Hello Blog Friends!
I’m still processing everything that has gone on in the past week, so let’s begin with the world of Day Camps.
After much badgering, all but one host community has sent in the Feedback Form, so it appeared the wrap-up blog post could finally be assembled and published, alas, it was not to be. All the comments were sorted and gleaned along with stats from the forms, I then distilled them into a post text, and started resizing and uploading the photos. Sadly, two communities did not submit any images and a third submitted images lacking the “jpeg” attribution, so they could not be uploaded. An email was immediately sent to the coordinator about the problem, knowing that he was in France on a business trip. The same day he very kindly shared the corrected files but one other community has still not submitted their images, so the draft is still waiting to be published. Sigh.
As for the lack of photos from other communities, a note has been made to explain to people that, with a little creativity, camp photos may still taken, which do not include the faces of children. Images of the many creative projects, images showing children’s hands involved in various activities, images where campers have their backs to the camera… you get the idea! I’m not quite sure exactly where, in the Resources, this information should be included (and, of course, will busy people have time to read it??) but we will give it a shot for next year.
Just because, last Monday was a statutory holiday, it did not seem to affect the volume of emails, such as a list of reimbursement E-transfers for JYC/YL staff and workshop leaders. These had to be prepared, sent, and accounted for. In case everyone was not already muddled by the shortened work week, we had agreed to move the monthly DC committee meeting from Wednesday to Tuesday, in order to accommodate a member’s schedule. We had a good meeting with no one absent except the member away in France and I came away with a fresh list of people to contact for the many tasks related to the upcoming autumn events, as well as for all the “moving parts” of the 2026 Program.
Much of Wednesday’s work was sending out messages to the people, suggested, as well as trying to solve the blogpost problems. Thursday was frustratingly spent STILL trying to find a Speaker for the Harvest Team Gathering, now only 6 weeks away. There was also a pleasant diversion of a FaceTime meeting with one of the committee members, in order to discuss further plans for the Alumni Advent Study Program.
The overarching “elephant in the room”, this week was the phone call that came, to Anna (see last week’s post), early last Saturday, saying her father had died overnight. Her son, Nathanael, had already left the house and was enroute to his grandmother’s apartment on the South Shore, from where he was to be picked up by some friends and taken to tour a train museum. Subsequently, his grandmother broke the news to him. I immediately made TEA while Anna started calling various relatives and trying to reach one of her 2 brothers, who turned out to be on a back-country hiking trip in BC. Her other brother, with his wife and young son, were mobilised and soon driving to Montreal to be with their mother.
To condense a very complicated week- Nathanael returned, alone on the train to Halifax, as he was starting High School, Anna spent one night staying with her Mum but returned here once the “hiking” brother flew in. The funeral took place, Thursday afternoon, at Christchurch Cathedral and, last evening, Anna was able to return to her family in Halifax, and will arrive, there, by train, in a few hours. As you can, perhaps, deduce, my priority has been to make a lot of tea and be here, along with Thomason, as a safe and supportive background to the week.
Some readers might wonder what this “elephant” has to do with Day Camps? Well, I first met Anna over 30 years ago, when her parents, recently arrived in Montreal, where her Dad was to serve as Port Chaplain, brought her to the Day Camp, taking place at St. Columba’s Church, across the street from our house. Subsequently, she became a Travelling Team Member, Team Leader. Training Leader, DC Committee Member and, over a period of several years, designed, scripted and filmed the puppet videos that tell each day’s core stories for five of our six programs. And if all of that does not entitle her to a bit of content in a Day Camp Blog Post, I don’t know what does! She, her husband, Charles, and her two sweet sons, I count as very special friends and hope that, by serving them at this time, I have helped to ease a, very stressful, few weeks. Thomason and I shall miss her, but I know her family (including their darling dog, Léo) will be ready to welcome her. Safe journey Anna!
If you have made it this far in what is quite a marathon post, here is my Mum’s recipe for the pear pie that we all shared together, last Sunday, before Anna took Nathanael to the station.
Pear Crumble Pie
- 1 unbaked pie shell
- 4 cups peeled & cored pears, cut into eighths
- 1tsp. grated lemon rind
- 3Tbsps. lemon juice
- ½tsp, each, ground ginger and cinnamon
- ¼ tsp. ground mace
- 1cup cane sugar
- ½ cup flour
- 5½ Tbsps. butter
Preheat oven to 400ºF. Mix pears, lemon rind, ½ sugar & arrange in pie shell. Combine flour, remaining sugar and spices, then cut in the butter until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Bake for 40 minutes, until browned and bubbling. Allow to cool before slicing.