Happy Halloween

Summer seems like a distant memory as the days get shorter and weather gets colder here on the Cape. We celebrated halloween in style with a teen retreat and some spooky fun in our office. This month is all go at camp as we get ready for the winter. The docks have been pulled out the pond, the boats stored inside and everything is packed away ready for the winter.



However we dont need to worry about the Camp Spirit being packed away as we gear up for an incredible winter reunion.

Winter reunion at the beach!

This years reunion is on Martin Luther King weekend and as always will be full of camp activites, singing and a whole bunch of suprises. Hopefully we wills ee you there!

Blog Relaunch!

We've been really busy recently with staff training and the start of summer camp so sorry for the lack of postings. Watch this space for stories and photos of summer camp and adventure trips...

Hayward Adventure Camp

In response to overwhelming demand, we are now opening registration for our first Hayward Adventure Camp. It runs from July 20th - 27th and features the best parts of both camp and adventure trips.
Participants get to sleep at Base Camp next to Camp Burgess, attend all the big Hayward events (dance, campfire, beachday), do the best CAPS (horseback riding, high ropes, climbing tower, tubing etc.), take a surf lesson, cycle to the beach and more. Meals involve a mixture of the best eating spots on the Cape (Hayward Dining Hall, Base Camp, the Pontoon Boat and the Burgess Dining Hall).
If you want to find out more, take a look at an itinerary or register, give us a call. at 508-428-2571.

Happy Pig

Today is the pigs third day at camp, and what a happy pig he is. As you can see in the pictures we had him fitted with a special harness. This means he is able to be outside all day digging holes which is what he does best. It also means that he can be trained to walk on the harness much like a dog. If he is able to do this it means he will be able to walk around camp and not be in his pen all day. It took him only a few minutes to be comfortable in the harness and he spent all day outside digging holes with his noise and finding grubs to eat. Pigs will put on a about a pound and a half in weight a day when they are piglets.

New Arrivals (Part 2)

Along with our new OE staff we have a brand new camp pet. His name is undecided as of this post (feel free to e-mail suggestions to lhastings@ssymca.org) and he is a pig! Laura picked him up from a farm near New Hampshire and brought him down for his new life as camp's composter. He will be in charge of eating the scraps of food left over from meals at camp and turning them into fertiliser for some of the new gardens around the new nature center. George, Jessie and the OE staff worked really hard building him a house which is more like a palace with a door, window and cosy bed.

Jessie hard at work building the pig palace

This was his first night at camp, after a three hour car ride he was very hungry. We were preparing to bottle feed him for a few weeks but he loves his food so much that he doesn't want milk anymore!!

Before coming to camp the pig had never been outside, in a car, with people or out of the pen he was born in. So coming to camp was a big change for him. Pigs are very intelligent, more so than dogs and are good animals to train. Were going to be spending these first few weeks getting him used to humans and his new environment. He has been living at Laura's house because he is just too little to stay alone right now in the pig palace. Here he got to meet one of her cats and they fell in love! The cats cry for him when hes at work and he gets excited when he comes home and snorts and grunts to them.

Ashley and Donna came round to spend some time with the pig, its important he feels comfortable around a lot of humans. As you can see he is adjusting to his new life just fine. He loves to sleep on the sofa or comfortable pillows.

Another important lesson for our pig is to get used to being around dogs as we have three who live at camp right now. He also got an A+ at this assignment. He was very good with the dogs and the dogs were very curious of him!

New Arrivals (part 1)

Spring has sprung at Camp and we have several new arrivals. First came the Outdoor Education Staff an intrepid bunch of instructors coming from all over America, England and Guernsey! Were very pleased to have them here and cant wait for an amazing Spring season. If you come down to Volunteer Day on May 10th you'll get to meet them and help us gear camp up for the summer!

First day and everyone is feeling a bit new!

10 minuites later camp works its magic

Ta-da! everyone has settled in well. From left to right top to bottom we have Ashley, Emily, Mary, Chloe, Jess, Ben, their fearless leader Carl, Ryan and Brian.

Notes on Camp

National Public Radio's "This American Life" did a great show all about camp. You can listen for free or pay to download at; http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=109

It made us laugh out loud
Enjoy

Camp Burgess & Hayward in Atlantic City

During the winter a strange thing happens. Camp staff converge in their fleeces and comfortable pants and shoes on cities across the country. They are easily spotted due to the abundance of "camp apparel", proud name tags and uneasy way in which they walk through the "big city". You may even spot them grouped together, often in a circle formation. Traffic accidents usually increase around these events as all these country people fall into the sights of the ruthless city drivers.
Camp Burgess & Hayward cut loose some of it's staff this week on Atlantic City for the American Camping Association Conference. Why Atlantic City and not some camp somewhere? Well apparently there aren't any camps that could fit everyone, there are thousands of camp professionals attending. They will be spending their time in workshops with some of the best camp experts around, learning about new programs and also meeting with the organizations that help us to recruit our international staff. Expect some great new things this summer.

Ski & Snowboard Adventure Photos

As promised, here are a few shots from our February Vacation Ski and Snowboard Trip to New Hampshire. It's not too soon to find out about next years trip. Call us now (508 428 2571).

Noah Shelter

On Tuesday night Lois, Debra, Silva and Laura went to the Noah Shelter in Hyannis to cook and serve a meal to roughly 80 homeless people living in the Hyannis area.

