couples giving months...

  Thanks for your patience this last week! We seem to need a couple days to rest once Impact wraps up before getting our Blog summary up. We always get to it but it does take some time to recover from this... IMPACT! This is our oldest camp of the summer. One of the reasons why we leave it to the end is because we typically empty our tanks for this one. Evening programming after chapel every night keeps up until midnight, sleep in breakfasts, giant wide games, and more give Impact a different kind of flavour. We played a night game, had a late-night cookie ice cream bar down at the field, played our experiential game - Bible Smugglers where campers got a very, very small taste of what it's like to be a Christian working to shine God's light in a closed country, a night of extended worship, and finally - Homemade Jam. We laughed a lot, played tons of games, and had amazing conversations. I think what makes Impact different than a lot of camps - other ...