For those of you not in the know, a while ago I was put in as YW President in our ward. One of my first jobs (which I failed at by the way) was to find 2 camp moms for girl's camp. This was an alien idea for me. When I went to girl's camp, many many many years ago, we did not have camp mom's. Pretty much it was the YW presidency. Also, in my era it was a stake acitivity, but operated on a ward level. Not so in the here and now. In my stake, each ward sends 2 camp moms to girls camp, but the girls from my ward (which I call "my girls") do not actually stay with the camp moms all in the same cabin. They seperate all the girls by age. However, if there are more than 1 girl from your ward in the same age group, they do keep them together.
I have a very small young women group right now. I had 4 of my girls graduate this year. Not a big deal for most young women groups, but four our small group it was quite a hit. Most of our young women attended camp, all 6 of them. One of them was what is called "YCL" which is a Youth Camp Leader, but in addition we had 2 1st years, 1 2nd year, and 2 3rd years.
I tried talking to almost every mother plus multiple other members of our ward. I also tried emailing the entire Relief Society. None of these things worked. I finally ended up beggin my friend Nicole to come with me (she also happens to be my 2nd couselor). Fortunately for me, she agreed to come with me because I couldn't find even 1 person to agree to go. It was very frustrating but we both enjoyed ourself. I think it helped for us that we were already friends, at least it helped me.
We were assigned to a cabin of 1st year girls. This automatically meant we got our 2 first years got to be in the cabin with us. As time drew near, I have to admit I was quite nervous. I haven't been to girls camp in about 17 years. It suddanly occured to me part way through camp that almost all the girls there had been alive less time than I had been not going to girl's camp. It made me feel kind of old actually!
Another difference between girls's camp now and when I used to go as a teen was the actual camping emphasis. They gave us a list of requirements for each year that had to be done before they went to camp. They said this was because there wasn't enough time at camp to finish the requirements for every girls. It's an interesting idea. I don't really know how I feel about it though. There is a part of me that thinks you should use girls camp for actual camp related activities and EFY for EFY activities. The Young Men still go camping and do scouting activities. They haven't replaced it with EFY. However, most of the girls seemed like they had a great time!
