INHALERS AND EPINEPHRINE AUTO-INJECTORS (epi-pens)
If an inhaler or epi-pen is prescribed, it must be listed in the medications section that follows and two must be brought to camp. One will be kept by the nurse in the camp infirmary, the other by the boy for whom it is prescribed. However, a camper may only be in possession of his own inhaler, or epi-pen if written verification of his knowledge of safe use is provided on the physician’s health exam.

MEDICATIONS
Prescription medications must come to camp in original packaging that identifies the prescribing physician, the name of the medication, dosage and frequency of administration. All prescribed medication must also be listed on the physician’s health exam, including inhalers and epi-pens.

Please don’t send him with vitamins, supplements, or other over-the-counter medication not ordered by a physician.

IMMUNIZATIONS
The State of New Hampshire has set the following guidelines for immunizations for all participants in camp programs. We are bound by law to adhere to these guidelines.

* Every camper shall provide documentation of immunization against hepatitis B, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, and diphtheria.

• For hepatitis B, children born on or after January 1, 1993 need documentation of at least the initial immunization
• For mumps, documentation of one dose of live mumps vaccine received on or after the first birthday or laboratory evidence of immunity or physician documentation of mumps disease
• For rubella, documentation of one dose of live rubella vaccine received on or after the first birthday or laboratory evidence of immunity
• For polio, documentation of a minimum of 3 doses of polio vaccine, plus a fourth required if the third was before the age of 4, except that a polio vaccine shall not be required for persons over 18 years of age who do not have documentation of previous immunization
• For tetanus and diphtheria, documentation of a minimum of 3 doses of tetanus/diphtheria toxoid, with one tetanus booster being given within the last 10 years

* For measles, a record of immunization which requires one dose of vaccine on or after the first birthday with the second dose separated from the first dose by at least 28 days for those children age appropriate 7-12th grade, or laboratory evidence of immunity.

Please plan to arrive at camp between 8:00 a.m. and Noon on arrival day. Below is a full explanation of how things will work on arrival and departure days so you know what to expect.

LODGING INFORMATION?
Check our Area Lodging page.

Please Note!
Manchester/Boston Regional in Manchester, NH is now our airport of choice for camp travel. It is small, close, and very easily navigated. Please call if for some reason this presents a challenge for you.

Manchester Boston Regional Airport is 1 ¼ hours from Kabeyun. The charge for transportation is $25.00 each trip, billed at summer’s end.

• Please choose flights that will arrive, and/or depart Manchester as close to 10 a.m. as possible.
   
• If you choose (or the airline chooses for you) to ticket him as an unaccompanied minor, you MUST make sure the fees are paid BOTH WAYS and we will need all paperwork and receipts.

There will still be an option for Boston area families on the return from camp - boys can travel to Logan on a camp van. Details will come during the summer.

We can meet your son in Boston at Logan Airport – the charge will be $75.00 each way. Please look into booking him all the way to Manchester/Boston Regional Airport in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Please arrive between 8:00 and Noon on opening day

Coffee, tea, juice and breakfast treats from the bakery will be available in the dining hall throughout the morning.

• Upon arrival, you will be greeted at the camp entrance by our counseling interns who will guide you to your son’s cabin to unload, choose a bunk and begin the process of settling him in. As always, we encourage parents to allow the boys to do as much of this as possible. All of the cabin counselors except a few who will be driving to the airports will be on hand to meet you and help with this.
   
• From the cabin, you’ll go to the Infirmary where each boy will check in. There will be three possibilities at the infirmary: if a boy has medication, he will check in with the nurse in the dispensary; a boy who is new and has no special med needs will report to our second nurse; returning boys with no special medical needs will check in with one of our senior staff members specially trained by the nurses for the purpose. The nurses will also be checking with everybody regarding health forms and health insurance cards. New parents will likely want to accompany their sons to the infirmary; returning parents will be welcome to skip it and let the boys go themselves, and even say good-bye at this point.
   
• From the Infirmary it’s off to the office to say hello and get a new Kabeyun tee shirt. New boys at this point will meet one of our counseling interns who will take them on a tour. Parents can either use this moment as a perfect opportunity to say good bye, or will be welcome to join the tour. In any case, the tour will finish at his cabin where parents can say their good-byes.
   
• The focus for the morning will be on the cabins where the staff will be spending time getting to know their campers, greeting parents and helping to expedite departures comfortably. Boys will spend time organizing their areas, greeting newcomers, visiting with staff, beginning to make new friendships and renewing old ones.
   
