Registration!

September 25 - 27, 2020. Registration will open in spring!

Tuesday, December 31, 2019

New Year, New Escape

Happy 2020 everyone!


In just 10 days the Great Escape Committee will head for a secret location (ok, a Girl Scout camp not in MA!) to start planning for Great Escape 2020.  If you have suggestions, the comment field below is a great place to start! Watch this space for - book club plans - final date confirmation - and more! 

YIGGGS, the Great Escape Committee.

Monday, October 21, 2019

Quests



For the last two years, our friends Steph and Lynne have been devising Quests for Great Escape that take participants around camp.  They cleverly incorporate fun, mindfulness and self care.  In 2018, the theme was Wonder Quest, where participants were enabled to celebrate their wonderful qualities.


In 2019, we celebrated our inner hero qualities.


 They want the full quests to be available to you to use with troops or other groups.  So, we've added a page to the Great Escape Website!  CLICK HERE.

I can imagine these being used at an encampment - once an ED, always an ED I guess!

As a bonus, we added the selfie camping scavenger hunt, also adaptable for use with girls or other groups!  Happy Camping.

Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Good Food Always at Great Escape

We surely had yummy food at GE this year, as always!  Beginning with warm chocolate chip cookies on Friday night (which lasted well into Saturday on the coffee bar) and ending with a very full breakfast on Sunday, there was no excuse for a hungry moment - especially since the cooks, helmed by Sarah/Fluke, provide vegan and gluten free versions whenever possible!

Saturday breakfast included pancakes (again, there were gluten free cakes!) and lots of bacon.  So much bacon!  And oatmeal with mix-ins like raisins, chocolate chips, brown sugar.  Hand fruit may have appeared too - I just head for the oatmeal every time!

Lunch - baked potato bar (with bacon!) salad bar and two kinds of homemade soup - minestrone and  Kaye's corn chowder!

After afternoon workshops and during the book club discussion, we recruited our strength with appetizers, including cheese and crackers, hot kielbasa and butternut squash bites!




Dinner was the full Thanksgiving - trash can turkey, stuffing, gravy, roasted veggies, several kinds of rolls.  After the auction - dessert!  Sunday breakfast included french toast, sausage, oatmeal, hard boiled eggs, and I even saw a few sausage biscuits left out for the late sleepers.

Thursday, October 3, 2019

Best Great Escape Yet?

The 2019 Great Escape was wonderful - I had a great time!  Interesting people, great workshops, fabulous food, and the weather was so great - two people complained to me that it was too warm to sleep on Saturday night!  (My take on that was - how nice to sleep without my fleece socks and with my arms outside my sleeping bag!)

Here are a few pictures from the weekend, thanks to our dear friend Michelle Kramer.
















More in a day or two, so check back!

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

We're Almost There!

Racing towards the finish!

I'm frantically working on my workshop crafts and auction items today, but I just want to take a moment to reflect on how lucky we are - it appears that the weather is going to be wonderful this weekend!  All our outdoor activities will take place in not too hot not too cold fall weather!



Layers, ladies, and sun hats!  Yeah!  And perfect for photography and our new selfie scavenger hunt!


Take a selfie:


o   Eating dessert
o   Inside a tent or a cabin
o   With the Great Escape banner at the Dining Hall
o   Behind a tree
o   With a new friend
o   Holding a pine cone
o   Pointing to something orange
o   Helping someone
o   With the auction baskets
o   With a committee member
o   Of You Wearing a Great Escape shirt/vest/jacket
o   With someone wearing a GE patch
o   With water in the background
o   Using something from nature as a moustache
o   On a hike
o   With a flashlight shining under your face
o   With your reflection
o   Doing your kaper
o   Singing or playing an instrument
o   In a canoe
o   Outside Christa’s House
o   At the swimming beach
o   At the turkey cook site
o   With the sign for your tent/lodge site
o   Drinking from your Great Escape cup
o   In your cosy cot
o   With an archery bow or target  or with a hatchet

Upload/ post your selfies to Instagram or Facebook with #gsgreatescape



Tuesday, September 10, 2019

Venmo Now Available For the Auction!

The Great Escape Auction can now accept VENMO payments for your auction purchases, in addition to cash or checks.  We hope that this will make the process of paying for auction winnings quicker for all, so you can get to your after dinner activities on Saturday night more quickly.


If you are not a VENMO user, here's a quick explanation.   Venmo is an app(lication) for both Apple and Android phones which allows people to transfer money directly to other people's bank accounts.  So you can now transfer money from your bank to ours directly from your phone.  Note that it is similar to SQUARE, which many of you may have used for cookie sales.
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For a more detailed explanation, here's what NerdWallet has to say about VENMO.

What is Venmo? Venmo is a peer-to-peer (P2P) money transfer mobile app, similar to Square Cash, that has a social media twist: You can send or request money via emoji-studded text messages, which show up in a Facebook-style feed. Don’t worry, though — dollar amounts always remain private.

How Venmo works

Transfers and purchases. Venmo lets you send and request money to and from anyone who has a Venmo account. The app can help with the awkward chore of reimbursing family or friends for dinner or other outings, but it’s not made for buying or selling goods with strangers. Venmo can also be used for web purchases with certain merchants, usually on websites with a payment button similar to PayPal’s.
Mobile only. Venmo payments are made on its highly rated Android and iOS smartphone apps as well as via iMessage or with Siri voice command. You can sign in at Venmo’s website on a desktop or mobile device to view transactions, but not to pay or request money.
U.S. customers only. Venmo, which is operated by PayPal, requires both sender and recipient to be in the United States.

