Open Pages

Community News Winter 2010

The Value of Camp Common Ground By Carole Blane

Planning for the Future

With summer long gone, I have settled back into old routines in my hectic scene here in New Jersey. As I drive from Eve’s bowling club events to yoga to errands for work and back to the bowling alley, I have been thinking a lot about the value of Camp Common Ground. I have been thinking about this when I get in my car – fantasizing about how during the three weeks of Camp I hardly use my car. I have been pondering Camp’s value every time I take out my wallet and fork over cash for food, yoga class, Eve’s dance lessons, and the gas for Rebecca’s car. And of course, I can’t help but picture Peg’s Pond, our miles of hiking trails, and the stars at night when I make a trip to the Staples plaza or the mall here in New Jersey. Some of the things you can do at Common Ground Center

are priceless. Money can’t buy that feeling you get when you see your kids making new friends, running around on the hill, or playing the violin in the Big Show after only a week of lessons. The excitement, pride, and glee that came with painting my first watercolor are also priceless. Not to mention the pure joy of just spending time with my friends and family in a beautiful, natural setting. Much of what we do offer at Camp Common Ground and our other programs, however, does have a monetary value. For example, Marc Kornbluh is a popular staple at Camp Common

Ground. At home, he teaches a four hour glass making workshop and charges his participants $250. At Camp, he enthusiastically teaches for five hours a day, helping returning campers and novice glass makers alike create beads and fused glass. Let’s just say you worked with Marc for only four hours during the week, that would be $250. Let’s say at least one member of your family got up and did yoga

The white stillness of this Vermont winter day forms a perfect complement to the whirl of activity that awaits a few months hence. The world today feels like a blank sheet of paper, on which we can color in the future as we’d like to see it. So why not let ourselves contemplate a few projects we have on the drawing board for this coming year?

Wade in the water I may as well lead with the pond – perhaps a more prominent place in our publications will satisfy the God of Leakproof Pond Walls. Our latest repairs were completed in October, directing the underground streams coming down the mountain away from the pond, into the spillway. Once the repairs were complete, we waited impatiently for the rains to come, as water trickled slowly in from the wells, and the pond sat half full.

Planning for the Future By Peg Kamens

Continued on p. 6

Continued on p. 5

Some samples of Marc’s students’ incredible glass creations.

Floating in the cool waters of our pond.

Page 2 — Find out more at www.cgcvt.org

Interview with Joan Plisko By Peg Kamens

Ever since I first met Joan Plisko and she told me what she does for a living I have wanted to interview her. Many of you know Joan - she has been to our Women’s Weekend (in fact she is one of its founders), Lost Arts Week, and Camp Common Ground (2009 was her fourth summer!). She is the mom of the one of the “Ellies” and a tea maker extraordinaire at Camp. She hails from Maryland and comes as part of the Biamonte/Queeney/Walker contingent. All three of these Maryland families, the Pliskos, Biamontes, and Queeney/Walkers do all kinds of cool stuff surrounding environmental issues within their own communities, setting great examples for us all. Joan and Clare Walker started a green club at their kids’ schools and in her spare time, Joan is now heading up the “Environmental Issues Committee” for one of their local political campaigns. As you know, here at CGC we make a concerted and continuous effort to be as green as we can be (read Peg’s article to see what we have planned for this year) and we know this is an important issue for our campers. Who knew we had such an inspiring environmentalist right under our noses? Here’s my interview with Joan: Carole Blane (CB): Joan, your job has always intrigued me. Can you tell us more about it?

Joan Plisko (JP): I am the Technical Director for Maryland Hospitals for a Healthy Environment. I provide technical assistance to hospitals to develop and implement environmental and sustainable practices. Our goal is to create a paradigm shift in the way health care is delivered in Maryland. The Hippocratic Oath includes the saying: First, Do No Harm. What we are doing is shifting a culture back to its roots – health care should be about health and healing in an environment that promotes and fosters healing. A healthy hospital environment is good for patients, for staff members, and for community members. The reason to do this work lies in the premise of creating a healthy environment for our children and our children’s children. While having beautiful mountains and places of respite is awesome, what we are striving for is a healthy environment with less pollutants in the air, which leads to lower incidence of asthma and healthier children; less toxics in the water, which leads to reduced exposure to common pollutants in our foods and healthier children.

