Member Work Skills Training at the North Country School ; June14-18

Before they got engaged with the field-season of service projects, the SCA members all went through our annual tradition of work skills. This year they spent four days on the North Country School’s 200-acre campus, located in Lake Placid, NY. This is an alternative co-ed boarding/day school that utilizes a working farm, organic garden, and alpine wilderness as a part of their curriculum.
Each morning after breakfast, and packing a lunch, the groups broke off into teams from their camping accommodations, (a big yurt and tents in the woods,) met for a de-brief with their instructor for the day, and then began to perform projects coordinated ahead of time between SCA and North Country School staff.
Under the watchful eye of the instructors, a free-standing pole barn was constructed, a dry-stack retaining wall was begun for a footpath, and massive turnpike structures were built to firm up a mucky section of a woods-track. The members gained hands-on experience from the work and developed skills in dry-stack masonry, carpentry, and rustic timber construction which would allow them to perform quality work throughout the Adirondacks for the run of their program.

Thanks to the organizational talents of the SCA staff, a sponorship agreemnet was reached with MOuntain Dew. There was a competition between the teams, BAHA BLAST, CODE RED, and LIVE WIRE, which was judged by an extraneous and random set of guidelines that gave the prize to CODE RED.

Unfortunately, at the last minute, the prize was cancelled, as Norah Jones did not feel up to thge task of singing from a dirt bike. The travel to Lake Placid had been too much, and the band was fatigued. So a 12 pack of Mountain Dew Corn-syrup Typhoon became the award.