Author: Stowe Running Camp

Hello Stowe Campers!

This is camp director Fran Cusick. We here at Stowe Running Camp are thrilled to announce that Stowe Running Camp 2023 is a full go! Our dates this year are going to be Sunday July 23rd to Friday July 28th. We are back at Castleton University for the third year and are ready to host what is sure to be another amazing session of running, fierce competition, and friendship.

You can register for camp by going to this link: Registration.

As always, Stowe Running Camp relies heavily on word of mouth recruiting. So if you plan on going to Stowe this summer, please tell your friends, your rivals, your neighbors, that kid that you race against all the time and seems like a great teammate and really anyone you think of that might conceivably view spending six days in Vermont at a running camp as a fun time. We will have more information coming soon, check this page as well as our Instagram (@stowe.running.camp) for information. Any specific questions, email me @fcusick13@gmail.com.

Happy running, I hope your 2023 is off to a great start!

-Coach Fran Cusick

Hello Everyone,

Stowe Running Camp 2022 has come and gone, seemingly in the blink of an eye. It was a fantastic week, filled with great runs, intense competition, goofy signing, and great camaraderie. Thank you to each and every camper who attended. I hope you enjoyed your time at Stowe as much as the counselors did!  I also want to thank the counselors and coaches, who brought such great energy and passion to each day of the camp, as well as the staff of Castleton University for hosting us. 

A few final things on Stowe 2022:

• To view photos from this week, please go to this link. If you have any photos you took, please add them or email me at fcusick13@gmail.com. 

• If any camper was not added to the GroupMe, please email me and I will add you. We won’t use that Group often during the school year, but there may be occasional postings, especially as we get close to the spring of 2023. 

• The extremely tentative dates for Stowe Running Camp 2023 are Sunday July 30th to Friday August 4th. I have not confirmed those dates with Castleton University yet, but if available we will be going that week. Please spread the word and mark your calendars for next year!

• We have put together this post-camp packet that summarizes much of what we talked about and did this week. Please view that here.

Thank you again for attending! This truly was a special group. We hope to see many of you back in 2023. Good luck this fall and stay in touch!

-Coach Fran Cusick

Hi Everyone!

For anyone who has not yet signed up for Stowe, please do so as soon as possible! We are putting the t-shirt order in and finalizing room assignments over the next week or so. For those who have already signed up, please read this post with some important information:

Drop Off/Pick-Up Information
-Stowe Running Camp will be held from Sunday, July 31st to Friday August 5th at Castleton University in Castleton Vermont.

-Drop off for camp will be on Sunday between 12-3 PM.

-Pickup will be on Friday August 5th at 12 PM…there will be an awards ceremony at 11 PM on Friday that all parents/guardians/friends are more than welcome to attend.

Forms to Fill Out/Print Out
Please follow the steps below to make sure we have all the information we need from you. 

Step 1: Training History
Campers, please fill out this Form which asks questions about your training over the last several months. Please be honest on this! 

Step 2: Medical Background
Parents/Guardians, please fill out this this form, which asks questions about your son/daughter’s medical background. 

Step 3: Behavioral Contract
Campers, please print out this form and sign it at the bottom. Then, take a picture of it and email it to me OR bring it to camp and hand it to me in person. 

Step 4: Liability
Print out this form and sign it at the bottom. Then, take a picture of it and email it to me OR bring it to camp and hand it to me in person. 

What to Bring to Camp
Please refer to this Document for reference on what to bring to camp. The most often forgotten items are sheets, pillows, and extra running shoes.

Camp Balance
Please make sure to have your balance for camp paid by July 29th! Here are the steps to pay your balance via PayPal

1. Log in to Pay Pal using the same account you used to pay the initial balance.
2. Go to “Send and Request” at the top of the page.
3. In the box where it says “Send Money” type in “stowe.running.camp@gmail.com.
4. Click “Next.”
5. Type in the amount of money you owe and then hit “continue.”

As a reminder, the camp tuition is $600. Most of you put down a $200 deposit, so you would owe $400 via Pay Pal. If you have a question on what your balance is, email me I will respond. Some athletes got a scholarship to attend camp, some have sibling or team discounts, so there is some variance. If you pay more than you owe due to discounts, I will certainly refund you the money!

If you would prefer to pay via check, please email me and I will give instructions.

Covid Policy
For this year, Castleton is requiring that:
-If you have had the first round of vaccines (booster not required) please bring a physical copy or a photograph of your vaccine card.

-If you have NOT had the vaccine, you MUST have a Covid test taken on the check-in date (July 31st). I would recommend that you take this test BEFORE making the commute to Castleton. Please

Thanks for reading, I will send out one more reminder email about 10 days before camp. In the meantime, if you have any questions please email me at fcusick13@gmail.com. I’m very excited about camp!

-Camp Director Fran Cusick

Hi Everyone!

This is Camp Director Fran Cusick, I wanted to share some important information. The camp this year is from Sunday July 31st to Friday August 5th, 2022. We are back at Castleton University which hosted us last year and was an excellent location. 

Please read the information below thoroughly! 