Most people don’t know this: nurses have the highest rate of occupational asthma above all other professions. This means the caregivers of our society are at the highest risk and are often the sickest. Nurses are exposed day in and day out to cleaners, pesticides, anesthetic gasses, latex, and so many other asthmagens. It is time to create a new place to heal. Change in the hospital environment is happening at all levels but many times starts at the grass roots. We fan fire there and try to also infiltrate the top – at the executive level.

CB: Do they come to you? JP: At the onset, no, but now that sustainability is such a large part of society and culture we are flooded with requests for help. CB: Can you define sustainability? JP: You can think of environmental programs like a laundry list of what hospitals can do. For example, hospitals can: • Purchase less toxic materials and request less packaging

material from suppliers and vendors. • Use alternative, less toxic products for operations such as

cleaning and pest management. • Reduce waste and recycle as much of the waste stream as

A CGC Community Member Making Change in Our World: An Interview with Joan Plisko By Carole Blane

Continued on p. 7

Joan and her family: Marc, Teddy, and Ellie.

Joan’s tea brewing in the Farmhouse!

The matriarchs of the MD contingent: Joan, Lori, and Clare.

CGC Folks Aren’t Just Layin’ Around This Winter...

Call us back right now!

Calling all artists and makers of cool stuff! This Martin Luther King Weekend a slew of people came together for a January “work weekend”. Liz Ritter, Lori Biamonte, Jane McGurty, and Carole Blane sorted through boxes of fabric in the Kidville loft and cut “Fat Quarters” for crafts, cut glass for mosaics, and collected sticks for God’s Eye kits. Elin Melchior, Jill Entis, and Justin Bouvier (our waterfront director from 2009) also joined the group to work throughout the weekend. While the group found time for good talks, walks on the Yellow Trail, and many laughs, they also spent a good amount of

time planning for the 2010 season of The Common Good, Common Ground Center’s very own gift shop. The past two seasons were successful beyond our hopes and we are excited to see what goodies and works of art our community has to offer for this season! If you didn’t receive the email regarding the Common Good and would like to enter something in the jury process, please call Susanna in the office at 1-800-430-2667 or email her at susanna@cgcvt.org.

Phone-a-thon Update As I write this our Phone-a-thon is under way. We love to connect with campers. It gives us a chance to find out what you all are up to and to get your input. Perhaps Jim, Jane, or I left you a message. Jim can be reached at 802-734-0798 and I, Carole, at 802-881-8278. If you’d still like to make a donation, you may call the office with a credit card number, go to the website at www.cgcvt.org and donate through Pay Pal, or send a check payable to: Common Ground Center, 473 Tatro Road, Starksboro, VT 05487. Thanks again for your generosity! Buy beautiful creations, like these bandanas, in The Common

Good this summer. Reserve your spot at camp, give us a call at 1-800-430-2667 — Page 3

You might have seen the Biamontes at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Eliza Van Rootselaar is going to Peru to hike the Inca trail up to Machu Pichu. Her mom, Edith Bolt, just celebrated her 50th birthday. Michael Johnson has been awarded the Boy Scout Eagle Scout Award. Lisa Stevens-Goodnight is a Senior at UVM majoring in Economics and History. Sylvia Stevens-Goodnight went to Germany with her Burlington High School class for Model UN and performed with the Vermont Youth Orchestra at First Night. Charles Goodnight is the cousin of Barack Obama and gave a talk about beetles in Ottawa in celebration of Darwin’s birthday. Jillian Dagostino is figure skating and cooking dinner one night a week for her family – she’s only 9! RP Wells (father of Dan) built all 42 frames for Dan’s Art Exhibit Debut in Massachusetts in early November. Hayden Brothers, who is eight, has already read the entire Harry Potter series and loves history books. Debbie Tracht just got a Bernese Mountain Dog. Steve Scholle and Jim Mendell went to elementary school and Riverdale High School in the Bronx, New York together. Keith Getter runs a flea market on Sundays. Check out his website at FultonFlea.com. Djasi is a

