Cairn LIT Applications due March 19

Being a Leader In Training at Cairn is a wonderful way to develop leadership skills that will benefit you at camp, at school, in programs and activities and within your communities.

As a LIT at Cairn, you can spend a month living at camp and learning hard skills, such as canoeing, tripping and belaying, as well as soft skills such as leading TLC, running camp programs and nurturing campers.

This is definitely one month of camp that you do not want to miss! Plus, being a LIT is an important and useful step to take before applying to be a staff member at Cairn.

If you’ll be 16 years of age by December 31, 2010, you are eligible to apply to Cairn’s Leader In Training programme. Applications can be found on our website, or by clicking here. Applications are due on Friday, March 19, 2010, so if you’re looking to experience the best summer of your life, apply now!

Please also note that there is a mandatory LIT Day for all LIT applicants on Saturday, March 27, 2010 at Morningside-High Park Presbyterian Church in Toronto. Hope to see you there!

Cairn’s Work Weekend is Coming

Mark your calendars! May 14-16 is our annual Work Weekend at Cairn’s Baysville site. This is a great way to come out and help camp while having a ton of fun! Come and meet new friends, work on new projects and even take some time to sit and sing by the campfire. No experience is necessary; we’ll find a job to suit your needs and abilities.

Bring yourself, your youth group, your choir, your friends, your mens’ groups, your ladies associations, your Sunday School teachers, your session, your elders, your family. . . join us to help make improvements to camp’s site. Some of our projects this year will include: woodchipping, canoe repairs, putting in the docks, fixing up the Thicket, building some kybos and painting the lodge.

Arrive when you can and we’ll hook you up with all your meals and a place to sleep. All you need to bring is yourself, your sleeping bag and, if you’d like, your tools; we’ll set you up with all the rest.

For more information, email Palais at palais@ilovecamp.org

Looking forward to seeing you there!

Cairn Staff of 2010

All of our staff for this coming spring and summer at Cairn have been hired! After an amazing Resource Hiring Day and an exciting Counsellor Hiring Day, we’re sure that Cairn has the best staff this side of Echo Lake.

Want to know who you’ll see where this summer? Click here to go to our blog and check out a list of our Cairn Staff of 2010!

Church Visits

Cairn is once again on the road and heading to a variety of churches in our Synod to lead congregations in worship, song and prayer, with a little camp spirit.

We still have spaces available, so if you’re interested in having us come to your church, drop us a line at admin@ilovecamp.org. This could be a great way to get involved and raise some money to help send kids from your church or community to camp with a special camp lunch or fundraiser after the service.

If you’d like to join us in worship, we’ll be at the following churches over the next couple months:

Sunday, March 28: Dixie Presbyterian, Brampton

Sunday, April 11: First Presbyterian, Collingwood

Sunday, April 18: St. John’s Milliken, Scarborough

Sunday, April 18: St. Andrew’s, Orillia

Sunday, April 25: St. Andrew’s Presbyterian, Brampton

Calling all Alumni

We all know that camp creates lasting memories and lifelong friendships. Children come to camp, they engage and learn and grow and eventually step into new roles as counsellors and adventure programmers and LIT directors.

Inevitably, the time comes where many of us have to gather up the skills, knowledge and support we’ve received from camp over the years and move on to other jobs, other commitments and other places in the world.

But none of that means we have to disconnect ourselves from camp entirely! Once camp is a part of you, it’s hard to forget it. You can take the camper out of camp, but you can never take the camp out of the camper.

Cairn is pleased to announce that we now have a Cairn Alumni Committee. This committee  is excited to provide alumni from all four of our camp programs with news, events, volunteer opportunities and ways to keep in touch with old camp friends.

The committee is currently made up of mostly Glen Mhor alumni, so if you are Iona, Dorothy Lake or Presbyterian Music Camp alumni and are interested in joining the committee, or volunteering, please contact us at alumni@ilovecamp.org.

The alumni committee’s first kick-off event was Friday, January 22 at Elephant & Castle in downtown Toronto. It was great to see so many alumni out from a few different generations! We shared stories, learned camp names and caught up with old friends.

Missed out on all the fun and memories?! Don’t worry! There will be another alumni event for all ages in the spring. Stay tuned for more information.

Be sure to follow Alumni News in upcoming newsletters, on Twitter (cairnalumni) and join the Facebook Fan Group: CairnAlumni. We can’t wait to catch up!

A Letter from Palais

Hello Cairn Friends and Families!

I could not be more excited about writing to you as the new Co-Director of Cairn; I am thrilled about the opportunities, experiences and fun that await us in 2010!

Do you know that feeling you get in your stomach when you reach the camp road? After a year of school and events, sports practices and play rehearsals, the time finally arrives to head back to camp. You pack up your bags and jump in the car and you travel for what seems like forever. And just as you think you’ll explode with anticipation, there it is in front of you: the camp road. And your stomach fills with that feeling of excitement and joy, mingled with just a little bit of nervousness. THAT’s the feeling I’m talking about. Know that feeling? I love that feeling. It’s a feeling that embodies all the amazing possibilities to come.

That’s how I feel right now.

To be a Co-Director at Cairn is a dream come true. I grew up spending a week each summer at Glen Mhor and every year my love for camp grew. I am blessed to have had so many amazing experiences at camp as a camper, counsellor, arts and crafts director, programme director, alumnus and now, co-director. My journey to this new place in my life has been long, but rewarding.

As Christians, we are constantly moving within our own faith journeys. Sometimes we soar, knowing just what God wants for us, and sometimes we drag our feet, questioning our decisions, our faith and our places in this world. But no matter where we sit in our journeys of faith, God calls to us in unexpected ways. God called me to Cairn. His call made me realize that, despite the new challenges and hard work that go into directing a camp, at the heart of it is my belief in the camping ministry and its ability to effect positive change in the world. And, wow, am I excited to be a part of that change!

I pray for your health and happiness in 2010, and I hope that amongst all the journeys you take this year, one of them will be a journey to camp; we can’t wait for you to arrive!

Yours in Camping,

Rebecca “Palais” Jess