Attitude & Gratitude

During staff training we were lucky to host Dr. Deborah Gilboa (www.askdoctorg.com), resilience expert and family physician. She had a line that continues to stand out:

“You can’t control your emotions, but you can control your attitude, behavior and your purpose.”

Tonight’s Friday Night Service was entitled Positive Attitude, and as we gathered at the Council Ring on a beautiful summer evening our focus was discussing the impact a positive attitude can make on both the individual and the community. We had some great readings, poems, and a fantastic sermonette by Hayley Kretchmer. The music tonight featured the Camper Chorus singing Put a Little Love in Your Heart, the Counselor Chorus performed I Can See Clearly Now, and the musical selection was Keep On The Sunny Side which was a popular song from the late 1800s long before it was a cheer at camp responding to corny jokes. The service was built to teach that even though we will all feel negative emotions, we can choose to respond with a positive attitude.

One thing that helps maintain a positive attitude is gratitude. The staple of our Friday Night Services is called the Keylog Ceremony, and it is an opportunity to throw a stick into the fire that represents something that you are thankful for. While it is totally optional, the overwhelming majority of our campers and staff elect to go up in front of the whole camp and express their appreciation. Many of our youngest campers threw in keylogs for all of their new friends, their fantastic counselors, and even expressed their gratitude for their families back home for making it possible for them to come to camp. One of our first-time campers thanked his cabinmates and the whole staff for “making a place so far away feel like home.” Another first-time camper said that even though he had felt homesick, his keylog was for his “new friends and his counselors for being so supportive.” Taking this time to consider all that we have to be grateful for helps our whole community maintain a positive attitude, and is a practice that we hope our boys take with them wherever they go.

We were also grateful to see our Pine Manor campers return late this evening after their 10-day trip out West. More to come on that tomorrow…

Today’s Grace:
“The objective of cleaning is not just to clean, but to feel happiness in living within that environment”
- Marie Kondo

 

All-Camp Games

It was another beautiful day here in the Northwoods! Our second week of activities is in full swing, and our boys have settled into their camp routines. And while the boys love their having their independence to choose their own activities throughout the day, they always relish the opportunities to come together for our campwide evening programs.

Today for our evening program we played Predator-Prey. Predator-Prey is an all-camp game where each cabin is assigned to play the role of either an herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore. The theme this year is coral reef, so teams included the sea slugs, swordfish, seagulls, reef sharks, moon jellies, and clown fish. The teams need to collect a certain amount of resources (food, water, and shelter) based on their place in the food chain. When a team gets close enough to another group, the “instinct,” or team leader, blows a whistle and a 20 second game of tag ensues. Players move up and down the food chain based on whether they were “eaten” during tag. Players can also gather resources by finding signs around camp and singing a song about recycling when they get there.

If it sounds confusing, that is because it is. It’s some combination of capture the flag, dodgeball, hide and seek and an environmental education game. But it is a camper favorite at North Star. One of the things that the boys love so much is the opportunity to play across the age groups. Last night’s evening program was a similar style game called Infection. One person starts out as the infection and a game of blob tag erupts all over camp. The youngest campers chase down the oldest boys, and the oldest boys join the youngest campers in their excitement. That camaraderie builds throughout the summer and helps create our close-knit community.

We followed Predator-Prey with a debrief on our own Northwoods’ ecosystem and our role in upholding environmental stewardship. North Star is incredibly lucky to have two bald eagle nests in camp. Our fisherman witnessed a bald eagle swoop down just feet from their boat, pluck a fish out of the water, and fly off.

Bears, deer, mice, snakes, foxes, and eagles roam these woods and turtles, musky, and bluegills swim the lake. We are incredibly blessed to be located on our peninsula and Brewers Bay with hiking trails and rapids within an hour from us. We are even more blessed to have a group of staff and campers that appreciate the value of our environment and who responded with such enthusiasm to our environmental debrief.

Today’s Grace:
“Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on this earth.”
- Muhammad Ali

Cruiser Day

Today marks our first Cruiser Day of summer 2021! Cruiser Day is a cabin day that typically takes place every Tuesday. Cruiser Days, which are almost like our weekend at camp, begin with a late wake-up with donuts, fruit, and cereal for breakfast. All activities for the day are structured within each cabin and some are a bit wackier than usual (more on that later). This Cruiser Day was also a Junior Village Cruiser Day, meaning our J-Village staff planned an incredible day of activities for “High School Day.” The staff divided the village into four high schools: Mercer Island High School, Deerfield High School, Bexley High School, and Mascoutah High School. Our junior campers got in the spirit of things by painting their high school’s colors across their faces, slogans painted on their stomachs, or goofy faces painted by friends on their backs. Mercer Island won a flag football tournament that thrilled the whole village. Other events included gaga ball, curtain ball, beach flags, and poster drawing competitions. Ultimately, Deerfield High School came away with the win on a day that ended for them with ice cream.

