Able Church Retreat 2014

 The Able Church Retreat was this past weekend.  There were 57 people in attendance, including the Camp Daniel staff.  Although the weather was very cold, everyone still had a lot of fun.

 Everyone came to camp after the Able Church’s Friday night service.  Saturday started with breakfast, chapel service, and small group sessions.  After lunch, we played some indoor group games.

 Everyone fit at the 3 rows of tables that were squeezed into the Hartley House dining and living room.  Saturday night we enjoyed a showing of Despicable Me 2 in a large screen.

 During our free time on Saturday, we usually play some outdoor games and have a bonfire, but the wind chill was too cold, so we played video games and board games in the Hartley House, and did crafts in the Factory.  Karol and Tony were excited to see the Factory finally be used for group crafts.

 The above pic is from the Sunday morning chapel service.

Things don’t often go off without a hitch.  In the pic above, the intern, Nick Sterry was earning some stripes by unclogging a toilet with a toilet snake.  His resume is growing each day!  Next to him, Tony was switching out the outlet above the sink.  (No the problems didn’t occur at the same time. )

Camp theme and the car to go with it.

Tim Mandich asked Little Tony to speak at The Able Church last Friday.  Tony Senior suggested that a sermon be done on tithing.  Tim really doesn’t feel comfortable with it, so he asked Little Tony to cover the subject.  Tony did a great job, and went about the subject of tithing in a different and easily understood way.  

In the last blog, I mentioned that Tony unveiled the theme for this summer’s camps.  Since you weren’t at the meeting, I decided to make you wait an extra week for the online unveiling....

We are excited about the theme.  It will give the speakers wonderful opportunity to teach everyone at camp, and it will be a lot of fun to decorate around!

Tony and I were brainstorming about ideas for the chapel and we thought it would be cool to have  a race car on the stage area.  Between Craigslist, and Ebay, many great dreams can be realized.  A guy in Merrill, WI had a red indy style go cart for sale on Craigslist for a good price.  It was so perfect for our theme, that Tony sent Steve and Nick Sterry on an real Camp Daniel style adventure to procure the car.  Well, it’s a 3 hour drive one way for starters.  5 miles from the guys place, the trailer blew out a tire.  Thankfully, they were close to a car dealership, so they were able to stop there to get it fixed.  Steve and Nick tried detaching the truck from the trailer, so that they could continue on to get the go cart ( and just put it in the back of the truck for the few miles), but since the trailer was now uneven, then couldn’t get it detached, so they just had to wait the 2 hours that it took the dealership to fix it.  Then they get to the place and the guy selling the go cart tells them that it’s in a bus, and that they have to get it out themselves, and if they damage it or anything else, consider it bought!  So that adds to the fun of the day.   Then, as the interns are on their way home, they get pulled over for no running lights on the trailer!  Before leaving Camp Daniel, the guys had tested the blinkers and the brake lights, and since those were in working order, thought that they were okay.  Thankfully, the officer, was very nice, and no citation was given.  So after an 11 hour day, they made it back, with a really cool prop for camp.  Tony told them that that’s just how things tend to go around here.  Steve and Nick are fully and officially initiated into Camp Daniel.

Other things going on:

We’ve all been working hard on finishing the Trapline lodge.  It was “all hands on deck” last week, when, one of the rooms was primed and painted.  After that was done, I was able to use the room to spray the clear coat on the bathroom stall doors.  The doors are louvered, so using an HVLP sprayer is the way to go.  The process smells up the entire building so much that we have to turn off the furnaces so as to not drag the chemicals throughout the entire heating system.  Dave Dettloff has been here a couple days.  He’s still tackling the large job of trimming the bathrooms.

Trish, Steve and Nick have also applied 2 coats of polyurethane to all the doors for the building.  

Last Saturday, many of us went to Crivitz High School to cheer on Nick Sterry as he played in an alumni basketball game versus Wausaukee.  It was fun to cheer him on.  We kept hoping for him to get a breakaway, because Tony told him that if he didn’t jam it during the game, then he must be getting old.  Unfortunately, he didn’t get the chance.  Also playing were Dylan Hanson and Brandon Gross.  

