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Published: February 23rd 2014
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After nearly 3 years of working at Cohn & Wolfe in Amsterdam…I made the choice to leave my job in June to see whether I could take a new direction in my career and head for the non-profit industry. First step: a trip back to a YMCA camp in New Hampshire where I had previously spent summer in 2003, 2005 and 2007. This time to work on a new area: the Environmental Education programme. This summer the camp was also “Going Green”, quite the challenge with around 350 new campers staying every 2 weeks as well as over 100 staff (just imagine the amount of food & waste that gets generated…).
Indeed, quite a change from the office environment, but just the challenge I was looking for.
So after the goodbyes at the office and packing up my room in Amsterdam, Jorn and I went to Samos for a week of relaxation. We rented a little scooter to visit the different beaches on the island, we ate lots of Greek food, on Jorn’s birthday I treated him to a Jeep tour around the island (with a German guide shouting all
sorts of interesting little sightseeing facts over the walkie-talkie…which of course hardly anyone understood) all in all a great week before saying goodbye for 3 months.
Jorn, my parents and Krista waved me goodbye on June 10th at Schiphol and I headed for the gate, over 1,5 hours in advance. Ever since the Christmas terrorist attempt from Schiphol to the US, airport security has been stepped up another notch and we got to go through full body scanners this time. We left before scheduled departure, so I was impressed with that. I was less impressed with the plane, which had 3 ancient TV’s for entertainment instead of the AVOD system which I was of course used to with my client British Airways (I would - of course - have been loyal to them if it hadn’t been for the strike threat that week..)
Despite the lame entertainment on offer, I passed my time with sudoku and napping and the flight to Philadelphia was over in no time. After a 2,5 hour layover I took my next flight, headed for Portland, Maine. Mark, one of the staff that I’ve worked with for 2 summers, was there to pick
me up and drive me to camp. On arrival I caught up with the fulltime staff, happy to see some familiar faces. That weekend was Alumni Weekend, when about 20 people (mostly women, as this is a girls camp) who used to come to Camp Huckins, come back to visit for a weekend and help with setting up camp for another summer. Coming to Camp Huckins is a family tradition for many, so some of the women who visited, used to come in the 70’s and they now have children or grandchildren coming to camp!
As I am working on a new department this year, I went to another camp in western New Hampshire, Camp Pemigewassett, for a one week Nature Clinic which prepares counsellors to be nature instructors in environmental education programs. I was there with 3 guys who were working at Camp Pemi in the nature program, 1 high school teacher and 3 girls taking the course for college credit at the University of New Haven, CT. The clinic covered all sorts of topics ranging from Geology to Pond and Streams to Wild Foods and Wilderness Survival. It also covered Lesson Planning and was an intensive but
really useful week. By the end of the week I was excited to get started with the lessons and put what I’d learnt into practice.
Back at Huckins a lot of the international staff had arrived and I met one of my housemates, Hannah, from England. We have an international crowd this year, with staff from the UK, New Zealand, Australia, Iceland, Colombia, Turkey, Ukraine and Poland.
For a bit of bonding we have taken the pontoon boat out to the island (across from the camp), had staff campfires, gone on an afternoon trip to ‘Monkey Trunks’ (ropes course / canopy tour) and of course, trips to the nearest big town North Conway, good for a lot of outlet shopping, movies or good food (Flatbread’s….yum)
We’re now in week 2 (Session 1 of 4 of the summer) with campers and we have had scorching weather (30-35 degrees) but fortunately nights cool down a lot. Environmental Ed is going well, we have 3 instructionals every morning and the campers have free time in the afternoon, when we have different specials (e.g. a nature scavenger hunt, leaf prints, building fairy houses, etc) Today was a special event because our
two baby cows arrived from the farm (4 weeks old), so there was a lot of ‘ooh’-and ‘aah’-ing.
We don’t have a lot of opportunity to follow the World Cup over here although there was definitely a lot more interest when the USA was still in the competition (funny that)….now it’s just me! Fingers crossed for the semifinal tomorrow……
More updates to come, that’s all for now!
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