Camp Counselor

October 14, 2017October 14, 2017 by Camp Mason

Why Come and Work at Camp?

By Salva Cossu, Assistant Camp Director (summers 2016-17)

Over the past three years, I’ve heard that question so many times: from my friends, my school, my fellow camp staff member’s parents, people considering joining a camp staff, and many more. Why work at camp when you’re going to college, when you have high career prospects? I asked myself that question at some point, I’m not going to lie. Here’s my answer.

Just to put a little bit of context, I’m French, and study business in a French school. Getting into one of these schools in France is a long, hard and studious process of two years after high school. Therefore, when you finally get into college, you’re expected to do internships in big companies, increasing your marketing or finance skills. I chose to work at Camp Mason, against all odds and many people questioning it.

The reason why is simply because what you can learn at camp is something that you can’t learn in any company in 3 months, or even a year, or two. You learn how to be a leader, among your kids and your peers. You learn how to adapt to any situation, to manage any crisis that may come your way, and how to be confident doing it. That’ll change your way of working with people, of explaining things so that everyone (adults as much as kids) can understand what you’re doing and why you’re doing it, including yourself. Finally, you learn how to be yourself, to be confident in your skills, as diverse as they may be, in a diverse and international environment. Give me one other place in the world you can learn all of that, potentially be a leader at 21 or 22 years old, I promise you it’s really hard to find. I got jobs in the musical industry talking for 30 minutes about camp, because of and I quote “the qualities you show, no one has them at your age”.

If you are a friend, or a parent, trust the guts of that person who wants to come and work at summer camp. Don’t refrain them, they’re learning a different way, and that’s what makes them strong and valuable. And if you are the one thinking about it, listen to yourself, go learn how to be the leader you would like to have and be who you want to be.

May 21, 2017September 22, 2017 by Camp Mason

It’s Time for a Macation!

For Session 4 of Summer Camp 2017 we are off on a Mason Vacation! The day will take us on a wild adventure to a secret location somewhere on the planet. It’s hard to pack for a vacation when you don’t know the destination but we assure you’ll have everything you need to have an amazing time.

Last year we landed on Fiji and the year before that we stopped off in Hawaii but it wasn’t all straight forward. We had challenges to overcome, packing to do and journeys to take before we arrived. Once we made it to our destinations we had a great time surfing at the pool, eating ice cream and making our own nice, cold mocktails! Get ready to come on an adventure with us to another exciting destination with all kinds of games and activities to try along the way!

At Camp Mason we build strong family values in our community and summer programs so taking a vacation during our last session wraps up the season nicely. It’s a day filled with lively and relaxing activities to have fun and strengthen our family-like bonds with all our staff and campers.

Join us Session 4 for our Mason Vacation theme day from August 6 – August 19 by clicking here to register.

September 23, 2016September 23, 2016 by Camp Mason

Basically, Camp Is Cooler Than School

By Sam Loop, Summer Camp Iroquois Counselor and Reluctant Student

I have a confession to make.

I totally lied on my college application.

My apologies to the Georgia Institute of Technology, may you find it in your hearts to forgive me.

The year was 2014, and it was actually the Common App essay, and the prompt was “Discuss an accomplishment or event, formal or informal, that marked your transition from childhood to adulthood within your culture, community, or family” (I still have the essay saved on my computer), and having just finished working at camp for the first time that summer and being able to think of nothing but camp, camp people, camp songs, etc. it seemed only natural that I would write about camp.

So, I conjured up a draft, tweaked and re-tweaked it about seventy times, had Dad, friends, and various high school faculty read it, and submitted it to five schools. Done and done!

The essay was good; I don’t think lying changed that. It detailed misgivings about myself as a counselor and whether I would be able to give back to kids what my counselors gave to me from 2007 on. I spoke of paranoia of being too strict and the simultaneous fear of being too easygoing and thus easily manipulated. I talked about how it was my first “real” job, and I was subsequently afraid of “messing up,” and the essay travels over the realization of how I was letting go of my true self, only to realize that my true self was the Sam hired in the first place, culminating in the conclusion that “I don’t think I was ever truly an adult until I embraced the child within me.”