I have to mention the less fun, but very important work that’s been going on in preparing for the Able Winter Retreat.  It’s this weekend, so here’s some of the things that are being worked on:  applications, money, rides, chaperones, room assignments, luggage organization, food for 50 for 5 meals, rec, chapel, AV needs, movie setup, small group study, guest speaker accommodations, first aid kit, crafts, outdoor games, snack stand, emergency contact info....and the list goes on.

Plaster, Poster & Pizza

 The interns are learning a new skill in plastering.  Tony worked with Nick, Steve, Marceaux and the guys to plaster the ceiling of the dorm.  First they taped the joints, then Marceaux-The-Plaster-Mixer whipped up a batch.  The first coat was only covering the screw heads and joints.

In the pic to the right, you can see that we actually found a job that Nick Sterry needs a ladder for!

 The second day of plaster was putting a full layer of plaster in a skip trowel texture.  Evan was here for  a few days, so he pitched in too.  They got about 75 percent of the ceiling done.  You just don’t realize how much area there is in the dormers.  Probably doubles the square footage of the ceiling.  Today, since Able Special Olympics is cancelled, they will be finishing the plaster.

Frontier Builders is a building and consulting company based in Kaukauna that is helping Camp Daniel out in the building of the new garage/multi-purpose building.  They are great guys that really get who we are and what we are trying to do in the larger picture and with this building in particular.  Part of the help that they are giving us includes spreading the word about Camp Daniel and our building needs for this project to people they know and customers that come into their place of business.   As a result, they asked us for a general poster that they can put up in their lobby that will start some conversations and hopefully lead to additional donations and support.  We don’t currently have anything like that, so Karol put to the task of making something that’s general enough to appeal to many people, simple enough to get the idea across quickly, and gives as complete a picture of what Camp Daniel is.

I thought it may be interesting to share a little about the process involved.  I had the idea before I set to the computer to have a border that what graphic at first glance, but that gave a picture of the many fun aspects of camp.  Because how do you express camp with one photo?  So I started going through all of the camp photos on Molly’s Flickr account.  I was looking for photos that showed different parts of camp, but they had to be able to be cropped into a square shape, and be simple enough to be effective in a small size and represent the variety of campers and counselors that we have.  Well, it took me about 3 hours to go through camp pics back to 2010, after which, I had enough of the right kind of photos.  I downloaded each photo, imported it into my graphics program and cropped to the size and composition that worked best.  Tony helped me pic out the main photo, which he has used for other CD things.  I edited the photo to take out the leg of the person holding the horse.  Then it was time for the copy.  I started with wording from other CD brochures.  At the time of the first draft, which is the picture below, I am about 5 hours into the process.

 One of the hard things about designing this was that it will be printed to a size that’s probably double that which I can print on my printer.  Because of this I was able to tell right away that the little pictures were too large.  I also felt like the color was too distracting, so I shrank them all down and turned each one to black and white and then relined them up.  Better.  Many changes past that, is the next photo.  The headline was moved to the middle, which visually broke up the verbiage.  The main photo was reduced. And a bold Camp Daniel was added at the area at the bottom.  Much better, but still not quite right.

Several changes later, and we have the final.  I changed all the fonts, reduced the main picture again to give the whole poster more negative, or background space.  The total time spent on this was somewhere between 8 and 10 hours.  We are happy with the results and hope to be able to use this as  a sort of template for future posters, where we can change out small parts to give a different emphasis.

Last Saturday night, we had the January Counselor meeting at the Hartley House.  There were 20 people on hand for pizza and a meeting that included the unveiling of this year’s camp theme.  Curious about what it is???  Guess you should have been here!  :)  

We actually talked quite a bit about dreams and how God can fulfill them.

 Annissa, Steve, Becky, Ruth and Tim (above)   (below)  Trish and Kitt.

Pl

The Factory

 The Factory is finally complete!  After untold hours of painting, hanging, distressing, and scouring for gears, the Factory is ready to provide a fun place for creativity.

