Awards, Honors, and Patches - New Camper Blog Series
It’s Tuesday once again, which means another week of our New Camper blog series. We are sharing detailed blogs on topics specifically geared towards our new camper families, so if you’re just not joining us, look back over our past posts to catch up. This week? Patches, honors, and awards at camp – let’s go!
When looking at all of the awards offered at camp, we have set these up with a few goals in mind. We want girls to set goals and achieve success in their different activity areas, all while building character and learning the value of hard work. We also want girls to learn how to stay positive, to overcome obstacles, and to apply what they are learning through Morning Assembly and nightly devotions to their personal lives. To encourage this in our campers, we have different awards and honors campers can receive while at Greystone.
Patches:
We offer over 80 different classes each summer, and in many of these, girls will work to pass levels. For example, in Archery, girls will learn all about safety and how to shoot on the first day, and then they will work to pass different Archery levels throughout the session. Other classes, like Basketball and Gymnastics, will spend the majority of the session teaching and practicing different skills, and then as the session winds down, girls can work to pass levels in those classes.
When campers pass a level, these girls are honored at our Council Fire ceremonies. We have these at our June, Main, and August sessions. Each department will stand up at the front of our Council Fire area and call out the names of the girls who have passed levels in their class. Girls will walk down front and receive a patch for their accomplishment. Campers love hearing their name announced at Council Fire! Many of our alumnae and some older campers will collect these patches and put them on a Greystone jacket.
Some of our classes don’t have levels to pass. For example, our Arts classes work to complete projects instead of trying to pass certain levels. Our Dance classes will spend the session working on routines to perform for Production Night. And, classes like Waterpark just have fun in the class! I would guess that half of our classes have levels you can pass and half do not.
Due to the short length of the Junior Camp session, girls will not work to pass levels in activities. Instead, campers will work to have fun and learn new skills while at camp. Then, when these campers switch to our longer sessions, they will already have many skills needed to work on levels!
Banquet Awards:
While you may or may not work to pass levels in classes, all of our activity areas give awards at Banquet (our final celebration on the last night of camp). Each department will hand out a select few awards to girls at the Banquet ceremony, and these awards are given to girls for skill and for character. For example, girls can receive an award for having the best attitude, being on the “all-star” cross-country team (for the top runners in camp), or for having great determination while working on a project.
Honors:
We have two different Honor Awards that girls can receive during our Main Camp session: The Spirit of Greystone Award and Honor Council.
Spirit of Greystone Award: At Greystone, we have an Honor Code (new this year!), and we teach different Godly character traits to the girls throughout the summer, specifically focusing on specific traits at our Council Fire ceremonies. So, for example, we may focus on Honesty one week and talk about it at our Council Fire ceremony. During that Council Fire, we will then pass out a Spirit of Greystone Award, honoring girls throughout camp who have embodied Honesty in some way that week. This award is available to campers in all grade levels and is counselor and fellow-camper nominated. It is a great opportunity to recognize girls for working to grow while at camp.
Honor Council: At Main Camp, our oldest campers in camp can become part of our Honor Council. We are looking to honor and instill leadership skills to this group and help these girls put that leadership into practice during their senior year as campers. These girls have a desire to live out the Godly characteristics we are instilling in all of our campers, and we honor these girls for leading in our community.
This sums up our awards and honors system at Greystone. We hope that every camper will gain confidence, learn the value of hard work, set obtainable goals, and have fun through this system at camp. Have any additional questions? Let us know below! See you next week for another week of our New Camper Blog series!