First off, the Friends of Family Camp website has a new home and url: www.friendsoffamilycamp.org Please update your bookmarks/favorites.  If you are interested in or ever attended Family Camp, please check it out.
Tom also left a comment on an earlier post which I would like to highlight.

Just wanted to let you know that we will have a new Family Camp patch for 2009. It will be limited to 100 pieces.

I would like to get it out there that we are booking cabins in Family Camp for the Memorial holiday weekend. We have a limited amount of cabins still available. The waterfront will be open this weekend for swimming. For further info or to make a reservation call Camping Services at 1-212-651-2955. Anyone interested in booking a summer week may do so at this same number.

If you want to spend some time at TMR with the family and without the troop, Family Camp makes a great home base.

Hey Tom,  Save me a patch!!

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My association with Family Camp was back in the last millennium, I was the Waterfront Director  working for Debbie King and Nancy Quick back in the dim ages of 1974 and 1975.

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Below is a view of Lake Nianque from the Family Camp Waterfront.

Hey Tom, any new patches from Family Camp this year?

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I want to apologize for passing  on inaccurate information.  I received the following email today:

Hi Bill
Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year.  I am writing because I stumbled

across a posting on your patch trading website that made reference to

Family Camp closing:
http://www.tenmilerivertrader.com/blog/wp-trackback.php?p=83
I am not sure where that rumor was started, but I can tell you with

absolute certainty that Family Camp is not closing.  We’re very

excited about the growth opportunities at Family Camp this summer, and

are confident that it will have a very successful summer in 2008 and

beyond.
I just thought I would throw this out there to you – so that the rumor

doesn’t go too far.  Please feel free to post this message as you wish.

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This is a portion of an email just forwarded to me:

Hello Everyone,

This is Sal Pxxx. I’m writing to say that after 25 consecutive summers serving Scouting families in Family Camp at Ten Mile River, my family has been informed by the Ten Mile River Director, Bob Madsen, that our services will no longer be needed.

We leave without bitterness or resentment toward anyone. Everything changes, except for the fact that everything changes. Over the years, Barbara and I tried to serve the Family Campers as best we could. We viewed our work there as a ministry. We tried to minister to every family that stayed with us and kept in touch during the year.

Family Camp saw weddings, births, baptisms, parties, galas, and dinners, all of which made the merry Greenwood resound with laughter. We saw children arrive as infants in arms, witnessed these same children grow, marry, and bring their own families to camp. We weathered storms, intense heat, waterless weekends, broken plumbing, run down facilities. We were there for several resurrections of the place too. Kitchens were restored twice during our tenure, and bathrooms were added. Roofs were redone many times.

But it wasn’t the facilities that made the place, nor was it the program. It was the people. Where else could folks from every conceivable socioeconomic strata, representing every race and religion, come together in absolute harmony and bliss, and get along so well that everyone wept the night before they had to leave? Lasting friendships, marriages, and babies were made in Family Camp, including my own two sons, both now Scouts on their way to Eagle.

We leave sadly, but proudly, of what we accomplished over 25 summers. We take with us all our memories of you, in our scrap books, in our minds, and most importantly, in our hearts. We bid you all good-bye and God Bless. May Family Camp ever be an example of true brotherhood and love to all who tread the trails of Ten Mile River.

While I understand the financial necessities, and the fact that in some cases those staying at Family Camp where no longer affiliated with Scouting, it is sad to see it close.

While my time at Family Camp predates Sal’s, I was on staff (ran the Waterfront) there my first two years on Camp Staff back in 1974 and 1975. A lot of good memories from my times there too.

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The first version is numbered, the second set is un-numbered. The numbered CSP’s share the same design as the un-numbered, but have a number ghosted in the design. To the best of my knowledge, no “sets” of the same numbers were sold.

Each design features a theme or program element specific to that camp with the Indian Cliffs “chief” as part of the design.

The third in the series is from Family Camp.

Family Camp was originally for Scoutmasters family from back in the day when most people only had 2 weeks vacation. Many Scoutmasters used their entire vacation to bring boys to camp. Their wives and other children stayed in Family Camp.

This CSP pictures the Stumpp Cabin and the chief with his wife and child. The Stumpp Cabin is named for William Stumpp an early director of Camp Ranachqua and Chief of Ranachqua Lodge.

The numbered version is the FC2007X1 and the un-numbered is the FC2007X2

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