hello, is anybody out there?

i hope this project isn't stalled 4-eva... :(

I'm up for other forms of communication...for all of us to stay in close contact it would be great to use many forms...blogging, email etc..

communication of ideas and disscussion

Hey, Hey, Hey!

So I am thinking that maybe we need another interTWINE mode of communication. Maybe interTWINE specific e-mail addresses? We could still use the blog of course, but sometimes ideas and planning are easier behind the scenes and not so public? My thought was maybe each having a interTWINE g-mail address, like babs.iT@gmail, and puck.iT@gmail. I just feel like maybe it would make communication of ideas and discussion about process a little easier.

Any thoughts?

cd

I agree with your last post bug...another idea that popped into my head is we could make some money selling the camp songs cd (the one with the staff singing). We could recreate or just get more copies of the one we had a couple of years ago. I know leaders that are still looking for that CD....We could put it online and I can let leaders know at meetings and such.

busy business fizzzz-on

good morning! a couple thoughts....

I am thinking that we want to find out about all options regarding a format for interTWINE, but that we all want it to generate money/income first, and be a notforprofit second.

I am also thinking that we are not focused on a particular age group.

agree/disagree?

I would also like to propose that we put together a cd of music that could be used to generate talk and dance about change and working together across experiences.....if we do a booth at the yipa conference in st. cloud or the twin cities, we need music that represents us, eh?!

movin' and groovin'

hello all on this fine march morning! hope all is well in your various worlds!

I am going to meet with Beaker's friend and see what is up in her world and see what she knows about publishing the kind of information we have to share. I will get back to you on that. The class that I had hoped would have some good information for us about business structure was not so great so I grabbed the booklet and ditched. I had received the exact same info in the mail from the state!!!! ugh. I did talk with one of the awesome Grand Marias leaders who was very excited to hear about our plans and she said that UMD has the NE MN Business Development office that she thinks we should contact. I am going to UMD several times at the end of the week so I will check that out. They apparently help plan your business. That could be an exciting development!

We have a number of people taking on new roles this spring and I feel it will be important to continue to communicate as much as possible with each other as iterTWINE takes baby steps forward! As you will all find, most work settings do not use the cumbersome consensus-building style that we have had at camp in the past. Unless there are objections, I propose we continue to use participatory decision-making. This blog is one part of that, some meetings and electronic gatherings will be another, and paper copies back and forth will play their part too. I hope everyone will weigh in on this so our expectations about communication and process are in sync.

Midstates is just ahead and so far I have heard from Tiko, Lorac, Puckoroo, Sport, em(cee) and Babs about their plans. We will reserve rooms this week, so let me know what you are planning to do. It has been suggested that we stay at Lorac's as part of the weekend, to save money. Those of us going can decide on the number of nights as this week flies along! Midstates is always such a good place for working together and brainstorming...it will be exciting!

Midstates

I took vacation days so I am ready to go to midstates....I'm so excited to spend some quality time talking interTwine!

next steps?

although all of the CR materials are sorted at bug's house (for the most part... !) we need to come up with a game plan...

i know we have some folks out there "following" the blog... what do you all think of what's been written so far?

and what are everyone's summer plans, at this point?
who might be around to help write up these tool kits, materials, etc. ?

???

Hello all! It has been a busy few weeks since we met at the Buckhorn and our ever-changing lives keep rockin' along! I had a great meeting yesterday with a couple of my former profs from umd and got some good feedback about our interTWINE ideas. I hope to meet now with beaker's friend about publishing our ideas and past work. Perhaps then I will have some solid plans to propose to you!

I have signed up for a short class on small business planning and hope to learn more about the current laws/regulations so we are legit and can be active in as many ways as possible. I suppose we may need to have a discussion about moving ahead with all this if some will be at work at camp again this summer. Any thoughts about that?

We had talked about meeting the weekend of the twenties of this month in the cities since tiko would already be there from the northern climes. Is this still our plan? Chime in on that one so plans can be made. I will call sport to see if she has heard anything from mid-states folks as I have not as yet. The last year we presented we heard at the beginning of March, FYI. If we are planning to go to mid-states presenters or not, we should get reservations in to pheasant run for rooms. They do fill up. Maybe people can let me know on that count too. So much to keep track of in all this!!!! yikes!!!

list o' topics

here's the list of topics/programs that we want to write down, in a curricular format:
*Feel free to add more in the comments...
I'll edit the post & add them to the list!

+Sprouts
+Afternoon Antics
+Blacksocks
+Oh, The Places You Will Go!
+Heroes Quilts/collab with CR + Ann & Lin
+Ojibwe Immersion/collab with CR + LCO & Anne Marie, Dale, Nancy, Mariah
+Outreach/collab with CR + East Hillside Youth Theatre, Quimby's kids
+Duct Tape Darlin's, CHOCOLATE, CIT Programs -- with special focus on the unique qualities that made these programs retain youth and encourage them to become counselors themselves
+TRIPS, TRIPS, TRIPS (in the words of MACI!)
+Staff Retention: renaissance counselors/staff and things that retain staff like the cheeseburgers and jelly belly party on Bug's dock, staff blacksocks, dilly bar nights, or the ball game

updates & such

hello, interTWINERS!

just writing to let you know that tiko, bug, and i (emcee) had a teleconference last week (very professional), and i have the minutes from it, which i sent out from the interTWINE gmail address. if you didn't receive them and want to, please let me (emcee) know!