master chef who apprenticed at a farm to table restaurant and is studying psych and poli sci at Brooklyn College. Lisa Tidman, one of our fav yoga teachers, is busy studying Anuperna yoga. Chris Canning is into the steel drum and swimming at Oberlin College. Eliza Leas has joined Zoe at Grinnell College in Iowa. They retired Anya Schwartz’s soccer jersey from the same

school a few years back. Sara Woodall is doing homeschooling counseling around the world. Annie (Sara’s daughter) is getting her Master’s in Library and Information Sciences. Annie and Rebecca Blane have had a pen pal relationship since 2001. And Zach Woodall is a pilot towing hang gliders. Archie Kranz (5) is a #1 Mets fan and his sister, Layla (3) will be a sugar plum in the Nutcracker….ahhhh! Gideon Turner took a kayak tour of Lake Champlain this summer.

Donna Goad and Paul Johnson of New Mexico are yet two more Common Ground “empty nesters”. Their kids are at Wesleyan College and another in Nova Scotia. Ilan Flax played soccer on a West Indian team in a Mexican League in Brooklyn. Harry is way into professional wrestling—watch out! Shane Verenbec spent New Year’s Eve in Times Square watching the ball drop!

Page 4 — Find out more at www.cgcvt.org

Our construction is coming to a close, and we now have a facility that we can point to with pride. The next step? A plan to more fully utilize our facility, bringing in the financial resources to sustain our camp programs into the future. We decided we needed a business plan! Where would we look if we wanted to adjust our business model for sustainable growth? How about someone in the hospitality industry. Someone who knows all those little, secret rules of thumb they have in the industry in which we compete? This may seem very un-CGCish of us, but we think we found that someone who understands our distinctly non-business, clinging-to-granola ethos. The person we chose to do the job is Todd Comen, a professor at Johnson State College. With experience running an inn on a working farm, a respect for rural Vermont, and an interest in eco-tourism, Todd seemed like our man – he’s even a homeschooler, which made Carole happy.

Todd brought in Valerie Rochon, a local marketing guru. Some of you may have met them when they visited CCG the first week of camp. They love what we have and what we do here, and

made the following recommendations: • run family programs for the entire summer season, and a homeschooling program for two weeks during the school year • run smaller programs and rentals for most of the shoulder season – late spring, early fall. • skip the winter season – the clientele and accommodations needed would stray too far from our expertise and mission. Valerie gave us a marketing plan to help us reach more people more effectively, and we’ve already begun to implement it.

We will be taking Todd and Valerie’s recommendations to the Board in January, and will report back to you on the details as our plans evolve.

Many of you know Dan Wells, naturalist extraordinaire, who leads walks in the woods at CGC for many of our camps. But you may not have heard that this talented photographer just exhibited over 40 of his photos in Lincoln, Massachusetts. A couple hundred people came to see the show, and they liked what they saw, shelling out over $7,500 to buy their favorites. Over half of the photos were taken at Common Ground Center and captured the subtleties of the natural world depicting each of the four seasons over the past year. Dan particularly enjoys taking photos at CGC while living on site. “I am impressed by the incredible diversity of ecosystems

and variety of scenes in one place,” he said. “There are four or five distinct environments at Common Ground—the creek, the wetland, standing water in the pond, fields, mountains and woods.” The exhibit, hosted by a friend of Dan’s parents, included prints as large as 24 by 46 inches. He took all the photos digitally with his

24.5 mega pixel Nikon camera, which made for superb prints. “I use a tripod whenever I can,” said Wells. “No matter how steady your hand, it’s not as steady as a tripod.” He has a few tips for up and coming photographers: “Simplify; focus on no more than three subjects. Use interesting light—sunrise, sunset, cloudy, or foggy—not noon on a sunny day. And take lots of pictures.” One photo is currently part of an exhibit in the Bow Street gallery in Harvard Square in Boston. You can see a selection of Dan’s pictures at www.danwellsphoto.com. Dan started photographing in high school 20 years ago. He had a huge art requirement, and he couldn’t draw very well, so he started photographing landscapes instead. He has

Heading Off in the Right Direction By Peg Kamens

Dan Wells Strikes it Rich with Beautiful Images

By Jim Mendell

Dan on a recent winter hike—not even three feet of snow keeps him inside!

