We had another very successful Fall Service Weekend September 16-18, 2005 with a great turnout of folks. Seven of the attendees were on staff this past summer. Of the 49 folks who attended throughout the weekend, 17 had never attended a previous Service Weekend. The weather was dry and I thought it was quite warm.
NCF paid $676 for supplies, which included a compressor to blow the water from the water lines so they won’t freeze and crack during the winter. I had a 2-page list of nearly 130 tasks. We did well at whittling down the list. We hauled some logs from the girls’ swimming hole. We repaired many screens, screen doors, and shutters. We did a Ranger A run (Adopt-A-Highway) along 608 above and below camp. We added boards to the compost pile to make it taller to accept more stuff.
We extended the back-flush line from the canteen to the road and made a rock gutter to hold the 200 or so gallons of water that is back-flushed through the filters each night. We also extended the well overflow pipe to the trees near the canteen to eliminate the puddle.
The steel gate near the bridge was bent when a tree fell on it during Hurricane Frances in 2004. We straightened the gate using a rope winch and 2 propane torches. We then scraped and repainted it. It looks good and can once again be locked.
We bleached, primed, and painted the ceiling and walls in one of the rooms of the BTM. A tree had fallen during Hurricane Frances and punctured the roof. The rain that entered through the hole in the roof resulted in black mold on the ceiling and walls. We also painted the foyer and sickroom ceilings and walls in the infirmary.
During the regular session of camp this year, the tree supporting the wires to the chapel fell over. We ran a new underground power line from the LS to the chapel light posts. We also purchased 4 outdoor lights that will be used to replace the carriage lights that once illuminated the paths to the chapel.
For many years we have tried to stop a leak in the GBH. We finally got it repaired in May of this year, but much damage had been done from the water running down the valley rafter. The ends of some of the rafters were rotted away along with the soffit and fascia. We removed and replaced the rotten wood.
Ariana and Beth deserve the hero awards for the weekend. They each dressed up in Humpty-Dumpty tyvek coveralls, with a hood over their heads and painted carbolineum over head from an extension ladder on the new rafters and plywood in the infirmary back porch. It was a nasty job, and I appreciate them taking on the task.
And at the end, we shut off the water to Camp and drained the lines for winter.
Thanks so much to Jimmy for running the kitchen for the weekend. He had great help from Shirley, Mary Jo, and lots of other folks. Train wreck was a special treat for dinner. I had heard about it for years, but never tried it. We also had home-made bread and rolls at nearly every meal, even home-made french bread for french toast one morning. Jimmy did a wonderful job of using the food that was left over after the regular and Adult Sessions of Camp. I don’t know how much was spent on food for the weekend, but I think it was very little. We sang in the LS on Saturday evening. I think it was too warm to gather around a campfire. — Jim Brooks