"where to?" will be discussed at our next meeting, which will be this sunday, january 25 at 5 PM at the buckhorn in gordon. please let us know if you want to participate via phone, if you can't make it in person! it should be good times and fried foods for all.

also, thanks to BABS for letting us use her (totally perfect) picture of the dreamcatcher/heroes quilt for our "splash" page for the blog! it looks awesome, and really makes the page more pleasing to the eye, rather than a big tangled ball of words whacking your brain all at once.

a camp to call our own...

I realize this may be a bit premature, but what can I say? Do we want to try and run an organized camp this summer? Where? For how long? A collaboration? Just to put it out there...

systems, systems, systems

The sorting process is in high gear and now it seems some suggestions from the crew would be in order....and speaking of order, that is the question! How would it be best to organize all our printed materials? I know that my drippy nose and gravity are combining to test my patience today, but it is a bit of a puzzle. There are program materials that we wrote and the supporting factoids for that material, there are handouts from other camp professionals, parent pieces and other camp communications, and there are books that support our ideas. Also, to note, there is lot of it........! Any suggestions?

my first blog ever

Hi All...I've never done any sort of blog before so I thought I would try it out...I guess interTwine is the best way to begin.
Phil is working on the logo and looking for ideas. If you have any thoughts on colors, fonts, or a pic please let me know or stop in our house and we can stare at the computer and work on it. Phil and I will bring drafts of the logo to the meeting on the 25th.
Thats all for now....

Oldies but Goodies (and not the Nut sort, although they are Old and Good)

I have made it a priority to organize the Camp Files, as they are now tagged, so that you/we can access them. As the packing of camp happened, i tried to save things that had Quality Content in them and on them, so that should help us move into our new ways of work. It all got to be a blur, but hopefully there are pieces that we can draw from and use to jog our collective memory.

The writing down of our ideas and programs would definitely be marketable. We have something that is not ordinary and since many of us have invested lots of time in our work, it would be excellent for that time to be an ongoing source of productivity...and maybe income. To teach our model will be a big challenge, and writing it down in a dynamic way will be interesting as well. I confess to all-night mind churning as interTWINE moves into Here and Now!

I think there are interesting pieces of the process that was roundelay...how to excavate that from our collective consciousness? What was the process of letting go of the director driven model and moving into the collaborative model? What was that like from the perspective of staff and the perspective of the director? I think teaching people how to let go of the power of one and move to the power of many is a compelling task; feminist, socialist, anti-corporate!

Some pieces of the puzzle that was camp for me include the ideas of...Open Space Technology, the eco-programming from Thinking Like a Mountain, group dynamics of tribalism, and Let's Make It Happen girl scout program book from 1974. I will put together a synopsis of these topics and get them out to you.

A calendar! let's make one....also, the bixby's meetings of the past five years...is there a way to create some meeting times for us? could duluth peeps gather to e-mail, message, blog to others gathered in strategic places? hmmmmm. thanks to em for putting this together so we can begin this new trot about! i wonder where it will take us...?!?!?!

Paper Storm!

I will have to look through the Roundelay files. :)

I have all the staff pages going back to my first year as staff. They are all in lovely plastic page protectors as well. I am awsome I know.

We should also do something/write something up about afternoon antics. We have so many talented people! Also Blacksocks of course. I mean we won a sweet award for that.

That is all I have right now.

interTwiney brainstorm!

heyylo, friends...

so currently we've submitted 6 proposals to the ACA (american camping association) mid-states conference set for march 27-29, 2009 in chicago. we haven't heard back from ACA yet, but bug says we shouldn't necessarily expect to hear from them yet, as it's pretty early in the new year.

i'm writing to ask what our next steps should be? as a collective, i think it's important to keep some movement going, at least intellectually, ie: the planning phase of things. i've been brainstorming a lot about the concept of intellectual property, as well as our shared kinship (not ownership, necessarily) in regards to the ideas, programs, and spirit that mark camp roundelay.

some ideas i've had include:

+starting to formally write down and capture the protocol and structure of the programs we ran in the last ten years, in the form of curriculums/toolkits, or how-to guides. if we finessed these enough, we could market them to other camps who are just starting or are trying to inject their programs with some new energy and ideas.

+collecting all written and drawn materials we have. these include program brochures, roundelay ramblings, staff pages, other artwork for theme weeks and all-camps, anything! these things will become a part of the interTwine portfolio and will be especially useful as examples for any workshops we might run, or publications we might disseminate.


please share any other ideas you might have! i think these steps would really prepare us to seek out other camping conferences, and are certainly a first step toward establishing ourselves as a resource in the camping community.