Communication

The summer feels far away right now and it is likely that your plans are not solidified. That being said, it would help the staff tremendously if we had a sense of who was coming to camp and who wasn’t. So please:

1. If you CAN go to Stowe and plan on attending, sign up right now! Here is the link: Stowe Running Camp Registration. There is a $200 deposit and the remainder of the tuition which is due by Wednesday July 27th. If you sign up early and there are extenuating circumstances that prevents you from going (injury, death in family, etc.) then I am happy to discuss a refund. But we really need people to sign up so we can figure out what our budget is going to look like for the year and so we can let Castleton know!

2. If you CANNOT go, please send me an email telling me this. I will likely be sad for a minute but such is life. You don’t need to give an elaborate explanation (though you can if you want!). A simple “Hi Coach Cusick, unfortunately I can’t attend Stowe this year. Thanks for everything and good luck!” will suffice. I promise you it is so much more helpful to hear this sooner rather than later (or not at all)

3. If you are on the fence, I would appreciate an email just letting me know what you are thinking.

Long story short, please get in touch with me ASAP so I can figure out how our numbers are looking! 

Tuition

Tuition this year is $600 for 6 days and 5 nights. I know that on its face this seems like a lot and I can appreciate the challenges of paying for a summer camp. However, almost all of the tuition money goes towards renting the facilities, paying staff, buying t-shirts, and other functions that are essential to to the success of the camp. I wish we could charge less but it really wouldn’t be practical or fair to the counselors to do so.  

There are a few ways to defray the cost:

1. For those in Massachusetts, there is an MSTCA campership that can save you 100 dollars on your tuition(see below). 
2. Sibling Discount: 10% off tuition for all children of the same family
3. Team Discount 1: 5% off tuition for at 5-9 campers of the same team.
4. Team Discount 2: 10% off tuition for 10 or more campers on the same team

So if you are able to convince your siblings and/or your teammates to attend, you can save yourself some money! If you really want to attend the camp but are struggling with  the cost, please reach out to me and we can have a discussion. 

MSTCA Campership

This only applies to those who live in Massachusetts, but the MSTCA is offering $100 camp scholarships! Every person who has filled out this application has gotten the scholarship, so as long as you do it, you will get the money. Here is the link to it: MSTCA Campership. To get the scholarship, you need to write a personal essay and get a letter of recommendation from a coach.

Recruiting

Last year was a ton of fun but we had a large number of graduating seniors in the mix. We really need to add more people in order to make this a great experience for all. To that end, the best way we can grow the camp is by all of you promoting it to your teammates, friends, rivals from other teams, siblings, etc. Every year the surveys that we have you fill out indicate that the #1 reason why people attend Stowe is because a friend of theirs recommended it to them. So please, get on this now while people are in the early stages of planning their summers!

Good luck to anyone completing their indoor track season over the next couple weeks! Please email me with any questions, comments or concerns and thanks for reading.

-Stowe Running Camp Director Fran Cusick

Hello Everyone,

I hope all who competed had outstanding cross country seasons! It was wonderful to be back for a normal XC fall after the Twilight Zone nature of the fall of 2020. And from the results that I saw, it was an excellent season of racing for many of our Stowe Running Campers. 

At any rate, we have wonderful news: Stowe Running Camp will be BACK at Castleton University in 20202! The camp will be held from Sunday July 31st to Friday August 5th. For everyone reading this, please save those dates on your calendar, tell your friends, and get ready for everyone’s favorite week of the summer. While you are at it, you can go ahead and register for camp using this link:

https://stowerunningcamp.wufoo.com/forms/q1cd3v711okxpge/

We will be providing more information on the camp as we get closer to the actual date. In the meantime, make sure you follow us on Instagram @stowe.running.camp and on Facebook @stowerunningcamp2022. 

See you soon!

-Camp Director Fran Cusick

Hello Everyone,

This is camp director Fran Cusick with an update on Stowe 2021. First, I hope everyone reading this is doing great. The world is starting to emerge from our Covid-created cocoon into some semblance of normal life, which is fantastic after a long period of living under some very difficult conditions. In regards to Stowe, I have a few updates:

-As of June 20th, we have 35 athletes signed up for camp…a solid number, but one we would like to increase significantly in the next couple weeks. Based on what people have told me, I’m thinking that we will end up with somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 athletes, which I think will be excellent. BUT, if you are sitting there reading this and you haven’t signed up yet, what are you doing?? Go to this link: https://stowerunningcamp.com/register/ and sign up right away! And while you’re at it, make sure that your sister/brother/friend etc. signs up as well!

-We have a new Facebook page, located here: https://www.facebook.com/stowerunningcamp2021. I know any person under the age of 30 here is rolling their eyes at the mere mention of Facebook, but it’s a helpful tool. Sadly we are unable to access our last Facebook page, so we created this new one to help spread the word about camp. Please check it out and “Like” the page.

That is about it for now, if anyone has any questions or thoughts please send them to me at fcusick13@gmail.com. I am really looking forward to camp this year; see you all soon!

