About forty five children and adults are sleeeeepy this morning! That’s because we spent the weekend at the gorgeous Camp Shiloh in Virginia, on the WES camping trip, where we got relatively little sleep, but a whole lot of bonding time together. 

The camping trip is always one of my favorite events, because of the way it brings together adults who don’t necessarily know each other as well as children who aren’t in the same classes. This year, we saw a four year old declare an eleven year old was his very best friend…we had tweens sharing cheesy jokes for the talent show…we had ALL the kids entranced by the tiniest frogs anyone had ever seen at the pond…we had kids making up the chorus for the Sunday Platform at the Pond (and proving that their lyric memorization skills way outpace the adults’!)…and we had incredible organizers who each took a piece of the work and put it all together. 
In fact, it was that last piece that really amazed me. Several of our organizers this year had never even been on a WES camping trip before, and yet they jumped in, pulled together a team, and created magic (of course, with lots of resources from L.A. and history help from past organizers). Steve Stasiowski, one of those brand-new organizers, said it best at the Sunday Platform at the Pond when he reflected on the way that WES folks working together, with a clear goal in mind, were able to create something that they could never accomplish alone. 

And that’s the idea behind the SEEK Vision Summit this coming Saturday, as well. L.A., the SEEK Team, and I will be joined by UUA staff person and long-time religious educator Pat Infante, who will facilitate a meeting from 11 to 3. She’ll talk to us about best practices (and new ideas) in the world of Sunday School and family programming, and she’ll elicit from us–from you–dreams and visions for what we might create for our children, youth, and families. What comes out of this gathering will guide our work as a congregation in the next year, as we prepare to launch a search for a permanent Director of Lifelong Learning (or even use a different title–who knows what WES will create together!). 

I hope you will join us…and I hope you’ll mark Memorial Day weekend on your calendar for next year (it’s May 23-25, 2020; go ahead and write it down, I’ll wait). Our time together, outside of the everyday classes and platforms, is so important and enriching–whether we are searching for frogs or searching for our shared vision together. 

Warmly,

Amanda