Volunteers

Stewardship, Sustainability & Service

By Nikki Reiff, Outdoor Center Program Director

Sometimes you need to stop and smell the flowers, and sometimes you need to stop and save the flowers. Here at Camp Mason, we do both. What I mean by this, is that when visitors come here-they are immersed in a culture where stewardship and sustainability take the forefront. Sometimes it’s in the form of litter picking as you head to an activity, often times in the form of an environmental education class that creates an understanding of why protection of the environment is so important, and sometimes it’s palpable.

This past week, the French American School of New York brought their 6th grade class to Camp Mason for a unique outdoor experience. Aside from zip-lining through the trees, orienteering themselves through the woods, and forging group bonds in our Low Ropes course—they built bat boxes from scratch as a service project to our camp, and to the entire north east. Bats in the north east are important animals that help maintain an ecosystem and are of great service to humans. One colony can consume more than 250,000 mosquitos a night, and they also predate on pesky invasive species, such as tent caterpillars, that threaten a forests’ health or farmland. These bats are threatened for a few reasons- fungal infections that gets spread in some hibernacula (or habitats), the installation of wind turbines, and destruction of habitat in forests. All of these reasons can be summarized as unsuitable habitat. So in a matter of 3 days, a team of naturalists and a couple dozen students addressed this problem and created new habitat for 5 colonies of local bats.

Facilitation of activities like this are not uncommon here at Mason. The Outdoor Center team incorporate sustainability and stewardship into nearly every program here. Giving back to the earth or to one another is a recurrent theme across team building, recreation, and environmental classes all the same. In the fall, NJ District Circle K help Camp Mason with litter picks along nearby roads and streams. In the spring, United Nations International School visited and created water-awareness murals with the same idea in mind–to make a difference. St. Lukes School helped us remove invasive species along our trails. We are always looking to unite with schools and groups to complete more projects like this!

So whether it’s composting our brown napkins, maintaining trails, or physically creating animal shelters When you take a moment to look around at our guests and staff alike, its’ easy to see that stewardship and sustainability are key values we hold dear to us at YMCA Camp Mason. And if you don’t see that, you’d have to be blind as a bat.*

*Bats actually are not blind, they however, use echolocation to hunt rather than their vision. But you get the point!

Weekends at Camp Mason!

By Sally Wright, Outdoor Center Program Director – Retreats

Have you ever wondered what goes on at Camp Mason on the weekends? Saturdays and Sundays can be two of the busiest days of the week here at Camp. We often have Girl Scout troops and school groups here on the weekends, but Camp Mason also runs some specialty programs that anyone can come to. We offer programs such as Family Camp Weekend, Women’s Wellness Weekend and Volunteer Work Weekend. You can find more information or sign up for any of these weekends on our website.

Bring your family and prepare for a weekend packed with fun family oriented activities, during our family camp weekends. Depending on the season, you can race down the zip line, learn how to cross country ski, enjoy one of our off- site hikes, or just relax on the porch of your cabin. We have also made some improvements to our high ropes course that you may get to try out. Family Camp weekends run four times a year, and are one of our most popular weekend programs. In fact, our Memorial Day Weekend Family Camp (May 26th – 29th 2017) is already sold out. You can register for our Fall Foliage Family Camp (October 6th – 9th 2017) on our website at any time. Registration for our Labor Day Family Camp (September 1st – 4th 2017) will open on May 3rd 2017.

Yoga for Women’s Wellness Weekend

Another great weekend program is our Women’s Wellness Weekend for all of the ladies. This is a relaxing weekend with the opportunity to get in some exercise if you wish. Activities for the weekend may include mountain biking, yoga, aerial silks, and meditation just to name a few. You can bring a friend or come alone and make new friends while you’re here. We run two Women’s Wellness Weekends each year. You can register for a two night stay May 5th – 7th 2017 or a three night stay October 6th – 9th 2017.

We also hold an event here at Camp called Volunteer Work Weekend, where you can come to camp for free, and help us prepare camp for either the winter or summer depending on the season. This is a great opportunity for students who are looking for community service hours or people who just want to volunteer some time. There are projects for all ability levels from raking leaves and painting to construction of docks and benches. Registration is open for both the spring weekend May 12th – 14th 2017 and the fall weekend November 3rd – 5th 2017.

Please feel free to contact Sally with any questions by email at sally@campmason.org or by phone at 908-362-8217.

Spring Work Weekend Update

bernie_sBy Bernie Sulzer, Facilities Director

We Thank You!!!

Our bi-annual volunteer work weekend was held over this past Mother’s Day weekend and what a turnout we had! Well over 100 people turned out despite the threat of unpleasant weather and while there was a bit of rain on Saturday morning it turned out to be a nice weekend. We had dozens of projects ranging from various landscaping tasks to some fence construction and everything in between. As always we had our Firewood crew at the maintenance shop manning the splitters…they probably split and stacked about a dozen cords of wood over Saturday and Sunday!

I had the opportunity to stop and chat with a lot of our veteran volunteers, it’s always great catching up with people that I only get to see twice a year. There was also a significant number of first timers this spring who jumped right in like they’ve been coming for years! There were so many different projects going on that I can’t list them all here but on behalf of all of us here I extend a hearty thanks to all our volunteers. We did weeks and weeks worth of work in just two days! Bravo! See the gallery below for some pictures of the projects and volunteers.

Sincerely,

Bernie

 

A Busy Time of Year!

bernie_sBy Bernie Sulzer, Facilities Director 

Albino Squirrel

Albino Squirrel

Hello, a lot’s been happening around the camp this fall, a lot of groups have come and gone and will come again no doubt. We’ve begun construction of the Dining Hall bathroom addition and it’s progressing nicely despite the late time of year…we’ve been very fortunate with the weather so far and it seems to be holding steady. Good thing too since the squirrels seem to still be gathering their winter stores. There’s is a picture above of an albino gray squirrel that lives close to the Maintenance Shop.

I’d like to thank everyone who came out for the Fall Volunteer weekend. It was structured a bit differently this time, being combined with the Alumni Reunion. I feel it went very smoothly, everyone took the changes in stride. We got some good projects finished and folks seemed satisfied with their contributions. Here’s a quick recap of the finished projects:

  • the shiny new pile of firewood at the maintenance shop
  • the frosting of cabin bathroom windows to improve camper privacy
  • winterizing the Dining Hall and Algonquin village windows to conserve fuel
  • a new set of big triangle benches across the lake from the Dining Hall
  • a nice paintjob on Lake Mason’s boathouse.
triangle bench

New triangle benches

Everything our volunteers do for Camp really matters; to the campers, the staff and even to the people just driving down Birch Ridge Rd.

I’d like to introduce a project that my department has been working on this past summer and fall. We’ve re-purposed an old, unused water tank into a clubhouse/overnight site for our campers and guests. It still has a ways to go, I’m expecting to see it finished this coming spring. It will be one of a series of remodels to add some unique destinations/hangout spots around camp. I have the next project picked out and some initial ideas planned. Here is a photo of the Tank at present and a photo of the Silo that will have to go thru a safety check and then a remodel for 2016.

I’ve received a lot of great feedback already on the Tank and I hope to keep that enthusiasm up for the Silo next year.

Take care and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Bernie Sulzer

908-362-8217
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YMCA Camp Ralph S. Mason
23 Birch Ridge Road
Hardwick, NJ 07825
Phone: 908-362-8217
Fax: 908-362-5767
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