The roofing project during this September 20-22, 2013 was much simpler than most of what we have done in the past. We reshingled the front of the Staffhouse. You might have noticed that the front of this building has 3 sections with no valleys or vent pipes. There was step flashing on both sides of the raised roof section that extends over the porch. We expected rain, so as we stripped one of the sections on Thursday, we searched for broken nails, replaced rotten wood, and added drip edge and roofing felt, before moving onto the next section. This technique allowed us to finish that roof by Friday afternoon. Brett deserves the hero award for this weekend for leading his crew to finish reshingling this roof so rapidly. That afforded us the opportunity to finish a number of other projects that have been on the projects list for quite some time. It started raining shortly after the shingles were on and rained throughout most of the rest of the weekend. Thank you to Flip, Lyt, Mack, Mike, Paul, and Ventry for arriving on Thursday to strip the shingles from this section of the roof.
We sistered the last 19 floor joists under the GBH, and sistered 11 more under the sick room of the Infirmary. Thank you especially to Mack who hung in there while we figured out what to do under the Infirmary. The situation was different under there from the bunkhouses. There was no center beam in that section of the floor, so both ends of the joists had to be notched over a block wall. That added a great deal of time and grunting to the installation of these 11 joists. Thanks also to Bob, Dave, Jarrod, Jason, Jimmy, Mark, Mike, and Sandra for helping to complete another portion of this long-time project.
We stained the shed at the Caretakers’ house to match the other Camp buildings. We put the first coat of concrete stain on the two T-house floors. These will each need another coat in May 2014. We hauled a lot of brush. We started removing the very old Museum samples from preservative and from the display cases. This is the first step in making the Museum a more useful space. We installed 2 ceiling fans in the Coed Counselors’ room, and generally got Camp ready for a long winter’s nap.
The food was fantastic as always. My favorites were the 16 kinds of pizza on Saturday night, and of course, all the desserts. Nell headed the kitchen crew with much help from Katie, Kim, Amy, and Penny. Some folks played music in the LS on Friday, and Saturday evening we said “Thank you” to Charlie and Priscilla for their excellent service as Caretakers for the past 8 years. Charlie and Priscilla are two of the finest people I have ever met. We said “Thank you” to Shirley for her time on the NCI Board, and folks said “Thank you” to me for my time on the NCF Board.
Of the 77 folks who attended, 9 had never been to a previous Service Weekend. We have now had 417 folks who have attended at least one Service Weekend. Art Maguire has volunteered to direct folks to the various tasks that need to happen during the weekend. This has worked very well, and I appreciate his help. Amy K Gonzales has invited you to look at her photos from this past weekend. Amy has the photos posted at the following website. She spent loads of time gathering names, and for this I am extremely thankful. I spent a good deal of my time under the Infirmary, so didn’t get a chance to see everyone who attended. I could not have compiled the list of attendees without Amy’s and Art’s diligence.
Thank you to Adam, Alex, Amy, Amy, Amy, Annie, Art, Ben, Bob, Brett, Cecily, Celie, Chris, Corey, Corrina, Dave, Ellis, Evan, Flip, Gisela, Graelyn, Jack, Jane, Jarrod, Jason, Jeanne, Jenny, Jerry, Jimmy, Joanne, Joe, Joey, Kate, Katie, Katie, Kim, Laurel, Leah, Legend, Liam, Lily, Lori, Louise, Lucas, Lyt, Mack, Maggie, Maggie, Mark, Mason, Meg, Michaux, Mike, Mike, Monica, Neil, Nell, Oliver, Paul, Penny, Peter, Powell, Reid, Robert, Samuel, Sandra, Sarah, Shirley, Stephanie, Steve, Todd, Tony, Ventry, Walter, and especially Charlie and Priscilla. I hope we are all lucky enough to again cross paths with Charlie and Priscilla who retired to Florida after this September 2013 Service Weekend. I would also like to say thank you to all of you for your support over the many years and hope you will support Ventry and Art in the years to come. Ventry will take on the position of the Director of Facilities on the NCI Board and Art will continue in his roll as Service Weekend Committee Chair, but will also become a voting member of the NCF Board.
Although I have attended 51 of the 52 Service Weekends, I was not the first NCF Service Committee Chair. That credit goes to Walter Mehring, who coordinated the Service Weekends for 6 years and made it easy for me to continue.
Please share any other digital photos you may have taken with AmyKG, or Michaux the Webmaster at https://www.naturecampfoundation.org/.
Jim Brooks