Saturday, August 24, 2013

Leadership Trips


Our leaders left on the 22nd (don't worry, only for 3 days!) to do AESOP trips similar to the ones they'll be leading in order to master the skills they'll need to know once you guys are here! They emerged today from their trips confident in their ability to light their camping stoves, cook pasta to perfection, set up tents and tarps in mere minutes, and challenge y'all to games of wah, pterodactyl, entourage, and more.

Dinnertime!

We can't believe you're all be coming in TWO days!! We hope you are as pumped as we are. So pack everything up, break in your boots, and get ready to kick off the best 4 years of your life with some of the best people around. 
Get excited!!

                                                  




Wednesday, August 21, 2013

The leaders are here!


Our leaders arrived this past Sunday for Leadership Week, where they'll learn everything they need to know to make your AESOP the best one yet. We're half way through the week and our leaders have already become wilderness first aid certified, sorted all the food and gear they'll need for their trips, completed canoe rescue and safety, taken skills courses to know what's what with maps, ropes, tents, and stoves, learned their trip itineraries, and planned lots of fun and games for you guys. Don't worry though, it's not ALL work. Although they've been working from 8am to 7pm every day, we've made group trips to the Rollerdrome and challenged them with a mind blowing scavenger hunt. This past weekend was also the end of the annual balloon festival! If you ever have an opportunity to see it you won't regret it!







All the leaders in Commons

Checking all of the tents



Moving all the gear upstairs!

All 96 leaders and 5 coordinators rockin' out at the Rollerdrome



Monday, August 19, 2013

Who's Hungry?


Hey guys! Before all 343 of you get here we have to do some serious preparation, including a giant run to BJs to get food for everyone. We spent over $4000 buying oatmeal, granola bars, pasta and everything else you'll be eating when you go out on your trips. We got some strange looks and pretty awesome comments. You can be the judge of which is the best:
"You bring breakfast, I'll bring lunch!"
"I wanna come to your party!"
"Hungry?"
"I'll get the drinks!"

Most of all, people were super friendly and really excited to learn about what we were up to. Now that we've bought all the food, it's safety stored away and will be sorted this upcoming week with our leaders. We can't wait to meet you all in a week, 
Bring your appetite!
Josh, Allie, Katie, Bryan, James


Josh taking all the Annie's Mac n' Cheese he can find 



Getting all the buns for the BBQ


All loaded up!

3,072 packets of oatmeal, 2,175 Nature Valley Bars and a lot of peanut butter



Thursday, August 15, 2013

Here we gooooooo!

Howdy y'all,

After a lonely beginning of August, our lovely assistants finally made their way onto campus this past Monday to join us in our preparation efforts. While we have been firming up reservation confirmations and lining up Commons catering orders to feed all 343 AESOPers and 96 trip leaders for four days, they have been incredibly busy finishing the gear move from the gear attic to our brand spanking new gear spaces in Chase Hall. With that under wraps, Katie, James, and Bryan have begun the leg work for some of the other logistical details that make the trips run smoothly, including itinerary fine-tuning and map-copying, so that when our leaders show up here on Sunday (three days away!) for leadership week, they're roaring and ready to go. Amidst meetings galore and phone call madness, we are slowly crossing items of our own to-do list and are feeling pretty ready for the invasion of our leaders. Wilderness First Aid training, Van Certification class, leadership trips, Coordinator chats, camping skill sessions, and van caravans are just a few of the many things we have planned for next week... all in preparation for you guys to come on the 26th!

It hasn't been all work, however. Last night, we made it over to Freeport to eat lots of homemade pizza at Josh's house. It was capped off with a spin on some mopeds (pictured below are Bryan and Allie grinning ear to ear post moped race), some golden retriever loving, and chocolate chip squares- all of the things that AESOP is truly fueled on.

Stay tuned, more to come soon...

AESOP love forever,
Josh and Allie

Working hard or hardly work, guys?

Sleeping bags up the wazoo and a happy Bryan

A rare sight: a clean and empty gear attic

Katie, Bryan, and James sorting some med kit supplies!

