Blog

Hello!

My name is Marissa Minnick and I will be working with all of Camp Riverlea’s Volunteers (Orcs) this summer as Volunteer Manager! I am thrilled to have the opportunity to return to Camp Riverlea this year. After spending summer 2013, 2014, and 2015 as a Canoeing and Kayaking counselor at Riverlea, last year I was taking graduate courses at Appalachian State University, and just graduated with my Master’s degree in Elementary Education! I am excited to return to camp with this new lens on the role of education and leadership in camp, and to be back in a space that is as inviting and inspiring as a summer camp.

The Camp Riverlea staff is such a special team, and I cannot wait to welcome first year Orcs as well as returners to another exciting summer at camp! Every member of our staff helps make Riverlea a place for personal growth and new friendships, and each summer brings a fresh opportunity to learn something new. Riverlea’s Volunteers are an essential part of camp’s framework; I am excited to help support them as we work together to create a memorable experience for campers. Please feel free to reach out if you have questions about camp and this upcoming summer!

Cheers,

Marissa Minnick

We are excited to announce that Jessica Baroff will be our first ever volunteer manager! We know she will help us greatly improve the value of the Orc experience for our volunteers. For the last six summers, Jessica has been a general counselor with the Hobbits and Baggins and a bus counselor at the Duke stop. While her work with the campers is exemplary and reflective of her deep understanding of child development as well as her commitment to her future career as a first grade teacher, Jessica’s interest in teaching and mentoring young teens is an embodiment not only of her love for Camp Riverlea, but also her recognition of the lasting importance camp has for everyone in the community. The Orcs who have worked closely with Jessica have become outstanding junior counselors and always end their summer having learned skills applicable beyond the borders of Riverlea’s property.

We are grateful and excited that Jessica will be an integral part in the development of this program, and the principal person in its daily implementation throughout the summer. In the months that follow, she will work closely with us to design a teen leadership and CIT program that teaches our volunteers not only the specific things that great leaders do and say to be considered respectful, caring, flexible, inclusive, good at listening, creative, etc., but also how to further develop these skills (and many others) on their own for the rest of their lives.

The development and evolution of this program is currently underway. Already we have learned from many excellent programs at day and overnight camps across the U.S. and Canada, and will continue to seek out the ideas that will be most successful at Riverlea. Our excitement for the program continues to spread as we gain a more complete sense of what the implementation and growth of the program will look like, the ways in which initial training and continuous mentorship will improve, and the possible outcomes we — and our volunteers! — can expect. Please join all of us at camp in our hope and excitement for this new program.

More changes are coming to Riverlea in 2016! Through conversations with campers and counselors, and in various responses from parents via our anonymous online feedback forms, we began a conversation and eventually decided to collapse music and drama into a single department now called ‘performances’.

This has been a gradual process, one that we started before last summer when we decided to teach camp songs during all-camp morning and afternoon assemblies. This was part of a broader effort to strengthen our all-camp community, as well as to give new and younger campers more exposure and time to learn the songs that are part of Riverlea tradition and spirit. Moreover, we ask all counselors to help teach songs. This allows them to experience what we ask of the campers: to work together, to showcase their strengths, to venture outside their comfort zones and challenge themselves, and to step aside so others may have the time and space to do the same. Teaching and learning songs during assemblies will continue 2016 and beyond.

What we learned from conversations with campers is that music class oftentimes feels like something they do in school (and that this makes it less fun). Without disregarding the importance of camp tradition and the role it plays in feeling connected to a broader community, our goal was to reimagine a program broad enough in its implementation, but specific enough in its goals to allow counselors to easily guide the development of a group performance project that not only showcases each camper’s strengths (helping them feel efficacious and confident in themselves), but also challenges each camper to step outside her or his comfort zone (encouraging them to grow).

It is along the lines of challenge and teamwork that we decided to refocus our drama and music departments on collaborative performances. While teaching campers about the requisite skills of stage presence, projection, expression, motion, collaboration, role-taking, timing, creativity, improvisation, etc., we can structure the development of each performance around the strengths and growth of each camper. And, at some point during the last week of each session, each group will have the opportunity to perform their project.

I look forward to what our campers can come up with: song parodies, skits, musicals, silent films, choreographed dances, improv sketches, or whatever else they decide (or happen) to create, and to see the creative, collaborative, and challenging journey they have to take in order to get there.

Posted by Ben Harris

We are adding a brand new position at camp! The primary focus for this new person will be the continuous training and mentorship of the orcs, our counselors-in-training. We want this person to be a dedicated resource for orcs, someone they can come to with questions, concerns, or ideas, but also someone they can rely on to understand their individual strengths and weaknesses and provide them with meaningful support and constructive feedback as to how they can continuously improve and be more effective in their role at camp. Such constant feedback and support will undoubtedly accelerate the rate at which orcs acquire and practice new skills, help them to feel and become more efficacious in their work, and bolster aspects of  their confidence necessary to more effectively lead campers at camp (and, more generally, groups of people in other settings).

Beyond that, we are also in the process of developing a clearly articulated teen leadership program at camp. This is a brand new aspect of the orc program, and will help them to understand specific camp-related behaviors (for example: patiently and carefully building a relationship with a shy camper; being silly in a skit in front of the whole camp; asking critical questions) as generalized principles (being a good leader for everyone; challenging yourself; how to appropriately ask for and receive constructive feedback, etc.). In the same way that we work with staff to understand their responsibilities at camp as generalizable to life beyond Riverlea, we want to help the orcs develop an understanding of and be able to articulate the value of work at camp as it relates to broader workplace, interpersonal, and life skills.

This value of this new position can not be understated. For the first time, there will be a specific person whose first priority is supporting and mentoring our volunteers. And, because of this support, the rate at which each orc expands and grows into her or his potential will increase dramatically. All orcs will be better at working and connecting with the campers because of this mentorship and our new teen leadership program. Second, this person allows Annie and I to focus more clearly on supporting staff as they continue to develop new content-rich and meaningful lessons for all of our campers. Our program quality will continue to improve as counselors receive more support and resources to commit to creating and leading engaging activities. Third, the orcs will be part of a more structured leadership program that encourages creativity, increases self-efficacy, and connects them more closely to each other and to the campers. Everyone at camp will feel the immediate benefit of this new position at camp. The hardest part will be waiting until summer to see what happens next.