2018 Ybees was the best weekend ever!
Number 32 was a great success
Ybees from around the world gathered this year at YMCA Camp Wakonda to work hard, play and eat great food. The weather was perfect and the sky was dark and starry. Below you can see the major projects we worked on and here you can see the best pictures from the weekend.
Thanks to everyone who worked incredibly hard to make this weekend a great big success. Special thanks to our financial contributors who make sure that all the work done at camp doesn't cost the YMCA money that would otherwise go to camper scholarships. See you next year? thanks! dan |
The new Ybee caps were popular
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Kathryn Custer, the new YMCA CEO visited with long time Ybee and Board Member, Mike Chiles.
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We built the new BeauWall Climbing feature
We removed the old dead trees, applied a special masonry coating to the concrete wall and built a marvelous climbing wall with a host of challenging climbing features for smaller kids. Thanks to Beau for designing and supervising this work and to Tom, Hanna, Shawna, Amanda, Abe and others for their excellent work!
We built the Garage Lean-To projectStoring stuff at camp is necessary, but it shouldn't be obvious. With Mark Sechler as the LeadBee, John and Dave worked all weekend to get the structure ready for storage. It features on-site cedar uprights and a cool tin roof.
We installed a new water lineThe old water lines are leaking and that costs camp a lot of water and money. Jerry Hamilton provided an excavator to dig trenches the Thursday before the Ybee event. Ed, Brian and the Gehrke brothers laid in the pipe to the transition point between cabins 2 & 3. There, we transitioned to a lighter gage 1" PE pipe that we laid along the ground to the shower houses below.
We repaired the Camp Director deckThe Camp owns a house for the Director and it always needs maintenance. This year, we made major improvements to the deck, using the existing framework and laying over it new decking and a hand rail.
We installed Fire Sprinklers in the Rec HallBoth the Dining Hall and Rec Hall need fire sprinklers to keep everyone safe and to protect our investments. This year, LEEDBEE Brian Sothern will direct a crew to install fire sprinklers in both buildings.
We installed Fire Sprinklers in the Dining HallBBQ Chef Brian took time from the quality meats to install a series of fire sprinkler components in the Dining Hall including new piping, several backflow preventers and sprinkler heads in the kitchen and freezer areas. Next time we'll do the rest of the building, but for now, the major fire risks have been addressed!
We improved the Lake Road |
The road along the south side of the O'Reilly Lake was sloping into the lake. The Will and the new Cat made the road smooth and safe.
We repaired the ShowerHaus solar collector
Big wind storms damaged the cool solar collector system on the new ShowerHaus. Mike and Dan worked on the hot roof to mend broken manifolds and reattach the solar collector to the roof.
We landscaped the cabins with big rocks and collect many others
The famous Rock Crew sported new shirts this year. They worked to improve the rocky entrances to several cabins and then mined and collected a host of great big rocks for future projects. Those rocks are stockpiled between cabin 7 and 8.
We removed dangerous trees
As he has done many years in the past, Joe Cool (Charlie Roberts) took down trees that were endangering activity areas and buildings around camp. The wood will be used for camp fires and the Tribe ceremonies.
We power washed the bathrooms in the ShowerHaus
No job is too grungy for the Ybees. There was discoloration in the ShowerHaus and we cleaned it up with a handy power washer.
We fed everybody in fine style
The kitchen crew was fabulous this year. We had ample servings of slow smoked BBQ including brisket, turkey, ham, chicken, dogs and ribs. We enjoyed settler beans, lots of salads, brownies for dessert and ice cream by Y board member, Mike Chiles. Thanks to everyone who helped in the kitchen!