Home for the Holidays

The snow came and went yesterday, but there is no doubt that winter is here. We have completed our 2 week period, always a kind of weird time of the year, between the Thanksgiving break and holiday hiatus we give our staff. This year, some the drudgery of this 2 week period was eliviated by two simple words- Secret Santa. I will admit that, with an 18 month old in the house, my excitement for the holiday season is as high as it has been since I was a child myself, but it seemed that everyone on the staff had fun with this year's holiday plan per PMOEC. We all drew a name and had to give three gifts to our selected person; one that cost less than $5, one that was a re-gift and one that we made. We revelaed who we were giving gifts to at our first annual PMOEC-Formal-Holiday-Party that Laura and I hosted. And today? Only a few PMOEC employees are around still arounf. Others have left the North Country to reconnect with family all over the East Coast. It is a welcome break in our schedule- a time that we all reflect on how PMOEC has changed our paradigm, how excited we are about tour profession and how much we are looking forward to coming back to PMOEC for an incredibly unique winter teaching experience in 2012. This will be my last post of 2011 (sorry Molly), so I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday season and I hope we all have a great start to the new year. Until then...

Reflecting

Cutting wood. Housing renovations. Pasture maintenance. It is the time of year when we dedicate our full selves to work projects. I am always very introspective about this time of year as, by trade, we are educators; and yet, we must do these things to survive the winter and into the future. Thankfully, any fear that I have about our staff getting into a rut is quelled every morning when they happily invest themselves in the jobs of the day. We have also had a chance to spend some time reflecting on the first 4 months of all of this staffs time at Pok-O. Things move forward and, collectively, I am optimistic about the winter and getting back into teaching. In the meantime, for those of you who are pining for the traditional days of PMOEC as a premier outdoor education center in the Adirondacks, check out this video posted by a group who came to se us a few seasons ago. Enjoy!

http://youtu.be/8WumPgSRIxg

We are great adopters!

The end of the fall season took a long time to truly finally happen, but no matter how you cut it, the week of Thanksgiving definitively means the fall outdoor ed season has ended and the winter outdoor ed season has begun. We bid a fond farewell to Patrick Duvall as our winter staff shrinks by one member every year, meaning one of our fall staff instructors has to go . This is one of the parts of my job I dislike the most, but it has to be done. Patrick was an incredibly valuable part of our fall staff; his vigor for oration, his love of learning and his passion for board games will be missed. We hope to have him back in the spring, but recognize that someone else would be well served to add him to their staff and, thusly, wish him the very best. At the very end of the fall season we also hosted an incredibly successful community event- Pie and the Sky. Folks came to our site, made their own pizzas, went out to build a scale model of the solar system while their pizzas were cooked for them and came back into the warm confines of the Pok-O-Queen to enjoy their culinary creations.
Also, as the mild temperatures have given us more time to focus on outdoor work projects as the fall has crept into December, and this year we reached our goal of 3 cleanings of our Adopt-A-Highway section of road south of Willsboro. It was an incredibly satisfying feeling to get this done, making a contribution to our community. Thats all for now. Pray for snow!

SPEAQ!

Are you concerned about my spelling? I do have a background as an English teacher, and I also have spell check, so what in the world could this title mean? SPEAQ is the acronym for the group of English teachers in the Quebec province and, this past weekend, SPEAQ had its annual meeting. Pok-O-MacCready Camps' Sarah Disney, onetime PMEOC employee, and I went to Montreal last Thursday and spent the net two days helping teachers, parents and generally curios people understand how valuable a trip to Pok-O would be for anyone who recognizes how important an immersion experience for emerging English learners can be.

First off, getting to stay in a hotel with an outdoor pool heated to a comfortable level so that swimming in 40 degree air temperatures, is an incredible perk for this North Country man. And the opportunity to talk to a lot of people who showed genuine interest in PMOEC is encouraging. We had lots of good food, lots of good conversations and a lot of hope about the extension of our programming north of the border.

In less exciting news, the Underground Railroad community event was not as well attended as we would have hoped, but that did not discourage our staff. Instead, they gave a wonderful performance for the small audience. Next up, and our last community event of the season, will be Pie and The Sky- an astronomy and pizza slam mash up this Friday night. Come out and give us one last bit of support before the official end of the fall season.

