Saturday, June 6, 2015

Philmont Staff 2015, Update #1

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The participants will arrive soon, June 8, to be specific. Mostly, we've been doing a lot of different staff trainings. The first day is mainly just checking in and completing all those tasks, then there is an all-staff day and lots of other trainings done as a department. June 8th is also when days off begin. I know I will have a 5-2 schedule, but I don't know which two days I will have off.

We will go to Taos tomorrow as a department. That seems like it will be fun, although I don't know what the plan is for that yet.

We have also begun working on the first issue of the PhilNews. The PhilNews should be posted online on Thursdays, beginning June 11, and paper copies are distributed on Fridays. We have to work almost a full week in advance to get everything done on time for the printer, which is a rather strange adjustment to have to make.

I feel like the writing style necessary is distinctly different from what I'm expected to do for a research paper or other formal writing. It doesn't seem too hard to get the hang of, and, so far, my interviews seem to have gone pretty well. Admittedly, the PhilNews is designed to be PR, and the people I've interviewed actually want to talk to me. I think this job will give me a lot of information about many of the different departments and jobs available on the Ranch.

Today, I got to scatter with French Henry. Scatter is when the backcountry staff head out to their camps. It takes three days for all the thirty-six staffed camps to scatter. It was pretty cool, and all the staff are excited to finally get to where they're going to be all summer. French Henry has two staff cabins, a main one and a smaller one, and they have a wood-burning oven. The cabins are not very tightly constructed, so a rat had gotten in over the summer and created a nest. For exactly this reason, all staffed camps have to be "de-hantaed" each year, to prevent any possibility of Hantavirus. The French Henry staff also brought Bruiser, their feline head exterminator, with them in an effort to cut down on the rodent population.

Overall, I'm just extremely ready for the normal schedule to begin. I'm ready to have a little more predictability for my routine.


Edit: Take a look at PhilNews Issue 1 here.

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