Ice Cream for Isanogel

The 2010 Ice Cream for Isanogel Cards have arrived! Ice Cream Cards are sold for $5 each, are valid from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011, and can be used an unlimited number of times! All proceeds from the sales of the cards are used to provide scholarships for campers to attend camp at Isanogel during the 2010 camp season. Ice Cream Cards are made possible with generous support from Dairy Dream of Muncie, Baskin Robbins of Muncie, Ivanhoes, Ritters Frozen Custard of Muncie, Dairy Queen of Muncie and New Castle, Dortees Drive In of Alexandria, Muncie Frozen Custard, Incredible Yogurt of Muncie, The Island, New Castle Tropical Shaved Ice, Cammack Station, and Weenie World of New Castle.

If you are interested in purchasing Ice Cream Cards, please contact Hillcroft Services at (765) 284-4166 or bwilliamson@hillcroft.org.

Monday Night Recreation

Good afternoon faithful blog readers! Another week has come and gone here at Isanogel and planning for another exciting summer at camp is well underway. In the meantime, we have been working on our Monday night Isanogel Recreation program. Although we are new to planning Monday night recreation, we are enjoying stretching our creative wings to continue building on the foundation laid by the ADL staff. During the first two weeks of March we hosted casino and Bingo nights, two classic favorites.


This week we were very excited to introduce something new and put on our first ever cooking night! Thirty-five clients attended and were able to prepare four individual recipes. We made Chex© Apple-Almond bars, veggie pizza, mild salsa, and fruit smoothies! At the end of the night, clients got to make their own recipe books so that they can practice their cooking at home. This coming Monday we are looking forward to an Isanogel Star talent show in which performers will sing, dance, and much more!

In April, we have another exciting schedule of activities planned. We are going to be doing egg coloring, Bingo with garden prizes, and a spring fling dance. We are also planning a carnival that, weather permitting, will be held outside! In true carnival fashion, there will be a ring toss, cookie walk, floating duck game, bean bag toss, and much more. Our Development and Market Manager, Brenda Williamson, will be making an appearance as well to help with our face painting booth! With the weather warming up, the sun shining, and spring in the air, the Isanogel staff is eagerly awaiting another successful month of Isanogel Recreation programming.

Happy spring from all of us here at Isanogel!


-Scarlett

Midstates Update

Hello, all! Elizabeth told you all last week that we were headed to the ACA-Midstates Camping Conference. Well, we are back from 3 long days of fun, learning, and excitement! We spent the first day learning about staff training with our mentor, Michael Brandwein, Camp Staff Trainer EXTRODINAIRE! He presented a session on how to develop camp staff into mission-minded camp professionals! Afterwards, Elizabeth and I were revved up to begin planning staff training week. On Thursday night, we presented our educational session, titled “The Importance of Developing, Implementing, and Evaluating Goal Setting Tools”. Overall it was a smashing success! We were given the opportunity to help camp staff from across the Mid-West develop goal setting tools and evaluations. Friday, we went to a variety of different sessions and learned about everything from large group leadership to how to keep staff engaged all summer. Saturday was our final day at Midstates and Elizabeth and I spent our time learning about how to matching values with mission, and risk management. We came home Saturday with visions of staff training dancing in our heads…

In unrelated news, it’s almost SPRING! And there are signs of it all over Isanogel...we have a few flowers trying to bloom around camp! Here is a picture of our tulips, trying ever so hard to poke their heads out!

And, just to whet your appetite for next week…

This is going to be the location of our new garden! Can you hardly wait?! We can’t…

-Mollie

Has Spring Sprung?

With the sun shining, the snow melting and the temperatures above freezing, we're beginning to feel like spring has spring here at Isanogel. We are excitedly registering campers, interviewing staff, hosting recreation activities on Monday evenings and planning for the summer.

Our big excitement this week is the opportunity to attend the American Camping Association's Midstates Camping Conference in St. Charles, IL (www.acamidstates.org). We will be attending the conference wtih generous support from the Indiana Youth Institute's Professional Development Grant (http://www.iyi.org/fundraising-grants/development-grants.aspx). With IYI's generous support, we are looking forward to gaining new knowledge relating to staff development, camp programming and risk management. We will also be presenting a session on Thursday night centered on the importance of developing, implementing and evaluating goal
setting tools in camp programming.

The Midsates conference has come to be a sure sign of Spring at Isanogel...let's hope it lasts!