Planting a Sead

The week of GFA and Polybel passed. Our last two groups of the fall season have come and gone and the experience for our staff, the visiting chaperones and, most importantly, the students was wonderful. As we do often are, we are thankful to the weather which made hiking, Underground Railroad, astronomy and every other class as enjoyable as they could be for both groups. So now, we have turned our our attention to the development of our staff and the development of our campus. First, we spent the first day after the end of the fall season at the WIld Center in Tupper Lake. The staff of the Wild Center gave us a behind the scenes tour of the center, letting us meet all of the animals, those that are on display and those being nursed back to health. In addition, we were able to spend a lot of time in the museum seeing all of the displays and adding to our already deep knowledge about the Adirondack Park. And now, with this incredibly mild weather (once again, thank you!) we have begun the never ending quest to continue to upgrade our campus. A little fence mending here, a little reinsulation there- with 300 acres and over 5 buildings, you can always find something to do! Lastly, I am on my way to Montreal for the annual SPEAQ conference. It is a gathering of all teachers of english in the province of Quebec. We love going to this conference and have gotten a lot of clients from it. Tomorrow night is our Underground Railroad community event and next week is the Pie in the Sky, astronomy and pizza slam, community event. Go to the website for more details.

GFA Week

Another GFA weekend is behind us. For those of you who have not worked at PMOEC, which I assume is only a few readers, GFA is Green Farms Academy; a wonderful day school from Connecticut. Every fall, we know the fall season is winding down when GFA makes their annual pilgrimage from the suburbs of NYC to the serenity of the ADKs. Every year, these 9th graders get off the bus, mouths gaping, with brand new gear and fear in their knocking knees. And every year they leave, a little dirtier than they have ever comfortably been, with boots broken in, and a look of satisfaction on their smiling faces. It is a great experience for both the students and our staff. Working with High School students is a different experience than our bread and butter- middle school. Our classes have adaptability for older students and the challenges are appropriate for these clients, but it is also an enriching experience for our staff to truly fill in their gaps as educators. A lot of hiking is one emphasis of this trip and the rambles up Rattlesnake, Bare, Noonmark, Cascade, Rooster Comb and Hurricane were as good as they ever had been. But this isn't the end of the season. We are going out with bang. Next week we have Polybel, another high school, but this one from north of the border. In addition, we also have our Underground Railroad Community event and I will be making a commercial presentation at the SPEAQ conference in Montreal. Stay tuned.

Bittersweet Season

Yesterday I had a day off to make up for the extra weekend days I have worked this month. We are at a point in the season where not everyone is working the same days, so yesterday everyone else worked. I used the day to work on a carpentry project that I have been putting off for months and, in essence, spent the day working between two projects PMOEC staff were dedicated to. Every break I took, I walked to the end of the barn where I was working and it was nice to see how hard the staff was working. They have gelled and are working incredibly efficiently; bike repair was going on to my left, to the right Tim lead a crew doing some insulation repairs to the footer of one of our dorms and, in the distance, I could hear the near constant hum of a chainsaw, indicating the ongoing process of chopping and splitting wood. Unfortunately, it is always this time of year that indicates that, while the staff is working incredibly well, the fall season is also winding down. We are preparing for our last two groups of the season, one of whom is our first group to be with us over Halloween in many years, and the other our first French Canadian group of the year. While looking forward to seeing the staff function at a high level through both of these visits, it is a bittersweet feeling; snow will definitely fly soon and another successful season will be behind us.

Come out on the 11th of November to our next Community Event; we will be hosting the Underground Railroad Experience at the 1812 Homestead. It is an amazing experience, being able to get a glimpse of the emotion of being a slave on the run in the North Country in 1850. We hope to see you there.

NYSOEA Weekend 2011

Leaving a family that is full of love for a weekend in a motel room does not create excitement. And yet, as the New York State Outdoor Education Association's Annual Conference in Callicoon, NY is drawing to an end, it clearly was a wonderful experience, despite the lack of family to spend time with.

I am a man who happily gave up my cell phone, but this weekend it would have come in handy. Buying a phone card and finding a pay phone- since the phone in my motel room has not worked since Irene- proved to be the most difficult part of the weekend. Everything else; workshops, commercial presentations, the exchanging of ideas, the development of an Environmental Literacy Plan and all of the extras proved to be inspiring. I am going home with many tweeks and additions to or current curriculum and can't wait to get back to work with so many fresh perspectives to bring back to PMOEC.

The lack of phone also permits me only to give you second hand emailed reports on the success of this weekend's Haunted Homestead back in Willsboro but Tim's report included the chill inspiring thought that "it really seemed to fit what I had
pictured in my [Tim's] head." What a great initial report. More to come on Haunted Homestead in next week's update. Until then.

