timberlake Newsletters

It’s been such an exciting couple of weeks here at Timberlake! Today has been quite a rainy one, and the campers have made so much fun out of the wet weather and taken lots of time to bond with their cabin mates, play games, and learn new skills in their activity areas. Our First Lodge and Big Lodge campers (9-12 year olds) left for their trips today as well! We have kids going on hiking trips, climbing trips, canoeing trips, and a brand-new Wilderness Arts trip that involves learning about environmentalism and how humans can impact the natural world around them.

Some other great things that have happened since the last newsletter:

• Our Senior Lodgers (13-14 year olds) went and came back from their trips with many stories to tell!
• We have had a couple of Council Fires, where campers have performed skits, played songs (some self-written!), and shown their appreciation to each other and to staff through giving beads.
• The Barns and Gardens campers and staff took goats on a long walk from Firefly Song down the road to come live at TL for the rest of the summer!
• All-Camp Games! Farm & Wilderness, a game where Team Farm is working with Team Wilderness to be the first to restore harmony to camp. 43 Man Squamish, based off a Mad Magazine Article from 1965, is a satire sport created from many British sports, and is very silly!
• Outdoor Living Skills campers have done 4-, 8-, and 12-hour solos that went super well and left campers feeling very independent and accomplished.
• The Waterfront has been full and lively with kids doing lots of boating, long distance swims, and leveling up in their swimming abilities!

There is so much more to come as we dive into Senior Small camp before our final cycle of the summer! Things are both so thrilling and so bittersweet as we think about summer coming to an end. We’ve seen as many big feelings as we have seen big fun: campers are making awesome connections with each other, singing songs with their arms wrapped around each other's shoulders, and having great conversations in their cabins.

The rain subsides in the next 24 hours and the sun is coming out just in time for our Final 4: the most exciting days of the whole summer. Another newsletter coming soon to talk about what exactly that Final 4 has in store for this awesome 85^th summer!

Session 2 is off to a great start! I can hear the campers singing in the Upper Lodge above me as I write this, belting their hears out to “Unwritten” by Natasha Beddingfield. The weather has been kind to us, the energy high, and the food great.

The first full day of Timberlake was all about orientation and introductions. They learned so many essential parts of camp:

• Our first songs, with “Country Roads” and “Umbrella” kicking us off.
• Their first Silent Meeting in the woods where they began to learn the power of silence and how great it really can be.
• They went through “the Hook” where they tried each of our activity areas: Arts, Barns & Gardens, Outdoor Living Skills (fire, axes, knives!) Rocks & Ropes, Waterfront, and Work Projects. Our staff presented some of our best activities to convince, or “hook” our campers on their activities!
• They went through boundaries training, learning the essential rules to keep everyone safe and the adults they can go to when needed.
• Finally, they played their first All-Camp-Game: Kingdoms. Basically capture the flag with three flags!

From there, we began preparing for our Senior Lodgers (13- and 14-year olds) to go out on trips. It’s a multi-day process of selection and packout, with all of them going out today on canoing, hiking, and rock climbing trips. Trips are a big thing for us – we value the skills one learns when they go out on a trip. We also know for new campers it can be a big step. In many ways Timberlake is like going on a trip, so it can feel like a lot to leave it so soon! We spend time not just physically preparing campers but also emotionally preparing campers for the journey.

Finally, we are working to create an epic 85^th summer and my final summer as Director of Timberlake. I told the campers the first night that I’m looking forward to bigger adventures, more thoughtful evenings, and for all of us to have the best summer yet. It’s shaping up to be just that!

It’s been a bit, and I appreciate your patience! We’ve had so much going on in the best of ways, and our epic 85^th summer has been awesome. Today our trips came back! Our 9, 10, and 11-year-olds went hiking, climbing, canoeing, and base camping. I picked up our Chelsea Wilderness trip, our base camping trip focused on advanced outdoor skills. They were all smiles at pick-up and couldn’t wait to tell me all about their trip. I also used my Director powers to stop for ice cream on the way back! Each trip has been packed in, the campers fed, and the staff debriefed and sent on their days off.

I can hear campers right now cleaning up after dinner. They are moving tables, scraping plates, and scrubbing pots. They are buzzing about Council Fire, our talent (and not-so-talent) show. Pictures up soon, it’s a great night of singings, tricks, skits, and more. A big part of our Council Fire night is Beading. During Beading our campers will get up to publicly appreciate another member of the community and give them the bead of the summer. Campers sign up to give a bead with a staff member who gives them some pro-tips on how to make a great appreciation. Each member of our community will end up getting a bead.

In the photo you can see this year’s bead, the last bead I’ll be choosing as Timberlake Director. I chose this bead for a few reasons:

• It’s a metal bead. I chose a metal bead for my first summer as Director to symbolize the strength of TL through transitions.
• It’s multi-faceted, just like Timberlake. There are so many sides to Timberlake, so many ways folks can make their adventure!
• It’s Rose Gold – boys can like pink too!

Beads mean so much to our community. On pick-up day you’ll see kids and staff wearing their beads to symbolize their many years here. I have 13 around my neck (I’ve lost 3!) and others on staff have many as well.

More newsletters to come in the next few days – we’re entering the Final 4, our most epic part of the summer!

So much going on at Timberlake! It’s been an epic start to our 85^th summer – beautiful summer days of all the great activities Timberlake has to offer. Campers are singing their hearts out already at songs. Campers are playing Gaga ball, basketball, giant Jenga, or just hanging out with camp dog Atlas before meals. Staff have created routines in cabins, including reading to our campers (even the oldest!) each night.   

There is so much going on. A few key things that stand out to me from the last few days:

• Cabins had their first cabin cookout with s’mores, hot dogs, and games!
• A full waterfront each day, with kids jumping off the rope swing, boating, and getting those swim lessons in.
• Arts made clay faces for a few of our trees to help promote noticing the nature around us.
• Trips are out! Our Senior Lodgers (13- and 14-year-olds) and oldest Big Lodgers (some of the 12 year olds) are out hiking, canoeing, rock climbing, and learning advanced wilderness skills.
• A few great All Camp Games so far, including Kingdoms on the first night (think of three-way capture the flag) and Quest for Spinach (think a zany search and find game) last night.
• Work Projects has already built new benches and chopped a ton of wood.
• Atlas has received so many pets, doggie ice creams, and even has taken a dip in the lake!

 Living in a healthy community also means following our norms, which can look like folks walking on one direction in the dining hall to avoid collisions to a regular debrief and tick check each evening in the cabin. Part of building a new community each summer is teaching those norms and gently and firmly providing redirection, when necessary, especially when someone is still figuring out what are appropriate and inappropriate ways to meet their needs.  

This summer an individual decided to swipe batteries out of headlamps in some of our cabins.  After literally decades of running camp, this is a new and unusual challenge for us.  It’s a clear violation of personal space and we have mounted a proper investigation, including promptly replacing all items as needed. Rest assured we’ll get to the bottom of this and not let one person’s behavior dampen what is shaping up to be a delightful 85^th summer at Timberlake!

I’m looking forward to a smaller camp with just our youngest, another cabin cookout, discussion nights, and so much more. As always, please don’t hesitate to reach out to myself, our lodge heads (Ollie, Jason, or Liam), or our nurses!