Working Away at the CMHH '13 Project...

...with nothing much to show as it included fitting the window display shelf, and the two window frames. So, I will put in a couple of photos of the campers at this year's Camp MiniHaHa hard at work. Our new work space this year was very bright and spacious, so we kind of spread out. Also, we had a tool room with a tool operator handy right next door; most of us made several visits to Wayne's World for precision cutting as we changed our projects from the prototype - well, truth to tell, we all rarely work an exact copy, we are all too darned independent!

The prototype was rectangular, and many worked in that format; however, as I said, we are all very independent, so a number of people worked theirs in the vertical, creating a two-level streetscape rather than a single-level one. We were working with gator-board, which takes quite a bit of sitting for the glue to dry. Many people also used bricks to clad their walls, these also took time to dry. No one actually finished their project in the four full days of work, but we all developed our idea to the point where it would be simple to finish the box at home.

Here you have a group of campers intently watching a demonstration on aging techniques, and how to add variety to the brickwork. In the background, you can see a version of the prototype with its front wall removed, allowing you to see the inside of the box. The wall is propped below. The demonstrator is Iris S., one of the organizers of the camp.

Camp MiniHaHa is a not-for-profit camp held at the end of each September in south-western Nova Scotia, Canada. Most of our campers are returnees, one of our US campers (hi Audrey!) was back for the third year in a row, and this year we also welcomed two campers from the Spokane, Washington area and two from Wisconsin. The rest came from the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. This was my twelfth year at camp, I think; I've only missed one year, very early on. We began with 10 ladies in a summer cottage on the cliffs above the Bay of Fundy, moved to the old United Church Camp in Berwick, NS with 25 people, and are now in the Digby, NS area with up to 40 people. Our campers have come from as far away as Hawaii, California, Montana, Missouri, Maryland, Manitoba, a northern Alberta bush community and a remote sub-arctic community near Hudson's Bay, as well as the UK.

If there is nothing spectacular to show on my camp project in the next couple of days, I'll share some of the treasures I collected while at camp; we have a goody bag at lunch each day, and a gift exchange each evening after dinner. As well, I got a wonderful dog I had commissioned, which I am very eager to share with you.