This building is original to the Camp Daniel grounds.  It was used by the Salvation Army as officers’ barracks.  When Camp Daniel purchased the property, it was a two bedroom cabin with bathroom.  In the years since, 8 people have lived in it, including Tony Sr and Jo and most recently, Jen and Marceaux.  After the Bury’s moved into the Brunot house, the flooring was replaced and then the decorating began.

Karol has coined the theme “Industrial Revolution meets Steampunk”.  When she and Tony started gathering items for the space, they didn’t really know what it was going to look like.  Actually, they were pretty far in before it really came together and had the feel of what Karol had envisioned.

The exterior gets you ready for the inside with a creative sign (not shown here) that says “The Factory”, all in tools and gears.  The door (which was featured in a previous blog) is etched with gears.  It gives the look without blocking light or the view.

To the left you can see part of the long bank of  contemporary black cabinets with aggregate exposed concrete countertops.  Also has an oven and micro that have been given rusty metal treatment.  The long counter area also features a desk area and lots of shelving for storage (not shown)

 The north wall features an old Chicago brick wall and vintage wood door to the crafting closet.  Above it is a wood deck that holds some of the old cases of crafting items sent to the Factory, including paint brushes, crayons, canvas and glue.

 Also on this wall is a bank of contemporary black cabinets, which were donated to Camp Daniel.  They were white, so Karol used countertop paint to get a clean black finish.

The ceiling has two industrial style fans powered by a series of gears and cogs.

 The ceiling has the center flat area that’s black and features the gears and fans.  On either side of that area is angled drywall ceiling.  Those areas have collage of old and new industrial parts and crafting items.  The east wall, shown above has a mix of contemporary (in the “crafts” vinyl), industrial (bike wheels, t-square, etc) and crafty (paint brushes, origami directions and crayon display)

East wall with aged brick and contemporary creativity sign in an old frame painted glossy black.

Southeast corner.  The south wall is covered in old corrugated tin with just the right amount of rust.  Above the vintage typewriter display is a conveyor system of paint brushes.

Same corner, but from farther away.  The  vinyl planked floor is in a distressed barn board finish.

The other angled ceiling features 18” letters in gloss black.  Above is a graphic display of vintage yard sticks (thank you St. Vinnie’s!).  To the left of that are two black frames.  One has a display of Factory watercolor paint tubes, and the other paint brushes.  Hanging from the uppermost beam is a conveyor with Factory labeled gallon paint cans

Above the sliding glass doors is a marquee with “The Factory” in tool letters.  A working vintage oscillating fan has been mounted next to the wall heater.  To the right of the heater area you can just see the old metal locker bins in their cubbies.

There’s many more fun details, that I just couldn’t fit in the blog.  So I suggest that you come to Camp Daniel for a visit and then you can see it all for yourself!

Happy New Year!  It has been a relaxing Christmas week at Camp Daniel.  Steve Rickerson, went to IL for the holidays.  Molly and Justin were at his family’s for Christmas, then spent the last week in Eagle River with Molly’s folks.  Jen and Marceaux spent a few days in Green Bay with Jen’s family.  And Nick Sterry spent about 5 days with his family in the Milwaukee area.  Also in southern Wisconsin was Trish who went to visit family.  She also spent a few days with her cousin whom was in the hospital for several days around Christmas.  Tony and Karol had a relaxing time at home with family.

But now it’s back to work!  The guys burned the burn pile this week.  The leaves are still smoldering, even in this cold!
Last week, we had a perc test done for the building permit for the new garage/multi-purpose building.  The test went well, and we are now waiting for the permits.  When that step is done, the excavator will break ground.  We are hoping that will happen within the next week and a half.

Tony has been working on the new website.  It’s an overwhelming job that includes hunting down good photos, writing all the copy, and just organizing how the website will be laid out.  He is working closely with Tim Bazet-Jones on this.

The Factory (craft cabin) is awaiting tables and chairs, and will then be officially finished.  Many photos will follow.  Karol and Tony have also started working on the new applications for this year’s camp.

Dave Dettloff was here today working on the stalls and trim work in the dorm bathrooms.  The guys have been sanding the woodwork and puttying the holes.