(Actual sentence from my college essay. Kind of yuck, but they love stuff like that.)

This won’t sound humble, but I am going to say it: I never doubted myself as a counselor. I love working with people. I came from a great counselor-in-training program and most importantly, I had awesome staff members to look up to and learn from. This combination allowed me to jump into the job with energy, enthusiasm, and constant euphoria. The most doubt I ever encountered was probably around the same time I got whipped cream in my hair during Closing Campfire that turned sour. But overall, I knew I was working at the Coolest Place On Earth, and I think so long as you can remember that and channel it into your performance, you can be a child’s Favorite Counselor Ever.

I have another confession to make.

My essay was not all that dishonest as I may have chalked it up to be. There is a beautiful truth that I tried to convey in my essay, and that I will try to convey to you now.

While camp has changed in a plethora of ways over the 10 years I have been there, one thing remains constant: self-discovery. This is self-discovery in ways that cannot be translated directly onto paper;
that cannot be calculated as quantities and graphed; that cannot be given a scientific explanation and a research paper to boot. People have told me that I changed while at camp; that I’ve come back more carefree, more pensive, more considerate – I definitely have, but these aren’t necessarily due to changes within me. It’s because you go to camp, and you learn. You learn the tangible – how to start a fire, how to play gaga, how to wear the same shirt for three days without washing it so no one notices. And then you learn the intangible.

You learn that sometimes it’s better to just sit back and listen.

You learn that no one is documenting your every flaw and mistake.

You learn that sometimes it’s best to listen to your gut and leap where you would have otherwise backed away slowly.

Most of all, you learn to trust yourself. To find comfort in yourself. To recognize that you can be virtually unstoppable because you well and truly know everything that you are capable of, which includes overcoming any obstacle.

This is true power. Forget every other definition of it.

Camp is an escape, it is a second home, it is a vacation. It has been all these things and more for me. Despite being two weeks, or four or six or eight or nine, it is a life-long journey and adventure all rolled up into one. In particular, it has been an education like none other I have ever received.

I don’t know that 17-year-old me could find words to explain the Camp Sensation. 19-year-old me is still having trouble right at this moment.

Yet honestly? I think it wise that admissions folks don’t hear that what camp taught me is going to be far more special than anything their school has to offer.

July 22, 2016July 22, 2016 by Camp Mason

A New Kind of Energy

By Hayley Harrington, Summer Camp Apache Cabin Counselor

Summer camp staff have one of the hardest jobs in the world: making sure that every parent’s most prized creation has an amazing time away from home. Our jobs get even harder when we have to reset every two weeks and recreate the magic for a new group of campers. The impossible task seems to be giving session four a session one; we have already spent at least seven weeks preparing for this group of campers. New staff have more confidence, and returning staff have fallen back into the rhythm that makes camp run smoothly. We work tirelessly around the clock, and exhaustion begins to set in. How do we continue to keep the energy up when all we want to do is take naps? How do we continue to create magic every single day of the summer?

We find a new kind of energy. This sort is seldom found anywhere else in the world other than summer camp. Our energy comes from nothing other than the love of campers. There is nothing more powerful than the unconditional love of children, because for two or four or more weeks, we become the biggest influences in their lives. The collateral exhaustion that comes with our jobs is nothing in comparison to the gratitude received when a child comes to you and thanks you for learning a new skill. When we reflect on our days during cabin chat, there is nothing more powerful than hearing that the best part of a camper’s day was an activity we led or a time we went out of our ways to make a child happy. When we say “the campers come first”, we are not saying it because we do not want to put ourselves first, but because we, as staff, have that new kind of energy. We love what we do because we love our campers more than anything. Regardless of when in the summer our children arrive, we want to show them the world.

