Blog

We enjoyed the time we shared with our summer campers in our 2017 pilot year of operations, and our success is by their measure!

Thank you to those who were able to come together and make so much happen with so little, so quickly! We are incredibly grateful to all members of the community, volunteers, parents, partners, sponsors, the municipality and the province who made this year’s summer program initiative a reality.

To our coordinator, who, despite an early season departure due to health concerns, gave our board the initial direction and momentum to propel us through the 8 weeks of summer.  To our Counselors who rose to the occasion to tackle all manner of recreation, lead activities and oversee field trips. To all of our individual workshop leaders, mentors and artisans. Thank you to MacCoy for resolving our insurance needs, given safety is a top priority for all parents. To the CBVRSB and Barb Macdonald, as well as Andrew Macdonald, for the use of the facilities, as well as guidance and amenability. To Naturally Active, and specifically Vince Forrestall, for both sponsoring and consulting during the planning and initiation phases as well as ongoing support. Thank you to Sensei Lee Donovan, who’s new karate dojo will be opening in Victoria County; We look forward to our partnership with Donovan’s Dojo and enjoyed the instructive day of meditative physical discipline. A big thank you to the Alexandre Graham Bell Foundation who supplied digital cameras, creative materials and an array of workshops led by Peyton Carmichael. To the Victoria Standard (of Bellwether Media inc.) who’s partnership and sponsorship made the sustainability of the camp possible in it’s Pilot year. Not to be forgotten, our participating parents whose feedback will help shape the future design of BDLDC’s burgeoning day camp model.

Five months ago we were like most working parents in rural Cape Breton, facing another busy summer season without the security and peace of mind of stable childcare. It became clear that to best serve the aptitudes and enrich the lives of our own children, we would have to design a program that offered a smorgasbord of opportunities for engagement, something we would not have been able to accomplish on our own. We are so proud of what we are able to achieve through community collaboration and support, and will continue to build upon our original vision of a offering a comprehensive experiential and recreational outlet for multi-disciplinary learners in a try-and-fail-friendly environment. Our board will be the first to admit we have encountered as much failure as success in dealing with unforeseen obstacles,  but as the Scottish author, Samuel Smiles is quoted as saying,

“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.”

We look forward to applying all of the wisdom accrued in our first summer towards developing our programming for 2018, while working to cultivate our awareness of social issues important to our developing community.

As we continue to assess and discover the needs of our county, in order to best address them, we ask for your continued support, guidance and feedback. All communications, feedback and constructive criticisms can be directed to bdldc2017@gmail.com.

Madison Greening
Vice President
*Sept 15th, 2017