Opening Day at Windridge!

We were happy to welcome back campers to Windridge for our third session on Thursday morning! We had campers arriving by car all morning with campers from all over the country and world, and it was fun to see so many familiar faces and to meet some new campers who were seeing Windridge for the first time. This summer, we have campers from Sweden, Hong Kong, Canada, France, the Bahamas, Switzerland, Belgium, Germany, Brazil, Italy, England, and the Czech Republic. We have also had campers from New England, Maryland, Texas, California, Minnesota, Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, DC, Virginia, Utah, Idaho, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Illinois, and North Carolina. 

At 11:30, campers said goodbye to their loved ones before cabin meetings. During the cabin meeting, campers created their individual cabin rules and also went over some of our camp rules as a group and played some ice breaker games to help establish those friendships and bonds that we hope will continue to grow long after their summer has ended.  After cabin meetings, the campers headed to the dining hall for lunch.

Our charter bus from New York City, Darien, CT, and Hartford, CT arrived during lunch, and those campers got some time to move into their cabins before our camp tour started at 2pm.Campers had meetings in boys and girls camp, led by Daniel and Abby, our heads of boy's and girl's camp, to familiarize themselves with the area and go over some of the rules and guidelines in those areas before heading out on their camp tour.

Our camp tour is designed to show campers each program area, introduce them to all the staff and heads of each area, and get them comfortable with where they need to be and what activities are offered here at Windridge. That way they are comfortable walking between activities and know where to go for archery, arts and crafts, and mountain biking, etc. When they visit the tennis courts, Ramsey and his staff have each player hit some tennis balls, so the staff can start court assignments for the first day of regular programming. 

During the camp tour, campers also get to stop by the office and change their schedules with Elizabeth. While they are doing that, we take cabin photos and they get a chance to see our offerings at canteen.

After the tour, campers get another chance to continue moving in and getting settled, and some down time to play some games as a cabin and get to know their fellow cabin-mates before dinner.

Our evening activity on our first day is Opening Campfire. Each program area gets a chance to reintroduce their staff and puts on a skit or game for the campers entertainment. Our tennis staff played a game called bounce, volley, catch over the campfire in which the tennis staff had to catch a tennis ball on their racquet, bounce it before volleying it back, or volley the tennis ball back to Ramsey, one of our directors and the Co-Director of Tennis. Our soccer staff played a game where Brian, our Soccer Director, had his staff gain control of an airball with two touches in a small circle of cones. Electives challenged their staff to move a cookie from their forehead to their mouths without using their hands, and the horseback riding staff put on a skit with "Betsy" a long time favorite at camp. In-between we spoke to our campers about our CREST, our belief in C-community R-respect E-encouragement S-sportsmanship and T-trust that we follow and encourage here at Windridge and also our rule about leaving no trace at camp and cleaning up after ourselves.

After Opening Campfire, our campers headed back to boys and girls camp with milk and cookies for an early bedtime before our first full day or regular programing. 

We are so happy to have them here with us and are looking forward to an amazing session with them all.