Week 8ish-First Follow-up

This past weekend was the first October Follow-up.  I finally got to meet some youth leaders and spend some quality time getting to know what it is they are planning for next weekend's Follow up.  On Friday night, I came to camp at about 4 to review the Learning plan and remember tasks I assigned myself for follow-up.  I began to get nervous for some unknown reason.  I met one of the head counselors from the summer and another volunteer over dinner.  Staff met in the program office afterward to discuss some of the projects that would happen.  The kids arrived at about 7:00-8:00.  Check in was a lot to keep up with.  Another intern and I were in charge of handing out information and checking off who had paid and who didn't.  Sometimes it was hard to tell who was the parent and who was the kid because some of the teens carried themselves like adults.  That night we were all truly exhausted.  I spent the night with a cabin full of 12 girls.  The next day I woke early to start breakfast for the group of about 30 people.  We made pancakes, sausage, put out oatmeal, and said the "Adam's Family Grace"... duh, nuh, nuh, nuh (snap, snap).  I supervised 3 girls as they operated the dish machine.  Others were playing a morning game to get the blood flowing for the day.  Afterward, we all met in a cramped circle to hold a planning meeting for the mentor/mentee program.  I initiated an icebreaker that didn't work so well because I had never seen it done.  We tried at it a while and decided to change the way it worked.  Everyone had a chance to get involved, and when the game was over I told the group why I was holding the meeting.  I really had no idea what the kids remembered about the program or whether they enjoyed it.  I told them that I would like to reinstitute the program and asked how many people would be interested in it.  A majority raised their hands to comply with continuation of the mentor/mentee program.  I asked the group why they thought Jameson Camp would have a program like this one, and one of the former campers (who is now a counselor or in training) gave an explanation about why having mentors is a valuable experience.  The group brainstormed about activities they could do with their mentors, and we wrote the ideas down on a large flip chart that the whole group could see.  The group was really quiet at first, but I got some really good ideas from them.  I think they are all excited to see what fun we can have.  The rest of the day Saturday centered around planning for the haunted house next Saturday, October 25 when Jameson Camp will host the Haunted Happening.  I am supervising a group of 4 kids as they morph one of the cabins into a "family-friendly" haunted house.  

Now it is Monday, and what a Monday it has been!  I arrived at 8:15 to start planning for the arrival of 40 FFA students from around the country.  Only 10 showed up.  We worked with them to transplant a bunch of "volunteers" or seedling trees to the other end of the campus.  This was really interesting because of the impact this will have on the future look and feel of Jameson Camp.  The environmental impact trees and shrubbery can have is amazing.  Good thing Chris was there today!  He was able to teach us all about the plants and wildlife involved in this "Day of Caring" brought to us by FFA.  The rest of the day was dedicated to more product-oriented things.   Tedious...