Category: Summer Camp

Throughout school and University, I always felt that things were under control; each step of life was laid out before me and with friends and family around, support was never too far away. However, after graduating, for the first time in my life I had no idea what was next. After some mild panic followed by a Google search for ‘What can you do with an English degree?’, I found myself on a flight to China to start my new job as an English teacher. 

Whilst on the plane, I remember all manner of logistical worries racing through my mind: ‘What will my new apartment look like?’ ‘Did I pack the right clothes?’ ‘How long will my travel to work be?’. I felt overwhelmed, unsure of how I would manage on my own in a culture so far removed from what I knew. I was wrapped up in the ‘How?’s the ‘Where?’s and the ‘When?’s. But what I was forgetting to ask was ‘Who?’. 

On my first day, I met two Chinese co-workers that helped me move into my apartment. On the second, they introduced me to their friends over a picnic in the park. By the end of the week I was FaceTiming my parents telling them all about the friends I had made and the new people I was meeting every day. My apartment was fine, I packed just enough T-shirts, and my route into work took about 10 minutes. The things that seemed daunting and detrimental to my happiness soon became the backdrop for a life-changing adventure filled with people, experience and life. 

I look back on my time in China as finding a home away from home. When I say this, I don’t picture an apartment, house or hotel room. Rather, it’s a feeling that the people around me created. A feeling of being your true self, a feeling of acceptance and warmth. A feeling that all the little problems are just that, little. It isn’t tied to a location and it isn’t measurable. It can’t fit into your suitcase, but it can come with you wherever you go. 

I had never been to a summer camp before this year. I had never been a camper and had no idea what was in store when I enrolled as a staff member for Camp Coniston. But I soon found that what I had learned in China was just as true all the way over in Grantham, New Hampshire; you don’t have to have your name on the mailbox to be able to call somewhere home. 

From the moment I arrived at Camp, met by warm, welcoming people with s’mores in hand, I understood why no one can seem to stay away from Coniston.  It’s a rare gift, somewhere you can be your true authentic self, surrounded by people cheering you on, whether they know you or not. This sense of belonging reached a magical peak when I was invited to run into the lake alongside all my friends (who happened to be fellow international staff members). Coniston campers and staff lined the banks of the lake and cheered us down the hill. I felt truly one of a team, an indispensable part of one big special moment in time. It’s true when people say Coniston is like one big family; It’s a home away from home.

                                                                                                                                —Sophie

For those of you lucky enough to have been a CIT at Coniston, you know how much of an exciting and important part of your experience running into the lake is. After working together as a group and completing a life-changing trip, whether that was hiking Mount Washington, the Grand Canyon, Mount Katahdin or any of the other amazing CIT trips, running into the lake is the moment where you celebrate with your friends for completing that challenging experience with the entire Camp community cheering you on. It is a moment that you see every summer as a Camper and hope that one day you will get the chance to experience.

This summer we had over 40 international staff members and they were a truly wonderful group of people. We had staff from the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Mexico, Colombia and New Zealand. Our international staff members were not Coniston campers or CITs. For the past six years at Coniston we have worked to help our international staff feel welcome in our community, and to help them feel that Camp is as much their home as it is anyone that grew up as a camper here. So this year we decided it was time to give the international staff their chance to run in the lake.

During our orientation week with these staff members, they were given the opportunity to go to the top of Mount Washington, to give them an insight of what many of our CITs experience. It was a great day and the group loved seeing beautiful views from the top. After working hard all summer and bonding as a group, we put forward the idea of them running into the lake. They were absolutely thrilled. This is something they never thought they would have the opportunity to do.

So on the last day of Session 4, our international staff gathered on the A-Field where we talked about their successes of the summer before all piling into two of our Coniston buses to drive through Girls Camp through to the lakefront. Anxiety set in as we weren’t sure how this new tradition would be interpreted by the rest of Camp, but to our relief all staff and campers were by the lake cheering at the top of their lungs for the international staff!

We could hear the song ‘Don’t stop me now’, by Queen (a song voted on by the international staff to play), being blasted through the speakers. As they got out of the buses and ran down the hill into the lake, the cheers from the crowd were deafening. Other staff members were ready and waiting to hug all of their international friends. Seeing this group of international staff be so welcomed and accepted into the Coniston community during this new tradition was something we will never forget. 