November 13, 2015November 13, 2015 by Camp Mason

Camp is for Adults Too!

By Sally Wright, Senior Naturalist for the Outdoor Center and Assistant Program Director for Summer Camp

When people hear the words summer camp they often think about young children and teenagers who spend a week or two in the woods each summer. People know that these kids participate in activities such as arts & crafts and swimming, and are aware of the positive impact that camp can has on children’s lives. But what most people don’t think about is the impact that camp can have on adults.

Every summer hundreds of young adults apply to be counselors at summer camp. Some of these counselors know exactly what they are getting into, as they are coming back to camp for their third or fourth summer, while others have never been to a camp and have no idea what to expect. In some ways the adults that work at camp every summer are not much different than the campers. Of course the counselors are more responsible than the campers and are ready to give campers the best summer they’ve ever had, but often counselors feel both anxious and excited before their first day at camp just like the campers.

On the first day of training, staff arrive at camp, move into cabins, and participate in name games and ice breakers to get to know one another. Just like the campers, the counselors have to navigate through the stages of getting to know one another, and at the end of the summer many of the staff leave camp with new life long friends. Also during the summer the counselors encourage their campers to step out of their comfort zones and try new activities, because as outdoor professionals we believe that children grow when they are outside their comfort zones. For a lot of campers this means participating in a high ropes element like the zip line. Stepping off the zip line platform takes a lot of courage, but also builds confidence and self-esteem. The impact of accomplishing something you weren’t sure you could do is just as powerful for adults as it is for children.

At the end of summer many parents pick up their children and discover that their son or daughter has grown into a better person. Many times parents comment that their child has become more independent or is more willing to help clear the table after a meal. Camp Counselors (who are often college students) experience similar growth throughout the summer. These young adults become more independent, but in different ways. Counselors may step out of their comfort zones and conquer their fear of heights, but they also learn skills that will help them throughout life. Counselors leave camp knowing how to work both independently and as a team to accomplish a common goal. They put in long hours and are wildly creative when coming up with new fun and engaging activities for campers to participate in, much like entrepreneurs who invent new products. But most importantly, camp counselors leave knowing that they have the ability to make a positive and profound impact on someone else’s life.

June 12, 2015June 12, 2015 by Camp Mason

Summer Camp Superheroes

By Keith Vanderzee, CEO

Every child deserves a real superhero and in the next week, they will be arriving at Camp Mason! They may come by bus, car or train, but make no mistake they are real superheroes.

My earliest and best memories of camp all revolve around the camp staff. I remember Kevin Roden, a real outdoorsman, who took our camp group on a “rattlesnake hunt.” Looking back I am sure it was probably just a nature hike because even in the early 70’s, it was probably not appropriate to take 10 year old boys looking for rattlesnakes! But at the time, and in my mind’s eye still, is the image of this young bearded man, standing 7 feet tall with a forked stick which he told us was to pin the rattlesnake’s head so it wouldn’t bite him. He strode through the woods with the confidence and stature of Paul Bunyan and we were in awe of him. And then there is Jergen, from Germany. I picture him as a caricature- a tall, blonde as can be man with ridiculously wide shoulders and bulging biceps. Jergen was a lifeguard and I distinctly remember him jumping off the bridge stanchions on the Esopus River into whirlpools and teaching us that the way to escape a whirlpool was to swim out the bottom where it got thinner. I picture him now popping out of the bottom of the water, all muscles and smiling- basically walking on water!

These are the types of memories and stories your children will come home and tell. Listen to them with wonder and awe because that is what they believe. When you hear the story of their counselors who wrestled a bear (or two!) or when you hear the story of the counselor who shot an arrow blindfolded across the camp only to hit the bulls-eye, remember that the stories may not be true, but they are real.

Superheroes really do live today. They live at Camp Mason and we can’t wait to introduce your children to them.