the green spot blog

The winter season is coming to a close here at camp. In just a few short days, we will be welcoming a number of amazing individuals to join our team. There is a mixture of emotions amongst the staff. We are excited to begin this new season and ready for change, but change is scary and transition can be hard. So I want to take some time to reflect on this past winter season.   The Winter Staff One thing Taylor Jenkins has said to me from day one was "Slow Down and Smell the Roses." In spring, summer, and fall, we have guest group after guest group. We are running from the kitchen to activities, from activities to the kitchen, from the kitchen to cleaning. It is busy, busy, busy! Often times, you feel like there is no time to slow down and really take it all in. But Winter is a very different story. Weekends are still busy, but for the most part guest groups are smaller in number. We are ever so thankful for all the volunteers who helped us out on the busier weeken...

You may recall that we had a big storm a couple of weeks ago . It's been quite nice ever since -- we are praying for rain again, because there's still lots of brown grass around. But despite the several days of 20C weather, some of the snow that fell during that storm is still sitting around! In shady areas, of course, but still ... Now that the ground has properly dried out, we're also cleaning up the fallen trees. I know, neither of these photos have people in them, which makes them less exciting. But I'm going to posting profiles about each of our spring staff in the coming weeks, which will be fun and exciting. Also coming up? A prank tale and news of Cabin Fever!

If you live in Southern Alberta, I'm sure you already know about the wild storm that went through on Wednesday and Thursday of this week. Here at Evergreen, I'm pretty sure we got more snow in those 24 hours than we'd had all winter. We also went without power or water for 24 hours, almost to the minute. It was a big adventure (we're still in recovery mode). In some ways, the storm was not ideal. The worst part is that we were supposed to have two groups in this weekend and we've had to change those bookings. I feel awful about it, even though there's nothing we can do. Even today, with the sun shining and the snow melting, the 3 km of gravel road that lead into the camp are pretty much impassable without a 4-wheel drive and a lot of our activity sites are swamped under the heavy, wet snow. We're so sorry, groups! The other big challenge, due to the power outage, was that our phone lines didn't work and we couldn't do much for office work. W...

One of the fun things we get to do in January and February and the beginning of March is hit the road. We've been to: Prairie Bible College , Bethany Bible College , Millar College of the Bible and Briercrest College . Teachers' Conventions in Edmonton (x3), Red Deer and Calgary . Missions Fest Edmonton and Breakforth Canada . The Bible colleges were for staff visits and recruitment, as I talked about last year . This year, Courtney, Alexis and Emily shared the adventure. We go to Teachers' Conventions to talk about our exciting and fun guest group opportunities with teachers -- we especially talk about outdoor education, team building and band camps at Teachers' Conventions. Jay, Courtney, Alexis and Emily have all been part of the Teachers' Convention stop offs. This year, Courtney did two presentations, about experiential learning, at the Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) Alberta conference. Word on the street is (aka, Courtney says...

We had an anonymous comment on our Impact post that I'll paraphrase -- "the blog makes it look like the only important thing that happens at Evergreen is summer camps." It's not a question, but a question is implied, and it's a fair question and I'd like to address it! Through July and August, summer and family camps aren't the only important thing that happens at Evergreen: they are quite simply the only thing that happens at Evergreen. As part of summer camp, we have an A/V crew that's on hand to capture the summer's progression: all the crazy games and cute kids and fun activities and chapel times and firesides and whatever else. In addition to taking sweet photos, they make weekly DVDs that campers can take home at the end of each week. Our campers' parents also sign a waiver that allows us to take their kids' pictures and use those pictures on our brochures, in newsletters and here on the blog. From September 1 - June 30 (or there abou...