Some other international staff members shared what this new tradition meant to them:

Ale Campomanes, Cabin Counselor from Puebla, Mexico:

Running into the lake was literally my best memory of camp. The connection that the international group created that day was unreal and emotional. I love this new tradition!

Emily Barron, Horseback staff from East Yorkshire, England:

As an international member of staff, being able to run into the lake with all the other international staff members helped make me feel more a part of Camp and a part of their traditions. It made us all feel special and appreciated for the hard work we had put into Camp over the summer. It also definitely brought us all closer and showed how much we all appreciate having one another there.

Daryl Bogues, Overnight Coordinator from Banbridge, Northern Ireland:

For me, someone who was never a CIT, getting to run into the lake was an incredible experience to celebrate the unbelievable work the international staff have done all summer. To do it with a group of friends made it even better. I hope that this tradition sticks on to celebrate each new group of internationals that come to Camp each summer.

Lucy Barham, Cabin Counselor from Worcestershire, England:

The lake run is something that is really important to current staff members who finished their CIT trip, and it’s been a joy all summer getting to watch this years CITs run in, so it was really wonderful to be able to experience that myself and have the American staff be so supportive and excited that we got to do it!

There is a particular conversation or phrase that I hear a lot, which is that one day we will all have to move past places like Camp and enter the “real world”.

One day we will be too old, or need to focus on school or a career rather than coming back to Camp every summer. I’ll be honest, for a long time I told myself the same thing. That Camp was a representation of my childhood and one day I would have to let go of this place in order to “become an adult”. But Camp has always been a part of my life, and a source of comfort for me. The idea of having to let it go was one that weighed heavily on me.

My last summer on staff was in 2019, and it was one of the hardest summers in my life for a multitude of reasons. I was entering the tough transition from high school to college, I had to stop rowing (which had been a dominating part of my life up to that point) and I was still processing the sudden deaths of several close friends and mentors. My life outside of Camp had changed dramatically and I had personally changed dramatically, but I expected myself to be the same person and the same counselor I was the year prior. I left Camp that summer frustrated with myself, feeling defeated and insecure about my abilities. But I knew how much I loved this place and what it meant to me, so I still planned to return in the summer of 2020.

When Camp was cancelled for the summer due to the pandemic, I took it as a sign. Maybe I kept coming back to Camp each summer because it was a comfortable routing, and instead of having to make the difficult choice to stop coming back myself, it was made for me by COVID.

Maybe it was time to start planning for the future and to look for internships and jobs that were more specific to my future career path. So that’s what I did. I spent my first two summers in over 10 years away from the lake. Of course I missed being here at Camp a lot, but I had this idea that because I chose to not come back that my summers at Coniston were over completely.

In the two summers I was away, I lived pretty much an entirely different life. Last summer I had the opportunity to work as an investigative intern for a very small, very understaffed civil rights department within the Colorado State Government. During that time, I was able to do some incredibly interesting and inspiring work. However, even more interesting to me, was how much I looked back at my time at Coniston to help me in what seemed like the polar opposite work environment. The lessons I had learned at Camp pushed me through my internship and helped me in ways I never expected. Again in the fall, I found myself using the skills I learned at Camp when I went abroad to South Korea for 5 months. Never in a million years did I expect to be comfortable enough to be alone so far from home, but I had lived at Camp every summer for 10 years! So why not?

After all that, I wasn’t surprised to find myself sitting down in December, and opening up the application to be a CIT Director this summer. Although I originally believed that the pandemic had ended my time at Camp, it is what actually brough me back here.

In my time away from Camp, I found my love for Camp again. More importantly, I learned how to love myself again.

I realized that to grow and change as a person did not mean giving up or turning your back on the places and experiences from your past. Evolving as a person doesn’t make you someone new, and places like Camp can never just be left behind as symbols of who we once were. I have and will continue to have Camp as a part of myself, just as all my experiences in life have become a part of me. Several years from now, maybe when I choose not to spend my summer on the lake, I won’t see it as me leaving Camp behind. But rather bringing everything that makes this place special and everything I have learned along with me.

And I hope regardless of where you all see yourself in 5 or 10 years, that you will continue to embrace the things that make you who you are. Because there is no difference between “Camp” and “the real world”. They are one in the same.