It has been an amazing first week of camp! We have happy campers and happy counselors in their happiest place! Despite the forecast showing rain every day, we have dodged the storms and made our way through the entire week of outdoor programming with little interruption!! Campers have been active on land and at the waterfront and we feel so lucky to have dodged some of the bad weather. AND…TODAY WAS BEAUTIFUL!
For those of you who are new to camp, this “Week in Review” email will hit your inbox every week with a recap of what has happened over the past week and what is on the horizon for the following week.
Saturday was Opening Day and the transition into camp was smooth! We started summer 2023 with a pizza lunch in the Mess Hall followed by unpacking, getting-to-know you activities and more. Saturday night was our traditional “Opening Campfire” in the Social Hall where we introduced our Group Leaders and Leadership Team, sang about our favorite frog, and enjoyed some great acts from the Staff Talent Show from orientation. The night ended with Britton and Drew reading a bedtime story. This year it was The Giving Tree!
Sunday was filled with a whole lot of “checks!” Lice checks, swim checks, and activities in between! We got them all done and had the chance to enjoy some great activities in between. Sunday night was our first night of separate evening activities with the traditional Hi Guy and Hi Gal Night…a camp tradition of introducing your counselors to camp and the counselors introducing the campers.
Monday was our first NORMAL day of scheduled activities. The campers found out their swim groups and played get-to-know you games with their new instructors during their swim period. Monday night was Auction Night! Each bunk was given $100,000 in Watitoh money and had the chance to bid on some great prizes. New counselors, Joe and Karen, were our auctioneer hosts with a special cameo by Euan, our New Zealander! Some of the highlights were: a seat on Shawnee Porch for Watitoh Gardens, renaming an area of camp (our Mess Hall is now called “Hermanes Hideout!”), front row seats on Shawnee porch for Watitoh Gardens, Rest Hour on the new 8-person stand-up paddle board, and so much more. Every bunk won a prize and we can’t wait to fulfill their winnings!
Tuesday’s weather was all over the place and somehow we dodged all of the rain and had a beautiful day in Becket! Tuesday night we had our first Sports-a-Rama, a summer-long intramural league. The camp is split into four teams: Dublin Bulldogs, Massy Hokies, Swansea Mocs, and the San Diego Wildcats. The teams are named after the two universities of the head coaches. Every field on camp was busy with friendly competition and good sportsmanship! A huge shout out to our Head Coaches and Kalib, our Athletic Director, for a strong opening night to the season. Tuesday night after Sports-a-Rama the Big Sister/Little Sister’s and Big Brother/Little Brother’s were revealed!! They were all so happy to meet each other!
Wednesday morning we hosted our first intercamp in many years. The TIC2s played basketball against Taconic on our home court! While the final score did not end in our favor, our oldest girls showed up and played their hearts out. We were very proud of them! Wednesday evening was our traditional night of separates. The girls had Bunk Chase and the boys did Hunger Games! Bunk Chase is an awesome ice breaker night for the girls. Each bunk gets to dress up and act out different ridiculous scenarios. What makes it the most fun is that they have to sprint back and forth from the gym to their cabin to change into crazy costumes and switch out people. The night ends in all of the bunks writing and performing a song all about their group! The Boys played Hunger Games. They were all divided into 12 teams with the goal of scoring points while protecting their “region.” Our International Beasts were tasked with the goal of hunting down the waiters and counselors assigned to each team. Congrats to the “Blue team” for their win!
Thursday officially kicked off the Intercamp tournament schedule. Our Waiter 1s headed to Greylock by boat to play in a soccer tournament while our Middie Girls went to Danbee for their own soccer tournament. Both groups had a lot of fun and enjoyed some great games! We also launched our first day of Tennis Plus!! Campers are loving their small group instruction during Rest Hour and some General Swim periods with Adrian on the Lake Courts! Last night we hosted Cranium in the Hockey Rink, the first round of the very popular and highly competitive Townsend Cup. Named after a popular former staff member, the Townsend Cup is the best out of three game show night competition between the boys and girls camps. Both campuses came ready to play with chants, cheers, and great opportunities to nicely taunt one another. In the end, the boys won round one. We’ll all look forward to seeing what happens later in the summer at Cabin Feud and whether we’ll need a tie-breaking game of Bezzer Wizard! And after Cranium, the bunk of Onondaga made the inaugural voyage to our overnight camping site for a great night under the stars (in tents!)
Today, we started our riding program at Camp Danbee and enjoyed the most sunny day yet! The Senior girls played in a soccer tournament at Camp Lenox and tonight was our first Shabbat as a camp family. The week ended with our first official camp fire of the summer! We loved those yummy s’mores as our Night Bite! Tomorrow will kick off phone calls for our new campers and then on Sunday, the phones will open to the whole camp community. Saturday night will be our favorite Camper Talent Show and Sunday will be Sports-a-Rama night. NEW FOR THIS SUMMER, Monday will be a late sleep and special event day! The morning will be separates and the afternoon will be our Sports-a-Rama Apache Relay. Tuesday is the 4th of July!! It will be a normal morning of activities followed by Red, White, and Blue day! Keep checking those photos on MyWatitoh and the Campanion app and enjoy those smiling faces!!
