https://soundcloud.com/nhsecrets/nick-robbins-camp-mowglis-interview
On Friday of last
week, May 29th the state of New Hampshire released its preliminary guidelines
for summer camp re-openings. This came on top of previously released guidance
from the Center for Disease control. Together, these comprised the critical
documents by which summer camps all over New Hampshire were permitted to reopen
and further by which the camps themselves decided whether they would remain
shuttered for the 2020 season or reopen in some modified fashion.
There are many
different kinds of camps and camp programs in the Granite State. Some are day
camps with hundreds of children, some are overnight camps that last a week or
two, and others, though only a few remain, have an entire summer as their
standard - a full 7 or 8 weeks. Mowglis falls into the latter category.
Mowglis, School of
the Open, a camp for boys on Newfound Lake is among those that have decided to
open for an abbreviated season and with a modified enrollment. I went to
Mowglis as a boy, a scholarship kid who was lucky enough to be in the right
place at the right time, with a mother who was a nurse when they desperately
needed one because their regular nurse had been injured in an automobile
accident. I remained there as a camper for 7 years, the duration of the program
and returned for a number of years on the staff so I am by no means a
disinterested party. On the other hand, I was cautiously skeptical when I first
heard about their decision to reopen. Nick soon convinced me that this was well thought through.
Given all that, I
thought it would be particularly useful for readers and listeners at the NH
Center for Public Interest Journalism (IndepthNH.org) to hear directly from Nick
Robbins. I caught up with Nick this week to give him the opportunity to
describe the process for making their decision and to describe programmatic
changes that the camp will be instituting for an abbreviated 4 week (instead of
7) session.
Agree or disagree
after listening to this podcast, I think you will be pleased with the
professionalism and rigor with which Robbins and other camp leaders throughout
NH have gone about the task of assessing the risks and rewards of reopening. If
you are among the parents who are weighing these same risks and rewards,
listening to the process by which Nick Robbins and his staff arrived at their
decision will surely help you to gauge how well your child's camp has taken
these factors into account.
Nick Robbins is the
Director of Mowglis - School of the Open a camp for Boys on Newfound Lake in
Hebron, NH (Established in 1903) Robbins has recently announced the tentative
reopening of Mowglis for the 2020 season with an abbreviated season. Wayne King
interviewed him to find out more about the decision making process and the
programmatic changes needed to comply with CDC and State of NH Guidelines.
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