My Camp George Story: Summer 2014

The Camp George Blog

Home » My Camp George Story: Summer 2014

By: Sam Shindler-Glass, alumnus

My CG story began in the summer of 2014, finishing up high school and getting on a plane a day later. Catching a glimpse of a Camp George t-shirt waiting for me at the airport, I was driven to the Kimmel Centre, where a vast number of such t-shirts were there to be seen, and a set of buses lay in waiting. I was overwhelmed and welcomed by names, faces I didn’t know yet, but in this group would be my unit heads, assistant unit heads, co-staff and friends for the coming summer and for the three summers that followed. After it was discovered that I could be of help on Bus 6, Schneids and Mel Wasser welcomed me onto a bus full of the Barak and CI.T. girls. The excitement was palpable, and before long, as a new member of staff that they didn’t know, I was being asked all sorts of questions. One that will forever stick out to me was asked as we drove past Canada’s Wonderland. “Do they have rollercoasters in England?” I quickly assured the questioner they did in fact have rollercoasters in England. That Barak camper will be a cornerstone fellow this summer, and has come a very long way since asking that question!

After a further barrage of questions and a reasonable amount of Taylor Swift, we made it to the turn just before Good Fellowship Road. This is one of my favourite moments at camp, and one of the reasons I spent each of my three following staff weeks lobbying KK to put me on the camper bus up from Toronto. For those who had been to camp before, the greatness of every summer became suddenly palpable once again. For those that are new to camp, the expectation of what was waiting was about to be revealed. The bus ride in 2014 was no different, and as we made the turn up to Good Fellowship Road, I was one of the new people who didn’t quite know what to expect.

What would follow were 7 weeks of incredible fun, great challenges and the enjoyment of having the chance to enhance campers and their camp experience in any way possible. My first cabin was a group of Kochavim boys who are going to become staff for the first time this coming summer. As a group, our celebration of our cabin mascot Bubbles became one of my funniest camp memories and would pave the way for multiple other mascots of my cabins including Joe the Squirrel and Water Chief Nelson, the meerkat on a swing. Mascots represented some of the silliest expressions of fun that campers can have at camp. At a time where children of younger and younger ages are being put under greater stress at school, camp offers a space where campers can completely remove themselves from the worries or considerations that are with them the rest of the year.

Whilst camp offers campers the chance to get away from the stresses of formal education, the education in no way stops, in fact, it continues in all sorts of ways. This can come in some very simple ways. I remember a number of menuchah’s (rest hours) spent teaching one camper how to do Sudoku puzzles. In a rather stark contrast to the passiveness of a Sudoku, I also spent a similar break calming down a camper, and trying to work through some of his frustrations in a less confrontational manner than had originally sprung to his mind. On top of teaching individuals, teaching the group and learning from other staff is also of great fundamental use. With my second cabin in 2014, we went on a lovely early morning canoe that required teamwork that would set the tone for the rest of the session. Not only is teamwork a fantastic skill to learn at a young age, but I drew on a number of examples of teamwork as a staff member at camp in job interviews more recently.

Not only is camp a great place to educate, it also provides a wonderful backdrop in which staff can pioneer and create, and provide an environment for campers to do the same. In 2014, I was part of a team that oversaw the advent of the CG Games. Attempting to create a new event that gave campers complete control over the events they did for the day was a very tough challenge to overcome, but also one that was thoroughly satisfying. Since then, we have gone from processing hundreds of choice sheets on the floor of the lodge to doing it much more rapidly on Excel (thanks Josh Nezon!). The creation of CG Games allowed us to bring back some great old camp traditions, such as the L.A.R.P. (live action role play) event, to creating new traditions, such as the procession of the CG Games opening ceremony. The following year, I was lucky enough to be a part of the team that organised the first B’Libeinu Move-a-Thon and being able to create new traditions that put smiles on campers’ faces is always fantastic fun.

As the summer of 2014 progressed, there was never much doubt in my mind that I would like to be back a year later. My decision to come back for two summers after that were made easy because of the fantastic job that camp does in creating a nurturing environment for both staff and campers. In 2017, having spent two summers as a counselor and one as an assistant unit head, I was lucky enough to have the chance to be a unit head, working with a thoroughly excellent set of staff. Arriving as a wide-eyed seventeen- year- old in 2014, I would never have imagined that three years later I would be working alongside one of my unit heads from that summer and finishing the summer by visiting David (the camp driver from 2015-17) in Hungary with Sam Bader, who I met and began CG Games with in 2014. Whilst I can’t come back to camp this summer as a staff member, I can’t wait to come and visit and the connections and friendships I’ve made since the summer of 2014 will ensure my CG Story will be a book with no ending.

 

Click to support the My Camp George STORY Scholarship campaign.