Coming and Going

Weird title, I know. I just wanted to emphasize what has come to PMOEC this fall and what is going on today. This fall has been one of the best seasons I have had in my experience at Pok-O and the staff has been responsible for so much of that! I have been screaming this from the mountain tops and, more pertinent to the internet readers, the soon to be published 'Pok-O-Press, but I'll say it again- THE STAFF HAS BEEN GREAT! Groups have benifited from their knowledge and we have benifited from having such a comfortable community. And now, as we hit the home stretch of the fall season, they are preparing one of the most unique Haunted Homestead programs that I have seen. Its late notice, I know, but those of you in the Willsboro area should come out between 7-9 Friday for the scary stuff, 4-6 on Saturday for family activities and then again Saturday from 7-9 for the scary stuff.

This weekend, I will not be participating in the Haunted Homestead as this year's annual meeting of the New York State Outdoor Education Association begins today and runs through Sunday. I will be leaving in a few hours to attnd this years meeting and hope to give you an update (or two) from the meeting.

On that note, lets commit to this relationship- I will do my best to get more posts up and you will do your best to read them. Fortunately we are both doing our part today, but stick with me and keep an eye on the Pok-O community through this visual eye. See you soon.

Spring has Sprung!

It has been a while since I have posted. I'll admit that I have had some minutes of spare time that I could have spent blogging, but, truth be told, we have been happily busy since the beginning of April and I have been enjoying the ride. Staff training was a meeting of old and new; different perspectives on our amazing programming. Jon Kovacs, our latest intern, joined an incredibly experienced group of instructors. Also joining the team that was here over the winter was Tim O., our spring ringer. Also, the winter's intern, Joanna, has joined our staff as an instructor. The chemistry is as good as I have seen it in a while. This perfect storm came together at the perfect time as the spring season only affords our staff enough work project time to clean dorms- other than that we are teaching and teaching and teaching! The work that this staff has done is off the charts and my gratitude is immeasurable. Every teacher that has been here in the recent past has seen what wonderful job they have done and, if you are a teacher who is thinking of planning a trip here, you will deifnitely be impressed with what we have become. Hopefully, I will be able to send another blog (or two) before the end of the season.

Morning Meeting and Sap

Did you know that we have a meeting every Thursday morning at The Sportsman's Dinette in Willsboro, NY? If you don't believe me, check out the live video feed of the interior of the restaurant. We are the group of 5 in the corner- Sharp, Sarah, Scott, Stites and Erin- making important decisions effecting the future of the summer camp as well as outdoor ed. It was at one of these meetings that we decided that PMOEC would try to get involved in this year's maple syrup production at The 1812 Homestead. With Jack Swan's blessing, we have gone full tilt into it. I will admit I knew nothing about the practice when we began 2 weeks ago, and the taps that I recently found in some oak trees that look like sugar maples shows me that the learning curve for PMOEC staff members is also steep. Despite that, we ARE learning (that is the mission of our center anyway, right?). We have tapped 60+ trees, we have collected around 50 gallons of sap and today we boil. After all is said and done, we are hoping to produce enough syrup to have at our 'Last Drop Pancake Breakfast' in late April smothered in nothing but our homemade syrup. And one final apology to go out to Mother Nature- I am sorry that in my last blog post I suggested that winter was over. Thank you for the 2.5 feet of snow to remind me of your strength and power. I will never tempt your wrath again.

Winter Recap

Wow, the last few months flew by. It seems like only yesterday I was sitting here, getting ready to welcome 2011 and praying for more snow. Now, I am looking out my window at the 2+ feet of fluffy white still on the ground, hoping that the rain in the forecast over the next couple of days will bring the snow levels down to help with our sugaring season. Yes, winter is all but behind us here. We have had the most groups in recent history come and enjoy all the PMOEC has to offer in the darker months and every one of them, and I am not exaggerating, left happy. The staff, and I know I sound like a skipping record, was phenomenal all winter (as was mother nature, thankfully). And now, on to spring; mountain biking, canoeing and the wearing of shorts- oh my! We are hard at work planning community events of interest for all of our local supporters; ideas like a donation yard sale at Pok-O, our ever popular 1812 Open House, the retun of Yoga and hiking and another Art in Nature event. But more on these to come over the next few weeks. Look for our upcoming dpring edition of 'The Pok-O-Press' and follow us on our new facebook account. Perhaps you 'liked' us on the old one, but we have had to update. Check it out. By for now- and enjoy thid image from winter as spring descends.