One of Dan’s gorgeous photographs taken

Continued on p. 7

Our new business plan helped to shed some light on a tricky issue—balancing business smarts with CGC’s ethics.

Reserve your spot at camp, give us a call at 1-800-430-2667 — Page 5

Planning for the future— Continued from page 1.

Finally, a torrential rain came in early December, filling the pond in less than a week. Has to have been an act of the God of Leakproof Pond Walls, no? As of today, the pond is full to overflowing, a condition we hope it will retain forever. So, in case we’ve already solved the pond problem, it will be nice to make the transition to the hiking trails more accessible. We will soon undertake what

we hope will be our last pond project - creating a more gradual slope from the northern end of the pond to the woods.

I’ll follow the sun Some of you may have passed the renewable energy company NRG on your way from Common Ground to Burlington. Once primarily a wind company, NRG and its sister company, EarthTurbines, have expanded their focus to solar. They are now primed to take advantage of their profitability, the renewable energy tax credits from the stimulus package, and the liberal energy policies of the state of Vermont. EarthTurbines is offering Vermont non-profits a sweet deal – we pay them a total of $1,000, and they permit, install and maintain solar trackers so we can produce our own electricity. Under their plan, EarthTurbines charges us for the energy produced, and the power company pays us for any excess energy we don’t use. So we still pay for our energy, it is just solar, not coal or nuclear-based. EarthTurbines enjoys enough tax benefits to make the whole thing worthwhile. At the end of five years, we can renew the agreement, get rid of the trackers, or buy them at

30% of the original cost. Sounds pretty good, so we said yes. We will install up to five new solar trackers this spring, which should provide all the electrical energy we’ll need now and as we grow. This will be a great way to reduce our carbon footprint, even as we expand our operations.

Lodging a complaint This summer, a series of unfortunate events resulted in my staying in the mobile home for the three weeks of camp. And it became clear that the shelf life for that building was fast expiring. So we were faced with the choice of expensive repairs or replacement. The arguments for replacement are: • we can build something really green – solar hot water,

renewable heat, sustainable design • we can build something that fits our needs – rooms with

bathrooms for those who need this, heat in the cooler parts of our season, more program space, and maybe some staff housing

So we are looking into what would be involved in replacing the mobile home. After several ideas were floated, we came up with the following notions: • four rooms for campers, each with their own private

bathroom, each accommodating up to four people • a fifth room that can be used for staff housing • a washer and dryer available to all campers • an additional program room with a kitchen and woodstove • the ability to expand with an additional two rooms if needed • efficient heating system (radiant floor heat, provided by

wood and solar thermal) • living roof, covered porch • use of on-site materials - our own wood for framing and

exterior walls, and rocks found on site for exteriors, structure and heat retention

We are working with architect Carol Stenberg, who taught us how to make stone cairns at CCG Week 3 this past summer. Right now, we are seeking a price tag for all this, to see if it adds up to something we can do. We are aiming to have the building up and running for the summer of 2011.

There’s a great view of the solar trackers from the tennis courts!

Peg surveys her realm with our estimator, Paul Yandow.

on CGC’s property. Can you guess where?