-Coach Fran Cusick

Hello Everyone,

This is Camp Director Fran Cusick with a very important announcement: Stowe Running Camp 2021 will be held at Castleton University in Castleton, Vermont! The dates will be Sunday August 1st to Friday August 6th. We are very excited for this new partnership. Castleton will be a great location for our camp. It is in a great location running wise, with plenty of trails, including a cross country course that should be perfect for our tempo loop, as well as a rail trail. Castleton is also a prestigious university with all the amenities of a typical college campus: a great cafeteria, dorms, a pool and plenty of fields for Spikeball, volleyball, capture the flag, and all kinds of other fun games. Castleton has hosted many other camps over the years so they are well-suited to handle all our needs.

We think that this will be a superb location for our camp and could not be happier to be carrying on the Stowe Running Camp tradition in this exciting new location!

So, now that we have a location, our registration is live! Here is the link to signup. A couple reminders on registration:

-Tuition is 585 dollars for 5 nights and 6 days.

-All of our payments will be done through PayPal. If you are having any technical issues, please contact me at fcusick13@gmail.com.

-There are two payment options: you can pay the full tuition right up front, or you can put down a 200 dollar, non-refundable deposit and then pay the balance by Sunday, July 25th.

-There are discounts available for the camp tuition. We offer:

1. Sibling Discount: 10% off for all children of the same family
2. Team Discount 1: 5% off for at 5-9 campers of the same team.
3. Team Discount 2: 10% off for 10 or more campers on the same team

Finally, I will be as forthright as possible: getting this camp up and running again took a substantial amount of work. I want to especially thank Kevin Greene for doing much of the legwork in making the partnership with Castleton happen. HOWEVER, we are starting the marketing for this camp at a very late date! So please, tell your friends, teammates, rivals from other schools and anyone you know who is even tangentially involved about this camp. In 2019, we had the most kids we’ve ever had and it would be great to continue that trend two years later.

Thanks for reading! Now go signup!

-Coach Cusick

Hello Everyone,

I write to you with some very good news, as of 4/20/2021 Stowe Running Camp 2021 is on! The dates will be the same as usual, Sunday August 1st to Friday August 6th. We will have more details in the coming days, as there are still a few things we have to finalize. Please note that registration for camp is not yet active.

In the meantime, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell your friends, teammates, rivals, heck, even your straight up enemies about this camp. We do not have a lot of time to market it and we want to make this a great experience for everyone. If you have any questions, please contact camp direct Fran Cusick at fcusick13@gmail.com.

Thanks, and check back here for some more details within the next week.

-Camp Director Fran Cusick

Hi Everyone,

Unfortunately, at this time the status of Stowe Running Camp 2021 is uncertain. I wish I had better news or more clarity on what this summer would look like. If we do have camp, the dates will be Sunday August 1st to Friday August 6th 2021. However, we do not know if our host site (Vermont Technical College) will be allowing visitors onto campus. As soon as we find out this information, I will be sure to post here, on Facebook, and on Instagram. If anyone has any questions or thoughts, please email me at fcusick13@gmail.com. Thanks for reading!

-Camp Director Fran Cusick

To The Stowe Running Camp Community,

It is with great sadness that I announce the cancellation of Stowe Running Camp for 2020. We really wanted to make camp happen this year, but it was an uphill climb due to COVID-19. Though our staff had some ideas about how to make camp doable under the conditions, our host school Vermont Tech let us know recently that they would not be allowing outside groups onto campus this summer. This is a very reasonable decision by them and, though it’s disappointing, in my opinion it is the right move. As fun as camp is and as great as it would have been to pull it off, at this time we need to prioritize people’s health above all other things

Prior to getting this news from VTC, I did have a lot of doubts as to whether we could successfully provide the type of environment that Stowe running campers are used to while maintaining appropriate social distancing protocols. To say the least, it would have been challenging. At the end of the day, there was just no good way to ensure that the camp would be fully safe for all involved. Without a vaccine in place, the only way to be sure that campers and staff did not have the virus would have been to quarantine every camper and staff member prior to arrival for a 10-14 day period, obviously not a realistic option. Even if we did that, we would still run the risk of a camper or staff member being infected on a run, on a trip to Ben and Jerry’s, from a cafeteria worker, etc. And if even one person was infected, they could spread it to multiple others, which would have been a terrible situation for all.

For now, everyone who has already signed up will be refunded via check. I will get those out within the next couple weeks. For those who are looking for another summer running camp option, please reach out and I can recommend a few that are still open…though I am of the opinion that overnight camps will be difficult to pull off in this environment. 

I am well aware of just how disappointing and upsetting this news will be to so many of our campers, and all I can do is say how sorry I am. The week of Stowe Running Camp is my favorite week of the year and the reality that we will not be playing Spikeball, going on runs, or singing loud, off-key songs on a crowded and noisy bus has not yet sunk in. 

We will contemplate some type of virtual activity or meeting to at least maintain contact over the summer. In the meantime, I hope you are all staying fit and healthy. We will revamp camp for next summer and I am hoping it will be our best year ever.

Keep in touch. 

-Camp Director Fran Cusick