• At 12:45 we will have our first all-camp assembly. By this time all families who have driven to camp will have said their good-byes. We will be waiting for the handful of guys who fly.
   
• We will have our first meal together at 1:00, move from the dining hall to Pine Point for our opening community gathering and spend the remainder of the afternoon playing and working together in cabin groups. The afternoon will be capped by a play swim for returning campers in the Big Cove, and swim screenings and swimming for new boys in the Small Cove with the swim staff. Dinner assembly at 6:00, evening activities after dinner, Charcoal Ceremony, bed, and we’re off!

Part of the challenge for families driving to camp – especially returning families accustomed to the longer arrival window of the past – will be to adjust travel to earlier in the day. This may mean that you will want to spend the night somewhere in the area the night before opening day. Remember that the Lakes Region hotels fill quickly, but that Concord, with plenty of choices, may be on the way and is only 40 minutes from camp.

We are working to make the day better for kids and to give them a chance to begin their Kabeyun experience without unnecessary stress or down time. If you have questions, give us a call, but please try and catch the spirit in which this plan is offered. Together, we can make opening day an enjoyable part of the camp experience rather than a day to just get through as best we can. As usual, after the dust settles, we’ll look for your feedback

LODGING INFORMATION?
Check our Area Lodging page.

Half Summer Sessions I and II
On the last day of each Half Summer session you will have an opportunity to share your son’s Kabeyun experience with him in a day of celebration and pick-up. We will be sending a letter from camp in advance of the day detailing the plan, but this should give you a sense of how it works:

Families will be welcome to arrive at the end of breakfast - at about 8:00 am - and begin their visit. Counselors will be available to chat with parents about their son’s experience, and there will be activities available for families to enjoy together – boating, swimming, tennis, badminton, horseshoes… We will serve a barbecue lunch and families will depart by about 2:00 in the afternoon.

The boys will be packed and ready to go the night before and we’ll encourage you to load his belongings into the car before lunch.

The Summer and Extended Stay Sessions
The last day of Half Summer I is your day to visit, though it is not an expectation! During the morning the entire staff will be available to you, with the exception of a few counselors driving boys to the airport, and there will be activities for you to share with your son. 

Lunch will be served and in the afternoon a special trip will head out of camp for boys who do not have vbisitors. Your son can either join this outing, or head out with you - one or the other, as the afternoon is a busy time for our counselors preparing for the arrival of Half Summer II campers. You will also have the opportunity to take him overnight - whatever works best for you.

The trip returns to camp by about 8:30; boys who leave with their families will either be back at that time to spend the night at camp, or will be dropped off the next morning along with arriving campers.

Introductory Session
Because this is just a three-week stay, and we think it's important to minimize disruption to camp routine, there is no formal visiting time provided for the Introductory session boys. Families will arrive on the last day of the session between 9:00 and 10:00 in the morning to pick up their sons. A cabin counselor will be available to help load cars and chat. Introductory session boys need to arrive and depart by private car as our counselors are busy with the regular program on this day and therefore unavailable for trips to the airport.

Counseling Interns
The Counseling Intern program is a seven-week experience and the dates are the same as the Extended Stay session for campers. Interns are usually busy on the changeover days and have an important role in helping with the transition. Therefore, the end of the Half Summer I session is not a good time to visit, if you want to visit. Instead, we ask that you arrange a day within the week before or after the mid-point of our summer. Again, there is no expectation of a visit; you can work out the details with your son and the head of the Intern program.

LODGING INFORMATION?
Check our Area Lodging page.

Trunks, duffels and all luggages will be accommodated on camp vans. If you feel the need to ship luggage ahead of time, we recommend UPS. We will not ship home after his departure; pack him so that he’ll have bags to check on a flight, or to stow in the family car for the ride home. The best choice for packing these days is a duffel bag with compression straps. All luggages are unpacked and the duffels, suitcases, or trunks are stowed for the duration of his stay at camp.

The physical address for shipping is
43 Camp Kabeyun Road
Alton Bay NH 03810

The Camper Questionnaire form allows you to indicate a preference for an age group “slightly younger”, “slightly older”, or “same age”. Beyond this we cannot take requests for cabin placements. Assigning boys to their cabins is one of the most challenging and time intensive tasks we have before the boys arrive. In this process, really more like choreography, we make every attempt to create cabin groups that will have the greatest chance of success as a group.