Page 6 — Find out more at www.cgcvt.org

The Value of Camp Common Ground— Continued from page 1.

every morning. Here in New Jersey, I pay $15 a class – so that’s another $90 – and at Camp, there is no need for incense or a babbling brook CD because there is fresh air flowing in the Hay Barn windows and Lewis Creek right next door. Your whole family also gets fed each day. At Camp, the meals, which are made with local and organic Vermont products, are worth $50-$75 a day per person, and they are all prepared for you to boot! I suspect at home, and at Camp, you might participate in a few other activities. At home it might be TV watching and then you have to pay for a gym or Curves membership to compensate. At Camp, not only do you get to choose from a variety of ways to get moving, but its fun – like hiking, dancing, and Liz’s improv class (you burn a lot of calories laughing). You also save on your therapy bills because we have art “therapy” and massage and journaling and many other outlets for your emotional and physical health. You can also save on the divorce lawyer fees because we offer men’s groups and nonviolent communication to make sure we all get along. All three weeks of Camp we offer the opportunity to learn an instrument, not only can this be expensive at home, but it’s also hard to find a good teacher. We have one at Camp who performs at a professional level and has been returning for 16 years! How much do you spend meeting friends out at Starbucks or for dinner or for a movie? At Camp all you have to do is walk into the library, dining hall, or Peg’s and my office to find stimulating conversation and great people. Do you get where I am going with this? I’m suggesting that for a typical camper who does yoga, creates a craft, learns an instrument, talks to some friends over a good meal, and takes a nice long hike with his/her partner, that we are worth over $800 per person for the week. And this is just for our activities. Over the years, we have also

substantially improved our facility and physical amenities. Since our move to Starksboro, we have paved over the dirt floors in the library and game room (yes, we were that rustic). We have added a porch to the dining hall, which has become a favorite spot for those priceless moments. We have renovated the Hay Barn into a beautiful sacred space. We have also added tennis and basketball courts. (And for those of you who didn’t have the opportunity to use the tennis courts at Hochelaga, our old rented site, they needed to be weeded

before you could play a game.) We’ve also added a private, two acre pond – and word on the street is that this feature is pretty amazing. For all of these reasons we are trying something new this summer – we are instituting a sliding scale fee. Our tuition has been subsidized all these good years, despite the added amenities, and now we need to get a little more realistic.

The upper number on the sliding scale will represent the true cost of and a reasonable value for our programs, the bottom number is the good, old faithful subsidized rate. If you are able to pay the full amount, please do. We are also hoping that folks will think about other families when they register. When you pay a higher amount on the sliding scale, not only are you helping Common Ground Center (we are a non-profit after all!), but you are helping other families who may not be able to afford summer vacations. Each year we strive to offer quality programs that are not just time fillers. Yes, of course we want

you to come here to relax and simply be, but we also hope that what you choose to do while at Camp inspires you and sustains you throughout the year. We hope that Jim or Peter actively engage with you while you play tennis. You can actually create art to take home with you. You can learn an instrument in just a week. Thanks for all of your loyalty, fun spirits, and enthusiasm. We can’t wait to see ya’ll this summer!

Adam proudly shares his artwork.

One of those priceless moments!

A men’s group by the creek—it’s better than therapy!

Martha (right) performs in the chamber concert with her students.

Reserve your spot at camp, give us a call at 1-800-430-2667 — Page 7

A CGC Community Member Making Change in Our World— Continued from page 2.

possible. One hospital in Oregon recycles 70% of its waste stream. • Offer local and organic foods to patients and to staff and visitors in the cafeteria. The Fletcher Allen Hospital in Burlington, VT, for instance, recently opened the Sustainable Harvest Café – the most sustainable hospital café in the country!

Sustainability, however, includes the environmental programs, but more importantly includes a shift in the cultural and value system of an organization. Concepts related to sustainability, to be successful, must be woven into the fabric of a hospital, including its mission, core values, operations, and community outreach. At MD H2E we assist hospitals, health systems and other health providers in developing and implementing programs. This is done through on-site visits, audits, educational seminars, and partnerships. MD H2E has a small staff – two do nursing outreach, one handles sustainable foods, and I handle the operations piece. Some of the areas I work in include: • Mercury elimination • Integrated Pest Management • Environmentally Preferable Purchasing • Green Cleaning • Composting • Energy conservation • Water conservation • Elimination of PVC and DEHP (di-2-ehtylhexyl-

