This year marks Glen Mhor’s 80th Anniversary! We think that 80 years of this amazing camp ministry is something to celebrate, and we want to celebrate with all of you!

On November 13, 2010 we will host our 80th Anniversary Gala Dinner at Knox Presbyterian Church, Agincourt (near the 401, in Scarborough). This evening will boast many exciting elements, including a delicious meal, silent auction and a not-to-be-missed concert, featuring campers, staff and alumni.

This event will help us raise funds for Cairn’s Glen Mhor programme. Tickets work in a tiered system and pricing depends only on your personal choice: $80, $60 or $40 a ticket. All ticket purchases will include a tax receipt from Cairn.

To book your tickets today, call the camp office at 705-767-3300. We can’t wait to celebrate with all of you! Thanks for the Evening, Friends!

Cairn Summer Camp Contest

We’ve got an awesome new contest that you’ll definitely want to be a part of!

If you refer new campers to Cairn this summer, or next, and those campers register between now and December 1, 2010, your family will be put in a draw to win a FREE week of camp in 2011! AMAZING!

Here’s how the contest works:

• Tell all your friends, family, co-workers, schoolmates, pets, etc., about Cairn
• Let those people know that, when they register for a camp session for either this summer or next, they should write your family’s name in the Referring Family section of the online registration form AND quote the letters, “CCC.”
• After this, we will enter your family’s name in our draw for a FREE week of camp in 2011!
• The winning family will be announced December 6, 2010.

Remember, the more referrals you give, the more chances you have to win the Colossal Cairn Contest! Good luck!

It’s our 80th Anniversary! Glen Mhor started as a camp for girls back in 1930, and it’s still going today as a co-ed camp for anyone aged 5 through 16, and families! We’re very excited about this accomplishment in camping and within our Synod. To celebrate, we’re asking churches, families and any other camp enthusiasts to donate $80 for 80 years of Christian camping. One dollar for every year we’ve been running will go a long way to making our camp programme even better.

Join the other camp alumni from your generation who have donated back to camp.  This will allow us to continue to offer the highest quality leadership and community experiences to today’s over-connected children.

To Donate send an Interac Email Money Transfer to admin@ilovecamp.org

Other donation possibilites:

• Donate to Cairn online through CanadaHelps.org
• Call our camp office at 705-767-3300
• Mail a cheque made out to Cairn. 3200 Hwy 117, Baysville, ON P0B 1A0.

Thanks for all your many years of support; we truly appreciate it and look forward to many more years of fun, play, laughter and growing in Christ.

Calling all Alumni! Come join us for a amazing camp weekend of magic and memories. It’s Glen Mhor’s 80th Anniversary and we want you to come to Glen Mhor, bring your families and help us celebrate!

Our Alumni Weekend will give you an opportunity to see how the site has evolved, play on our toys (like the zip line, the climbing wall, the throwing blanket and the aquajump), eat fantastic meals, stand on your benches to sing in the dining hall, lead your favourite songs at campfire and reminisce about the good old days at camp.

The entire weekend costs only $80 per person and goes from Friday, September 10 at 7:00 PM until Sunday, September 12 at 2:00 PM. You can register online at http://ilovecamp.org/registration/register-for-camp. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call the camp office at 705-767-3300, or send us an email at info@ilovecamp.org.

We can’t wait to see you all back at camp! Pack your bug spray, your excitement and your memories, and get ready for an amazing time!

We Believe in our CAMPERS. Do you believe in them?

I believe that our campers are capable of…

-Anything they hope to achieve
-make us better, inspiring us to work harder and to be more creative
-discovering who they are
-coming out of their comfort zones
-changing the world
-whatever they choose
-doing and believing in anything
-achieving their goals
-being the best they can be
-seeing the best in everyone
-influencing and instigating change

Photo by Travis "Zoic" Allison

Have you seen what Abrigo (Spencer Blake: Adventure Programmer at Cairn this summer) is doing to raise money for Cairn’s Campership Fund?! It’s great! Check it out:

Abrigo is raising money for camp in the most awesome way. If you give $5 to Cairn’s Campership Fund then he’ll send you 4 (or more!) music tracks that he both wrote and recorded (Abrigo is an amazing singer and guitar player). Campers need your help so they can attend camp, and with 4 tracks by an amazing singer/songwriter as a bonus, why not donate right now?!

Just go to http://www.canadahelps.org, search for Cairn Presbyterian Camping and make sure your donation of $5 or more goes to the Cairn Music Campership Fund in order to get your Spencer Blake music! Music will come to you via email so that you can download the tunes and add them to your ipod or mP3 or burn them onto your own disc to listen to whenever you want!

This is an incredible gift that Abrigo is giving, so please, take advantage of it and help send deserving campers to camp and support an amazing young artist! We are extremely proud of Abrigo and all the effort he is going through to help fill our Campership Fund. You rock, Abrigo! To find out more about Abrigo and his music, go to his Facebook fan page here or his MySpace page here.

A little bit about our Cairn Campership Fund:

At Cairn we keep a Campership Fund. This fund is used to pay up to 50% of the cost of a camp session for those families who need financial aid. It’s only April and our Campership Fund is already empty. There are still more families out there that need our help. We have families on a waiting list, eager to hear if their child will be able to get a summer experience at Cairn.

Thank you for your consideration; you could make a camper’s day!

To get us started off, I’d like to share some of my own camp memories. My second last summer as a camper (just before I became a LIT) was in 1999. I started the summer at Girls Camp and ended the summer as one of the first-ever Pre-LITs. While at Girls Camp, my counsellors, Zazoo and Pyra, made everyone in my cabin a notebook so that we could write notes to each other and exchange addresses, emails and phone numbers. 11 years later, I still have my notebook. Here’s what it looks like:

It was an amazing week and although I no longer understand all the inside jokes written by my cabin-mates, I still remember most and find myself smiling when I read through them. Especially the parts about swing dancing. Karen and Holly taught us how to swing dance and I think that’s all we did that week. We had to be asked to stop swing dancing in the evenings because all the bouncing around in Whispering Pines kept other cabins up–even if we didn’t talk and only danced!

Later in the summer, when I returned for Pre-LIT, I brought this notebook along and asked my Pre-LIT pals to write notes in it, too. I also asked my Pre-LIT directors to write something. Here’s part of what Leaf wrote:

Interesting how what your counsellors say can absolutely come true… Thanks for the confidence, Leaf! And really, thanks to all of my past counsellors, cabin-mates, directors and campers; they’ve all helped guide me from Becky, the eight-year-old at camp for the first time, to Palais, the Cairn Co-Director. And I certainly cherish all the memories I’ve gathered along the way!

So, what are your camp memories? What have your counsellors said to you along the way that helped you out or made you more confident? When were those moments where you laughed so hard you cried or when everyone sang so sweetly it sent shivers up your spine? Let us know! Add your comment below.

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Director Rebecca “Palais” Jess

Director Chantal “Match” Jackson

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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!

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!