Our other villages were not without their share of wacky fun. Multiple cabins went tubing and others slid down the hill by the athletic fields on a slip-and-slide. Our fantastic staff took a pontoon boat out in the lake and we had cabins canoe out to get snacks and candy, others made mini pizzas on Tom’s Terrace, and S-2 had the privilege of participating in a spaghetti scavenger hunt. What is a spaghetti scavenger hunt? A plate of cold spaghetti with mini m&ms, dried cranberries, gummy bears, Charleston Chews, and more. If your camper has ever wanted to live out the spaghetti scene from Elf, North Star Camp is the place for them.

For dinners on Cruiser Day, every cabin cooks out their dinner over a campfire. We ended our first Cruiser Day with Tin Foil Surprise at our cabin cookouts. Each cabin gets potatoes, vegetables, hamburgers, cheese to wrap up in tinfoil and cook over the fire. Campers enjoy making funky shapes out of their tinfoil bundles and having the responsibility of making their own meal. The result is a delicious stew that is a classic favorite meal.

We return to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow with our next set of 3-day activities!

Cabin Campfires and Unorganized Free

Camp alumni have long said that later in life, though they hadn’t noticed while they were enjoying their summers, they had come to realize that they had learned and grown more at camp than they had anywhere else. And while that is a great realization, we don’t believe that we have to keep this a secret from our campers. We want them to be party to this development that happens at camp. Sunday nights at North Star put an emphasis on that.

We begin our Sunday evening program with what we call Unorganized Free. Unstructured free play has tremendous benefits for kids of all ages, and those times have been disappearing for kids with perilous effects (read here, here or here). Unorganized free is meant to combat that. The rules are simple: Go Outside and Play. This is not something kids are used to hearing these days. In a world where their schedules are getting tighter and the stress levels are getting higher, this child-directed free play was an exciting, out of the box experience. There were two rules - 1) Everybody had to be outside, and 2) The counselors are to supervise for safety, not to play or organize. At announcements, one of the Junior Village campers asked, “Does that mean we could play a huge game of hide and seek?” The kids went crazy when we told them that that is exactly what they should be doing.

The second part of our Sunday evening was Cabin Campfires, which are designed to help our boys process their experience, build self awareness, and teach so much more. Much like our opening night candlelight ceremonies, these "cabin meetings" are an opportunity for open, honest communication and sharing. So every cabin took to their campsite, built a campfire, and began this fireside chat. The format was as follows:

1) Accomplishments - everyone should take a moment to recognize the things they have accomplished in this past week.
2) Compliments - a chance for cabinmates to praise the positive things they have seen in each other.
3) Personal Growth - a time for each person to consider a way in which they have grown or a lesson that they have learned in the past week
4) Discussion - an opportunity for the group to discuss issues, problems or challenges and work together to find solutions.
5) Reflection - a few dedicated minutes of time to one's self to think about how to better friend, cabinmate and camper in the coming week.
6) Goal Setting - to conclude with a tangible plan for the week ahead with both individual and group goals.
7) S'mores - how else could you end a campfire?

With both the Unorganized Free and the Cabin Campfires, we were upfront with the boys about why we were doing what we were doing. Not only did they understand it, they appreciated it. We heard from many of our campers how nice it was to be able to have time like this, where they could just be kids in the woods. And many of our staff explained that this time has been of tremendous importance to them as campers and counselors alike.

Today’s Grace:
“It always seems impossible until it is done.”
- Nelson Mandela

Exploring Their Own Interests

We are pleased to report that everyone has again tested negative for COVID-19! We are so appreciative of SHIELD Illinois for making it possible to complete accurate, 3-gene, saliva PCR testing with same-results. This process has been a game changer for us and many camps throughout the Midwest. While it’s still not a certainty, knowing that all of our campers have now tested negative for COVID 3-times in 7 days gives us a great deal of confidence that we did not have any cases of COVID-19 come into camp with our campers. 

With that news, we now begin our regularly scheduled program! One of the things that makes the North Star program unique is that we offer our boys a great deal of choice. Today was the first typical day at camp, with the boys choosing much of their day for themselves. On a typical day, we have five periods between breakfast and dinner. The first three periods are our instructional periods, which the boys sign up for on a weekly basis. They choose six electives for the week and take each of them for three consecutive days, for one hour and fifteen minutes each day. The fifth period most days is our Organized Free period, which is an opportunity for the boys to choose an activity that they want to do just for that day. They can also use that time to rest, read, shower, or just hang with friends. The 4th period is the one period that the boys don’t have individual choice, as that typically rotates between Challenge Games, Village Activities, and Green-White competitions. This all puts together a schedule for each child that has a great deal of structure, but also a great deal of choice within that structure.

We believe that camp is meant to be a place where the boys explore their own interests, and that is what the program is designed to do. We have some boys who will choose to be on the water all day, where others will choose the fields. Some will live at the target sports and others will gravitate towards the creative arts. And those same boys might see their interests evolve over the years as they try new things and grow as people. 