pthtalate) DEHP, for example, is a plasticizer used in IV bags and tubing to make them flexible. It has been shown however, that DEHP can leach into the fluids in the bags, and enter the patient. It has been documented that DEHP is a reproductive toxicant to the developing male neonate. We educate hospitals about the problem AND offer up solutions that protect health, and many times save money too. In fact, most of the programs we promote are good for the environment, good for the pocketbook, keep a hospital in regulatory compliance, and promote corporate responsibility and stewardship in the community. We partner with many organizations such as the MD Hospital Association, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Maryland Department of the Environment, the Maryland Pesticide Network, and many more. Recently, we began exploring a relationship with the local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. The only way to truly create change is to integrate sustainability concepts into the curriculum of medical schools. CB: Wow. Thanks Joan! Keep up the good work!

Dan Wells Strikes it Rich— Continued from page 4.

been a naturalist as long as a photographer, and now he combines his two passions as a professor at University of Vermont teaching nature photography. “I’d love to help start a photography program at Common Ground,” said Dan. “I could come up with a few other photo instructors for a weekend.” Wearing his hat as a naturalist, Dan has some advice for campers: “When you’re at Common Ground, come join us for a hike to the beaver pond or on the yellow trail or any place else that let’s you explore the property. Don’t stay in the small area where so many activities happen. Explore the other 680 acres!”

Joan and Teddy in the creek.

The two “Ellies” of Camp Common Ground.

Another one of Dan’s striking photos taken on CGC’s property.

Women’s Weekend ···································· May 21-23, 2010

Camp Kaleidoscope ····································· June 24-27, 2010

Overcoming Barriers····································· July 25-30, 2010

Camp Common Ground—Week 1······· July 31-August 6, 2010

Camp Common Ground—Week 2·············· August 7-13, 2010

Camp Common Ground—Week 3············ August 14-20, 2010

Chinese Culture Weekend ························ August 27-29, 2010

Lost Arts············································· September 20-24, 2010

NON PROFIT ORG US POSTAGE PAID BURLINGTON, VT PERMIT NO 478

Common Ground Center 473 Tatro Rd. Starksboro VT 05487 Return Service Requested

Open Pages is produced quarterly by the Common Ground Center staff. You can contact the office at (802) 453-2592 or e-mail us at info@cgcvt.org. Our address is 473 Tatro Rd., Starksboro, VT 05487, and our website is www.cgcvt.org.

Mission Statement Common Ground Center is a non-profit multi-age arts, education and outdoor recreation center dedicated to building strong families within a supportive and diverse community.

Common Ground Center Staff

Peg Kamens, Co-Director Jim Mendell, Co-Director

Carole Blane, Program Coordinator Elin Melchior, Operations Coordinator

Pam Durda, Rentals & Site Management Pat Hendee, Jr., Caretaker

CGC Board of Directors

Jill Entis, Veronica Gadbois, Elizabeth Ritter, Dew B. Wilde,

Francis Goodman, Sam Silverman, Lori Biamonte, Eliza Van Rootselaar,

Vanessa Anton, Geoff Gohacki, John Sheridan, Rhoen Pruesse-Adams

and Brooks Hoffman

2010 Calendar

Come share a laugh with us in 2010!

Mission Statement Common Ground Center is a non-profit multi-age arts, education and outdoor recreation center dedicated to building strong families within a supportive and diverse community.

Common Ground Center Staff

Peg Kamens, Co-Director Jim Mendell, Co-Director

Carole Blane, Program Coordinator Elin Melchior, Operations Coordinator

Susanna Kellogg, Communications Coordinator Pat Hendee, Jr., Caretaker

CGC Board of Directors

Jill Entis, Veronica Gadbois, Dew B. Wilde, Lori Biamonte,

Eliza Van Rootselaar, Vanessa Anton, John Sheridan, Rhoen Pruesse-Adams, Brooks Hoffman, Scott Meyer, Bruce

Rodgers, and Jane McGurty