We took a break last night to visit Josh's house over yonder in Freeport, which almost always comes along with homemade pizza and a whirl on some mopeds.


Katie and James ironing out the details for trip itineraries and making copies of all the maps for the trip folders.

Allie crushing it in the new AESOP office...

...and Josh pretending to.



Saturday, July 27, 2013

HOLY COW!!!!

TRIP PLACEMENTS HAVE BEEN ANNOUNCED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOLLY GEE (check your Bates email)


Also, as you start thinking about your trip and what you will need to bring please reference the packing list or email your leaders with any questions you have. Otherwise, we will see you on August 26th!

We do have a few more openings in select trips. Email us at aesop.bates@gmail.com if you're interested, and we'll see what we can work out.

Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Congratulations on getting your application in!


Hi everyone,

We’re so excited that your applications are all in! AESOP is such a great opportunity to meet your first friends, share new experiences with other crazy bobkittens, and get a warm welcome to the Bates community. As I mentioned in my bio I’m at Bates this summer working as an intern at a local nonprofit, Community Concepts. I’ve been helping out with a lot of different projects at CCI, one of which was conducting a quality of life survey. I worked with 30 other volunteers, knocking on over 700 doors in Downtown Lewiston, and ultimately conducting 256 surveys – WOO! I’ve also been playing Frisbee in a summer league in Portland and having some fun adventures. Being in Maine has been such a blast so far! Let me give you a sneak peak of some of the adventures you could have while you’re at Bates …

Meeting some awesome people on AESOP (duh!) 
Beautiful views on AESOP (Pemigewasset folks get psyched, this is you!!!!) 

Watching fireworks on the 4th of July over the Falls

Yaa I love fireworks

Making new friends at Nezinscot Farm (featuring AESOP leader Ashleen O’Brien)

Exploring all over!! (This is a day we went clamming at Wolfe's Neck State Park in Freeport, ME)

Tune in again soon to get more pics and more updates!!
Katie

Monday, July 1, 2013

AESOP Extended Edition!

Hey folks!

Guess what?! We have decided to extend the AESOP application deadline until July 15th in hopes of drumming up just a few more applications. These past two years we've had record-breaking enrollment, and we're hoping to keep up the trend, so log on to Garnet Gateway now because this boat is leaving soon! Here is a bit of a teaser for y'all:

Sunrise over Sugarloaf Mountain
Ridge walks on Saddleback on a blue bird day
Also, if you want to get started on some gear prep here is last year's packing list. Keep in mind that what you bring is going to be dependent on what trip you're on, but if you just want a basic idea of what you will need it's a good start.

Josh

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Postmarked from Norway...

Hey there Bobkittens!

Have you signed up for your AESOP trip yet?? Well, if you haven't, now's the time 'cause AESOP is absolutely the best way to start your amazing four years at Bates! I met Josh on my AESOP (Prezzies!), and we've been besties ever since. In fact, we led AESOP together the next year (Saddleback!), assistant coordinated last year, and are back for AESOP round-four together as co-coordinators. So hey, you might meet a life-long friend on your trip like I did...better get movin' on that application!

I'm writing to all you incoming First-Years to get you pumped on Bates and adventuring because AESOP is full of both of those things. Right now, I'm finishing up a two month stint in northern Norway, well above the Arctic Circle. Here, I have been living with a Sami reindeer herding family. For those of you who don't know about the Sami people (because I hardly did before this year), they are Europe's only declared group of indigenous people, and many of them still continue the traditional livelihood of reindeer herding. And I'm not talkin' keeping reindeer in corrals and staying in one place all year. Reindeer are migratory animals, and the reindeer herders are basically here to move with and guide the animals, keeping them in relatively distinct herds as they move between the coast in the summer (where we just arrived) and the tundra in the winter. When a reindeer is slaughtered (something I don't get to witness because it happens in the winter) the Sami people use as much of the reindeer as they can. I've gotten to do so much more with the reindeer than I ever could have imagined, like sorting out the different herds in a sorting ring, moving with the herd over the mountains, and helping with the ear-marking of the calves (each herder has his or her own mark that they cut into the ears of the calves that they own). Check out my blog at seventynorth.wordpress.com if you want more details (there's so much to learn!), but for now, here's some cool pics:





On July 13th, I'll be heading even further north to Svalbard (still part of Norway!) with Bates Geology professor Mike Retelle to take some data for my year-long geology thesis. I have no idea what this will be like, but it's sure to be a whole other adventure! And the best part about all of this adventuring? None of it could have happened without help from Bates. That's right, Bates is there to give its students the experiences of a lifetime. So my best advice to you in your four years here? Make use of the resources Bates has to offer! And AESOP is the very first one of those experiences you get to have at Bates, so make sure to sign up RIGHT. NOW. 

I can't wait to meet you all in August!

Allie

Friday, June 14, 2013

AESOP 2013!

Hey class of 2017- welcome!

You have landed yourself on the AESOP 2013 blog! This is where we (Josh, Allie, Bryan, James, and Katie) can keep you best updated on what we are doing and how life in Maine is going. Check back here often for new information about important due dates, trip placement information, and gear lists along with the goings on of our own lives. If you would like to get a better idea of what is coming up and what the high season looks like here at AESOP headquarters in Lewiston check out last years blog as well: http://aesop2012.blogspot.com/!

Anyways, after many weeks spent away sailing on the high seas and a recent cross-country road trip to Washington I have settled back down into life in the Lew. As grand as the world is, it feels nice to be back and focused in on AESOP preparation as we get ready for your class's entrance on August 26th. Our lovely Assistant Coordinator Katie and I will also be holding down the fort on campus while the three others spend their time herding reindeer in Norway (http://seventynorth.wordpress.com/) and leading trips with a bunch of cool cats over at Camp Glen Brook and Overland. Soon enough, though, we will all be back in full force as we reunite for the final push in August!

Allie and Josh with their AESOP games faces on. Get ready!
With our phenomenal cast of leaders already hand-picked for our whopping 48 trips and with reservations already booked and itineraries planned, we are well ahead of the game which has lead to a pleasantly quiet early summer so far. However, things have slowly been ramping up as the emails and phone calls roll in. We are so stoked that their has been such a high level of enthusiasm for AESOP so far, and we really want to encourage every single one of y'all to consider registering if you haven't already! Honestly, you will not regret it! AESOP is an incredible time to meet your new classmates as well as your assuredly stupendous leaders before you hop right into the swing of things on campus. There really is no better way to be introduced to Bates and Maine alike, whether you hit the trail to go backpacking for four intense days or find yourself chilling on a beach in Acadia. Please, if you have any hesitations call or email me at 207-330-0610 or aesop.bates@gmail.com.

We are so excited to meet all of you and hope you are eagerly awaiting Bates this fall! It's going to be a great year. But until then, enjoy the best of summer and don't be a stranger. And remember July 1st is the due date for your AESOP application, waiver, and medical form: http://www.bates.edu/garnet-gateway/ so get them in!

Cheers,
Josh Sturtevant '14
Head Coordinator

PS: We have had a lot of confusion regarding the missing "AESOP Payment Submission Form"! Looking for it? Print it out (http://www.bates.edu/entering/aesop/sign-up/) and send it in along with your checks to Bates College.

If you're interested, here are a few pictures from my adventures in the Pacific and on Hawai'i this winter and spring:
The Robert C. Seamans, one of Sea Education Association's two sailing school vessels, sails in the Pacific Ocean year round. We sailed nearly 3,000 miles from Honolulu, HI to Palmyra Atoll down near the equator and then back up to Honolulu, conducting oceanographic research and working on independent projects along the way.

Sailing downwind under the squares'ls! It's pretty much just like the sailing AESOP trip.


Backpacking around the Big Island of Hawai'i post sailing.

Wild mangos!
Hiking out to the active lava flows in Volcanoes National Park.