In doing so, we consider many facets of each boy’s experience, history and background: his age and your sense of his fit with his peers age-wise; grade level; relationship outside of camp (this can be complicated!); last year’s cabin group – we try to keep each boy with at least a few of the boys from his cabin group last year; his relationship with other returning campers based on our history with them – sometimes this means separating boys, sometimes making sure they are together, maximizing each boy’s experience uppermost in our minds. We also consider their relationships with returning counselors. There are a lot of threads that come together and we work hard to make everybody happy!

Of course, making everybody happy is a dangerous goal, but when special requests are made and not met it sometimes gets us into real hot water. You are trusting us to care for your son in your absence; we ask that you trust us to take his cabin placement as serious as any other part of his experience. A boy who comes to camp with a friend from home may or may not end up in the same cabin; friends from previous summers may or may not end up as cabinmates in subsequent summers. Mixing up groups from year to year provides opportunities for them to connect with more people. The Kabeyun day allows for plenty of time together during activities, community events, transitions and self-regulated free time.

We require the boys to write home once each week, but please make your own expectations clear regarding how often you’d like to hear from him. Tell your family and friends to write! Mail should be addressed to:

his name & cabin name
Kabeyun
P.O. Box 325
Alton Bay, NH 03810

You’ll know his cabin name when you arrive opening day, or, if you’re not driving, within the first few days of camp.

Packages?
We have had a "no packages" policy for several summers now and it is working quite well for the boys. Please see the Director'e Blog for a full discussion of the issue.

Basically, nothing larger than a regular letter, or greeting card envelope. Magazines are okay, but I'd like to suggest they are unnecessary. Pack books ahead of time; we have a well-stocked library at camp. Please call us first if he writes to you and tells you he needs something! 10 times out of 10 so far, we can help him without bothering you from afar.

Read more about the considerations behind our package policy here, in The Exchange.

Should we call him?
The quick answer is, no, please don’t. We recognize that there may be occasions when you feel it is necessary, but please limit your calls to birthdays, or family emergencies. We are not set up to receive faxes, or e-mails, except for international campers.

The boys are only near the phone for an hour during meal times - breakfast at 8:00am, lunch at 1:00pm, and dinner at 6:00pm.

The camp phone number is (603) 875-3060.

Ken is available to you any time you have a question, concern, want a progress report on how your son is doing, or in the event of an emergency. We will only occasionally have an answering machine on - during Saturday evenings and beach supper when we will be out of the office, for example.

Can he call us?
The boys will not have access to the telephone to call out.

Laundry will be done for him once a week. Please pack 2 sets of twin-sized sheets and 2 pillowcases. Boys will change their sheets every Sunday, to be washed with the rest of their laundry. Most people pack their own bedding, but we do have a supply of pillows and blankets available for rent at $5.00 each. Be sure to label everything with his name!

Nope; there is no place for his music collection, CD player, I-Pod, cell phone, Black Berry, or electronic games.

What about money?
There is no need for the boys to have money, and they should bring none. Boys who travel long distances with spending money for their journey will give it to their cabin staff for safe keeping in the office.

And pocket knives?
There is no need for a boy to have a knife at camp. In the past, we have allowed them and attempted to monitor closely their use, but the subsequent number of cut fingers clearly outweighed the pleasure they feel in being allowed to have them. Please leave them all at home.

A nurse is at camp and available to the boys at all times. For health issues requiring a doctor’s attention, and for emergency care, we work with a local pediatrician and Huggins Hospital in Wolfeboro, 10 miles from camp.

As long as we have complete and accurate insurance information from you the doctor’s office or hospital will bill your insurance directly in the event a visit is required. We need a copy of the front and back of your insurance card along with the healh history and exam form.

Medications
All prescription and non-prescription medication will be stored in, and dispensed from the infirmary by the camp nurse. Please do not send him with non-essential vitamin, or other health supplements not prescribed by a doctor. Call us before your arrival if you have questions or concerns about this.

Prescriptions
Doctor-prescribed medications must be in their original pharmacy containers, labeled by a pharmacist with the camper’s name, doctor’s name, date of original prescription, name and strength of medication and directions for use. Prescriptions to be taken at camp need to be listed on the health form.

If he uses an inhaler, or an epi-pen please pack two - we will keep one in the infirmary; he will keep the other one as long as the doctor signs off on his health form.

The camp store is open several evenings each week for the purchase of pens, paper, envelopes, stamps, batteries, flashlights, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and other incidentals, plus Kabeyun sweatshirts and caps, water bottles and fleece hats. No money is necessary - we keep a record of his purchases, and bill you at the end of the season. Please discuss spending limits with your child before camp.

We have no uniform requirement, but each boy will receive a Kabeyun shirt on opening day. The only time we’ll ask him to wear it will be for the all-camp photo shoot.