We tremendously value having all types of kids at North Star, and allowing our kids to flourish at camp regardless of their interests is an important part of creating that environment. Young male friendships are so often based on having a shared interest or activity, and while that isn’t irrelevant in adulthood, the most lasting relationships in life are built on mutual trust and respect, kindness and compassion for one another. From the outside, it may look like the boys simply spend the day climbing the wall and waterskiing, but they are participating in a program that is designed to teach not only the activity specific skills, but life skills that will stick with them far beyond.

Today’s Grace:
“If I had to live my life again, I'd make the same mistakes, only sooner.”
- Tallulah Bankhead

The Friendship Fire

Every year since North Star started in 1945, the first Friday night service of the summer is the Friendship Fire. On Friday nights, we take a break from the energetic, loud and often silly tone that camp tends to have and spend the evening in a more reflective and formal time. To set the tone for the evening, the campers are encouraged to “dress up,” which means a polo or a button down, or at least an unstained shirt. Friday night dinners are roast beef, vegetables, potatoes and applesauce, and after dinner, we gather around the flagpole for cabin reports, a patriotic song, the pledge of allegiance and the lowering of the flag. And then we head out to the Council Ring.

In talking about friendship, we are talking about our expectations as a community about how people treat one another here. At the end of the service, we asked the boys to explain what being a friend means to them. Campers of all ages contributed: treat people the way we want to be treated, understand that none of us are perfect, give friends the same compassion we should give ourselves when we make mistakes, value empathy, recognize other people’s feelings, and hold each other accountable for these values. All of these actions, identified by the campers, are what creates the compassionate, inclusive environment that encourages our boys to become kind, thoughtful men. 

Our keylog ceremony at the Friendship Fire asks that a representative from each city throw a stick into the fire to represent that bond of friendship between their city and North Star Camp. We acknowledged how lucky we are to gather together with friends from all over the country and the world, and we also acknowledged the members of our community who still can’t be with us because of pandemic travel restrictions. We heard poems and songs, stories and a wonderful sermonette on North Star friendships by Adam Shore. And every Friday Night concludes with singing Forest Green, Taps and reciting our Camper Benediction.

But before the serenity of a Friday Night sunset at the Council Ring, we had a fun-filled beautiful day in the Northwoods. J-5 and J-6 were able to get in some tubing. J2- and J-4 had canoeing lessons in preparation for their camping trips. Campers participated in soccer, chess, riflery, swimming, floor hockey, arts and crafts, and of course played with the baby chicks. Today was our final day of cabin based activities and the boys are very much looking forward to starting their individual choice activities tomorrow. 

Today’s Grace:
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
- Hamlet in Shakespeare
 

Challenge Games, Green-White, Camping Trips and More

First, we get to report that everyone tested negative for Covid! We received yesterday’s test results late last night, which allows us to move into our second phase of our Covid-prevention plans, including individual choice activities beginning on Saturday. For our vaccinated campers, this means no more drooling from here on out. Our next round of SHIELD testing will be on Saturday.

In other news, an overnight rain gave way to a beautiful day in the Northwoods today, and it’s hard to beat the enthusiasm of an 80-degree day with puddles to play in. In the afternoon we had our first challenge games where one representative from each cabin goes in front of camp at announcements and challenges another cabin to a game or an activity. The boys love this opportunity to speak in front of the whole crowd and put their humor on display. After the roasting, the boys proceed to the fun of playing the games, but today some of the boys played those games a bit differently. Soccer involved some puddle jumping and volleyball had some mud slinging, all with very dirty and very happy boys.

This evening, we began our Green-White festivities for the year with the announcement of teams for our first year campers. Campers are placed on Green-White teams during their first summer and those teams remain for the remainder of their North Star careers. Regular competitions, Green-White Series, the Green-White Marathon, games of All-Camp Capture the Flag, the Camper-Counselor Hunt, the Dodgeball Extravaganza and many more great activities will be a part of our ongoing Green-White competition through the summer. 

Whether it’s challenge games, Green-White, or any other activities in which we compete, our philosophy on competition remains a core tenet of our life at camp. At its simplest, our expectations for how people should treat each other do not change during a sporting event or another competition. It is possible to compete hard and be kind at the same time, especially at camp. We ask the boys to remember that they are playing with their friends - they are their friends before the game, during the game, and everyone should behave in such a way that they continue to be friends after the game. In practice, that means supporting each other, teammate or opponent, both through their successes and their failures. 

Before the day was really underway, cabins S-1, S-2 and I-6 departed on their camping trips. The boys who recently completed 8th grade embarked on their hiking trips on the Superior Hiking Trail, while I-6 (recently completed 6th grade) left for their canoe trip on the Flambeau River.

Yesterday, our Pine Manor campers (recently completed 9th grade) left on their Western adventure through the Badlands, the Grand Tetons, Custer State Park, Mt. Rushmore with hiking, whitewater rafting and more. The first reports from the trip were ecstatic, with plenty of bison among the beautiful sights they’ve already seen. We look forward to sharing more about this cool trip!