EFCSB - 2024 裝備年：「領受真道、效法基督」

Dear Coworkers:

As mentioned in an email some time ago, we will have a congregation camping at the end of this summer.We have made reservation at Brown’s Town Campground located at Bishop. (http://www.brownscampgrounds.com/browns.html)

Date: arriving on 8/31 and check out on 9/3 (Labor day weekend)

Currently, we have reserved 15 tent sites. It will allow a group of 75 people (adults+children).

The campground locates just at the south end of Bishop. Bishop is a small town that many tourists visit. Restaurants, gas stations, motels, and stores are close to the campground. The campground has nice facilities. We will use it as a base to plan our activities at Mono Lake and Mammoth Lake.

Camping is an excellent opportunity to let new friends to get familiar with our members. Living together for 3-4 days would shorten the distance between people. Some may not like camping, it is still possible for them to stay in the nearby motel but join our activities.

I’ll start to organize a team to plan for the camping trip:

First, could you let me know whether you plan to attend. This is just for me to get an idea whom I can approach to ask for help? (You still need to register when the registration starts.)

My preliminary plan would need people to help out in the following areas: I like to invite people to volunteer

• headcount/registration
• dividing our whole group into smaller groups
• flyer preparation
• equipment: First we need to count the equipments church has in the storage room and check the condition of the equipments. I expect we will need to add some other equipments.
• plan the evening activities (camp fire …) We will have three nights, we can either have a team to be in charge or have different people to take charge of different nights. This part can be expand to design the integrated program including the Sunday service. I plan to divide our group into smaller groups, we can design some group competition games to encourage the team spirit of each small group and have some funs too.
• transportation (we need to organize carpool according to the departure time). Camping usually require to bring along more stuff to the site, we also need to plan how to bring those equipments.
• Cooking/Food preparation (I am not sure what’s the best way to handle it. The easiest way is for people to take care of themselves. Since some may not have the cooking equipments, we may also organize to have group dinning plan. I need suggestions and help on this part.
• Day time activities: I have general plan on where to go for sightseeing but need people to help me in the details.

Some of the above tasks require more than one persons. Please don’t feel discouraged that it seems to big for you. As long as you think you can in one or more of the above areas, please let me know. You may also simply let me know that you are going and can help. If you have thought of something I neglect, please bring it to my attention as well.

Peter

Dear All:

I have recovered Bown’s Town Campground located at Bishop, CA for 4-days and three nights during the Labor day weekend. (Yes, I mean Labor day not Memorial day weekend). We need to plan so far ahead to get good campgrounds to accommodate a big group and allows to plan the way we like to. I reserve for 15 camp sites that will be put together to allow us group activities. I am not sure 15 sites are the right number. We have the option to add few more sites as long as it is not too close to Labor day and they still have space for us. Though this is an outreaching occasion, I am not shooting for too many people. I definitely would like you to invite friends to come and to get acquainted with us. However, I like to control the ratio of new friends and our members in certain range and divide the attendee to small groups to objectives. Thus, we are not aiming to get too big a group that is beyond our management ability.

The campground locates right at the south edge of Bishop. Driving is easy except the congestion within Los Angeles. It has good facilities including hot water shower, electricity. If the friends you are going to invite never camp before, within few minutes there are motels. We plan to go out to Mammoth and other nearby areas for sightseeing and hiking. During the evening, we will plan some activities to mingle people together. Bishop area could be hot in September (High/low to be around 95/55. Fortunately, we will be in the high elevation area during the hot hours (10AM-4PM).

They will mail out the form today and hold the sites for us. After we mail in the deposited, it will be final. I like to plan this camping trip as an outreaching opportunity and also for ourselves having some fun time together. I believe, if we plan carefully, we can achieve both of them. In Young Couple and Young Adult Fellowship meetings, I have prepared a PowerPoint file to introduce the area. Attached please find this PowerPoint. However, before we mail out our deposited check, I like to encourage you to view the attached PowerPoint file and give me inputs. Any suggestions are welcome. If you feel the dates and locations have other better alternatives, feel free to let me know.

Mark your calendar. Let’s pray this will be a good camping trip that we know each other more and know more of our new friends so they would feel more at home when they come to our church.

Peter