‘We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, therefore, becomes a habit’
What a privilege and a pleasure it is to welcome you all back to the Friendly Confines for another summer in the North Woods. I say, ‘back’, to the many amongst us who have been here before, but to those of you who are new to this wonderful experience, then I will extend an even heartier welcome. Knowing, as I do, just how many options are open to you this summer, we feel honoured that you chose the Menominee option for your son’s summer camp experience this year.
This is our 90th summer camp season – and our 70th on the shores of Sand Lake. For me personally, it is 30 years since I first drove through the front gates for my first taste of a CM summer. I loved it so much then, that here I am, all these years later, still loving it and still trying to do the best with the boys that come our way every June. My name is Woody and I will be helping to guide you through the summer by way of this blog, ‘WOODY’S WORD’
So our first day here and we have already done a lot. The buses got here in record time – 2.15pm!! – and this enabled us to get all the sign-ups and admin stuff out of the way well before dinner. The mess hall was rocking as campers, new and old, got right in to the swing of things with chants and songs. The liquid sunshine that threatened did not prevent us from playing our opening game – Capture the Flag – straight after dinner. That went into a three game series, which showed me that none of our guys have lost their competitive edge over the winter. And we do like a competitive edge here at Menominee. Let me explain that. We are, essentially, a sports camp. We like to play sports and we like to keep score. We try to teach the boys how to play sports in a fair, but competitive, fashion, played in the right spirit – The Menominee Way – in which some people win and some people lose. It is learning how to deal with those wins and losses that we try and impress upon the boys. Not everyone can win (all the time), and not everyone loses (all the time), but both those scenarios have to be faced by us all at some point in our lives. Succeeding and failing is part of life, and learning how to come to terms with that is part of what we do here at camp.
We want the boys to have fun, and we want the boys to learn; probably in that order. Learning can be fun! And camp is a great place to do that.
The boys – the younger ones at least – are asleep by now and I need to follow suit.
Please know, as the clock approaches 11pm on this perfect North Woods evening, that all is well, so safely rest.
Goodnight everybody.
As ever…WOODY!