Thursday, September 5, 2019

Thnking about the Auction.


As we look forward to Great Escape, I’m sure some of you are remembering the excitement and glee of last year’s live auction.  For those who are new to the Great Escape community, each year we hold a live auction to benefit Camp Wabasso and our other camps.  Our phenomenal auctioneer Kaye/Cookie auctions baskets of goodies donated by G.E. participants. 

We hope you will consider bringing a basket. To help kickstart your creative process, we’ve come up with a few general themes for you to make your own.

When we say basket… we don’t literally mean basket.  Useful tote bags, bowls, a laundry basket, or other clever containers can help make your basket one to bid on.  Recently I saw a fire pit filled with ‘smores ingredients win the ‘most desired’ auction item at a convention I attended.

When in doubt… wine and chocolate.  The Great Escape is home to many enthusiastic “winers,” so these items are always in demand.

Make a mother’s or grandmother’s fun day kit… we have moms and grandmas who are always looking for gifts and activities for kids.

Crafts are a big part of Great Escape, and hand crafted treasures are wildly popular.  Baskets with crafting goodies are also highly appreciated.  How about a ‘starter kit’ for a craft or art you are whiz at?  Get started knitting, crocheting, wood burning, painting in oils, acrylics, watercolors, who knows what will appeal?  You do!

Pick something you would want to bid on.  Your favorite books, (Harry Potter - just be sure not to read the spells out loud!)  hobbies, colors, movies, animals, and music are all great starting places.  Odds are your fellow Great Escapers will like them too!

Good luck!

Friday, August 23, 2019

Did You Finish Your Summer Reading?

The other day, my friend and I were talking about the summer reading we had to do in High School.  We had to read 6 books, 3 fiction and 3 non-fiction, from an extensive list.  We agreed we liked that much better than the current practice of making every student read the same book, chosen to appeal to the lowest common denominator.  No wonder kids hate reading!  I remember reading a book about Madame Curie (written by her daughter, a distinguished scientist herself,)  Cheaper by the Dozen and Katherine by Anya Seton!





If your kids are racing to the finish, why not join them and finish the Great Escape Book Club selection for 2019 at the same time.  I finished it a couple of weeks ago and it's excellent.  BTW it's not about politics! Counting down to GE!  Only 35 days left?  Is my math right?  I better get busy.




Tuesday, July 2, 2019

Vacation? Keep GE Auction Baskets in Mind!

Last weekend I attended the Biennial Handbell Musicians of America Area 1 (NE) Conference.

An amazing group of musicians played for us.  Check out Forte at Fortehandbells.org  They are from Colorado; be sure to check out their videos.  They are even more amazing in performance - they do a lot of comedy bits!

There was a basket auction, too, and I took some photos and notes.  Many baskets were themed to the New England States.  That's what made me think that if you are on vacay, you might want to pick up basket items.  I love to shop for souvenirs but the thought of cluttering up the house keeps my purse closed.  Putting the items in a Great Escape basket would benefit our camps and satisfy that shopping gene!

Everyone bid on this wonderful item - a portable firepit filled with s'mores ingredients.


There were baskets from all the New England States, labelled with what was in the basket.  And wrapped beautifully too!




There's still time to sign up - hurry before all the workshops you want to take are full!  Check out the Turkey cooking workshop in the "D" slot - amaze your troop by teaching them to cook a turkey in a trash can!

Wednesday, June 19, 2019

Last Call For Early Birds!

Remember, deadline for Early Bird Registration for the Great Escape is midnight June 30th!
Nine workshops are already full, and accommodations are going quickly.

Heated spaces are full (unless you have a medical problem requiring inside quarters - contact Lesley.)


 Did we mention this is a turkey dinner year?


Sunday, June 2, 2019

Make Something Beautiful At Great Escape

Sometimes the small photos on the WORKSHOPS page don't do the items justice!  Here are some larger photos to help you decide on your choices for REGISTRATION.  Many  are suitable for making with troops or family groups.

This burlap wreath uses a wire coat hanger instead of an expensive wreath form!  It can be decorated for any occasion.  It surely has that Fixer-Upper farmhouse feel. I can imagine it for Christmas with a green bow and some holly.  Or a red bow and some hearts for Valentine's day.


If you are like me, you can't stand to throw out all the beautiful holiday cards, birthday cards, congratulations, wedding and anniversary wishes you received.  When we moved, I had to dispose of literally thousands!  Be proactive - make some into these lovely decorations!  Or, bring some scrapbook paper and deplete that stash!



I'm so taken with this beautiful string art cactus!  Wouldn't this look great on a bathroom wall, or on a covered porch?  Wouldn't it be fun to do as part of an "Outdoor Art" badge?


Speaking of outdoor art, pine cones, with their 'leaves' arranged in a Fibonacci sequence, are a great example of STEAM.  Learn to make these beautiful pine cones and you'll want to teach everyone you know!  These neutral colors were chosen to be quasi-realistic, and to go on a themed tree,  but they can be glitzy or glam, depending on the papers chosen!