Wild Card Week

 

Wild card week (Vermont Session 2) is our opportunity to play with new ways of being true to the old spirit of NBTSC. If, to you, NBTSC couldn't be NBTSC without (for example) the trust circle or without the workshop schedule looking the way it usually looks, then this session might be too disorienting for you. But if you would relish the chance for us to experiment with new ways of sharing ourselves vulnerably with each other, or with different ways to assemble a cornucopia of skill-sharing amongst campers and staff, then do please join us.

Wild Card Week 2010

While kicking around several ideas for this year's WCW, Grace was reading Thomas Moore's book, The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life, and came across a passage that suggests businesses might benefit not only from hiring "efficiency experts," but also, perhaps, inefficiency experts. This gave Grace the thought that at camp we could have, say, "adventure" or "spontaneity" experts (advisors Tilke and Amos sprang immediately to mind), and then that sparked the idea that at WCW we could offer every camper and every staffer the opportunity to assume care for one of the specific qualities that NBTSC aspires to manifest.

So: this year we will organize our schedule, advisee groups, intentions, and activities around specific phrases from the NBTSC mission statement.

 

Advisee groups

Advisors will choose a theme for their advisee groups (such as to ensure that the week has plenty of wild spontaneous fun). Groups will focus on their theme in their time together and may also decide to offer an event or otherwise infuse the whole camp with this quality.

Advisee groups will also have the option to be "intensive" groups that meet for additional time (such as over lunch some days).

We'll email all campers to enumerate the options, and campers will sign up for groups prior to camp. (Responding is not mandatory, but folks who don't let us know their preferences will get assigned randomly to a group, which could be its own kind of fun.)

(As of late July, we're just about ready to shoot off this email -- so far, there are groups planned around creative transformation, spiritual transformation, instigating adventure, instigating wild spontaneous fun, and creating sanctuary.)

Committees

Any camper or staffer can start a committee at camp to perpetrate and propagate any particular aspect of the mission statement. Committees are open to anyone who wants to participate in them, though whoever starts the committee has first dibs on chairing it.

For instance, you might organize a committee whose purpose is to help profound friendships begin, by planning and running an afternoon of trust games that you hope will do exactly that.

elves/fairies/angels/instigators/undercover agents

We invite everybody to choose one aspect of the mission statement to personally promote. You can work alone, with a partner, or in groups of 3 or more. You can go public by including yourself on a master list posted in the lodge (and by making announcements, running events, etc.) or you can carry out your work anonymously under the cover of night.

what's required of campers

Just that you participate in an advisee group (and, like at most NBTSC sessions, do your chores and attend daily meetings and the occasional other required event). Beyond that, you don't "have to" proactively engage any of this stuff at all. NBTSC aspires to create a sanctuary that includes you exactly as you are.

staff roles

In addition to most of the usual staff roles (people who cook meals, who lead advisee groups, who patch skinned knees, etc.), some staff will be assigned as lookouts or advocates for specific aspects of the mission statement. Elves, committees, etc. can use these staffers as resources if they like.

evening events

Not to sound like a broken record, but... each evening activity will be designed to promote one or more specific intentions from the mission statement. Expect pretty much all-new events.

daytime workshops and other events

As at traditional sessions of camp, you are welcome to bring a workshop or other hour-long event to lead. We may create the workshop schedule at camp rather than prior to camp, and we may also ask that while planning your workshop, you choose one aspect of the mission statement that you hope your event will especially bolster. (Yes, of course, pretty much everything we do at camp and in life touches on more than one aspect, but we may ask you to choose one and be able to tell us what it is.) We're not suggesting that you over-analyze or stress about this, just that both for the sake of helping us choreograph our schedule and also increasing the power of our shared intentions, together we create greater resonance and power by focusing our minds in the same direction. If, in the process of teaching a "beginning Hebrew" workshop, you also set out to help people transform intellectually, you may find yourself leading a particularly potent event.

the list

Here are the "puzzle pieces" of the NBTSC mission statement, which we'll draw from while choosing our roles, preparing workshops and other events, designing the schedule, and planning advisee groups:

 

 

And here, for a quick reference, is the NBTSC mission statement in its entirety:

Not Back to School Camp aspires to create a sanctuary

· that affirms, inspires, and mentors unschoolers…

· where campers and staff transform spiritually, emotionally, physically, creatively, intellectually…

· where profound friendships begin and grow…

· and where adventure, mystery, music, wild spontaneous fun, and magic prevail.

 

For a little bit on last year's WCW, see Which Session Should I Attend?