And it was all Yellow...: June 2011

Hello All :)

Here is the Brighton updates for this week! It was a typical Pre-Camp week, where the staff is taught how to be Brighton staff. Pre-Camp is usually the hardest for everyone, as they learn their responsibilities, but this week was just peachy. In fact, I'm pretty sure not a single staff member was having issues at all. The Brighton 2011 staff is amazing! They are so cheerful, and interested in each other and loving. It is going to be a great summer.

The hottest news up at Brighton this past week was the sighting of a bear by one of our PD's Granola, and Head Craft Paisley. This news is HUGE. Floss, the president of camp who has had some involvement with Brighton about the last 60 years, (even before she became president 22 years ago) said that she's never ever heard of anyone ever seeing a bear up here in Big Cottonwood Canyon. We called the National Forest Service to report it, Floss was scared they would shut us down for a week, but all is well. In fact they didn't even care.. (well they cared but not any neg feedback about closing Brighton haha) They are guessing the reason why it came down was because there is still a TON of snow up at higher elevations, so it was looking for food.

Yes, there is a TON of snow up at camp. Some places you can see the pavement in the parking lot, and other places there's up to 6 feet. It varies, but we're crossing our fingers that by the end of this next week it will be mostly melted. We shoveled a lot of snow this week.

Shoveling on the Rock. Left to Right: Gloria, Melody, Shades, Granola, AO.

But that's most of the Brighton updates. Next week I'm sure there will be lots more news to come, with the first week of campers. There is 4 African refugee girls that are supposed to be coming up next week. One of the committee members (Krispie) said she's not sure, but she thinks one or two of them might've seen their parents killed, and their idea of 'camp' is 'refugee camp.' So our goal is to help them feel loved, and feel the spirit, and I'm sure their counselor is going to have an interesting week. That's all for now :)

Brighton 2011 Staff after the Legend Ceremony

Brighton Love!
-Director Yellow ;)

Since I am working up at Brighton LDS Girls Camp this summer, I have decided to add these adventures to my blog: not only for those who are interested in what goes on at Brighton, but also for those of you who used to work at Brighton and are curious about the current what's-going-on in "Brighton world" (aka, Zion.)

On Saturday (yesterday) we had our last workshop up at camp. It was the first time we took this year's staff up there. The pole that measures the snow... said it was at 7feet. Yes, that is the lowest level of snow.

Nibik was completely covered. Pika (a committee member) went up a few weeks ago and emailed me a picture of Nibik... as I looked at the photo I realized "oh wait, there's supposed to be a building there" here's a photo of what it looked like when we got there, along with what the cabin usually looks like:

That mound in the center of the photo is Nibik.

This is what Nibik looks like normally. (Don't mind the saran wrap;

it was for a prank, which is why I took the pic in the first place haha)

The workshop was great! The PD's took the staff around (mostly up the hill) while Abu, (my co-director) Paisley (Head Craft), and I hid the candy.

By "the candy" this is what I mean: So we went up to camp to show the staff around, but also for them to find out who their roommates will be the first half of the summer! What Abu and I did was write everyone's camp name on a piece of candy, and also the name of room/place they were living at. Whoever had their same candy, was their roommate. Honestly, there weren't a lot of places to hide the stuff... a lot of it ended up being stuck halfway in the snow haha. Some on trees, some along the Boardwalk (previous staff-- the boardwalk is clear! But what it looks like now is demonstrated below, lol) and some on the roof of the George.. yes, the snow was that high.

The Boardwalk

The George Building (The Dining Hall)

Afterward we had Pato talk about water up at camp, we played some trust sequence games (okay, just one cause we were running out of time) Creeped, prayed and then had lunch. The staff then could leave. If anyone wanted to stay behind, they could to help shovel snow.

I was actually surprised there was quite a lot of people who stayed. Some on the rock, Gloria (a Program Director) shoveled out and entrance to the Barn, and a lot of other's shoveling on Hovel. (Literally, on it. At one point I was standing on the roof trying to get the weight of the snow off of it.) I was also super grateful Gloria's brother Peter came up at the beginning of the workshop and was just shoveling down to the door of Nibik, the entire time. By the time the workshop was over, he pretty much had uncovered it. WOO HOO!