Lois was as usual an outstanding cook and we served chicken ala king (queen), rice, biscuits, green beans and two desserts.

As a camp community we hope to be able to do this once a month, it felt good to be able to put our camp values into action in a really real way.

Estimates from the National Coalition for the Homeless estimate 3.5 million people in America will experience homelessness in any given year of those 1.5 million are children. If you are over 16 years of age and want to volunteer to serve a meal with us or to donate food we'd love to hear from you.

You can e-mail lhastings@ssymca.org

Winter Ski and Snowboard Adventure

Donna and Ryan set off today with 10 gnarly teens for the snowy north country. They will spend the week based out of North Conway in New Hampshire where they will be hitting the slopes of Cranmore, Loon and Waterville Valley. If you're reading this, it looks like you missed this years trip, so make sure you give us a call next fall to book your spot for 2009.
Check back next week for photos from the trip.

Wampanoag Tribal Social

The Wampanoag Tribe are regular visitors to Camp Burgess and Hayward. The Burgess Dining Hall was the setting this Saturday for a regular social event, involving song, dance, drumming and good food. Tribe members have run some awesome programs for Burgess and Hayward in the past, including special campfires and cultural presentations. You can find out more about the Mashpee Wampanoag at http://mashpeewampanoagtribe.com/ or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wampanoag .

Camp staff at Mill Pond/Hanover branch

Camp Gordon Clark, our Mill Pond branch's Summer Day Camp, will be opening for registration on Thursday 14th February, from 8:30am to 10:00am. So if you are looking for something to do for the time you are not at Burgess & Hayward this summer, or something for your younger brother/sister/child, you should check it out.
Carl and Rachel will be around to talk to anyone who is interested in Camp Burgess and Hayward, and the Teen Programs. We will also be happy to answer any questions about the River Adventures program.

See you at Mill Pond.

Campers back at Camp!!!!

Last weekend Camp hosted our annual Winter Reunion. Campers arrived for a fun packed weekend of Camp activities and to reminisce about summers past.

Highlights of the weekend included a trip to the ice skating rink where we all showed off our skating skills, created ceramic mosaics for a peace path, made our own desserts and enjoyed other random/wacky Camp games. We would like to thank all the staff and campers who attended our fantastic reunion; hope to see you all again this summer!!

W.O.W.

Hey. Camp has been quiiiiiiet, but things are starting to get going again. Here are some things for the to do list, and to look out for in the next few weeks.

• Get your staff/camper/tripper applications into us. We are starting to fill up.
• Look out for photos of this weekends winter reunion. It's also not too late to sign up and join in the winter madness.
• Silva and Rachel will be making a show at the Camp America Fairs in Edinburgh (Jan 30th) and Belfast(Feb 4th). If you want to call in and say hi, drop them a line to let them know.
• We still have two places left for the Teen Ski Trip to New Hampshire during February Vacation. Call us now (508 428 2571 ) for deets.

Stay warm/dry/cool depending on where you are.

Important Website information

We are pleased to announce the launching of our new website on January 16, 2008. This new site is filled with wonderful information about our Association as well as Camp Burgess & Hayward. Like our old website, you will be able to find out more about our camp programs, find and print forms and documents, as well as register and make payments on line. During the transition time, our current website (www.ssymca.org/camps) is still functional, however the on line registration and payment systems have been disabled due to a technical problem with our current web hosting company.

It is very important that if you registered or know of people that may have registered on line during the time period of 12/17/07 through 01/08/08 that you contact our office (phone number 508-428-2571) to ensure that your registration was received and processed. We apologize for this inconvenience, but appreciate your cooperation with this matter. Again, thank you for your assistance and we look forward to seeing you during our 2008 camping season.

Happy New Year

Everyone at Camp Burgess and Hayward wishes you and your family a safe, happy, and healthy 2008

We started 2008 with a great look at some wildlife on Camp. Today a Red Fox was prowling around outside the Burgess office and ended up hunting a squirrel for its lunch. We took a few photos as the fox started to run off so you have to look really hard to find the fox in the photos!!

The Red Fox (Vulpes Vulpes) is native to most parts of the USA, Europe, Asia, North Africa and Canada. At camp we have at least two families we know of, one family who produced 6 cubs last spring under the "Y" building at Camp Hayward and a family who live near the Cardiac's at Burgess.

Red foxes are beautiful canines with a dark red fur, white belly, black legs and black tips on their bushy tails. Their eyes are yellow with black slits they way cats eyes look. Their main diet is made up from invertebrates like earth worms and snails although they do sometimes take larger mammals and are fond of fruits and berries in the fall.

It was great to see the fox out and about (foxes are Laura's favourite animals so she was particularly excited) and a great way to start the New Year at camp!!

The other news from camp is that the summer memories DVD has been sent out so you should all receive your copy in the next week. It was produced by Craig Gallacher the media/program director from this summer and includes highlights from all the sessions, all of your cabin photos and all the videos that were produced in the media program or during media CAPs. We are all very proud of this years DVD and all the work you put into creating your videos this summer, we hope you enjoy it and it gets you excited for summer 2008. If you just can't wait till the summer you can still sign up for winter reunion which is running from the 19th to the 21st of January and has all the excitement of summer camp, just colder!!!!!!

Hope to see you there!