Rock Camp for Girls Montreal: Overdue Update

This is terribly overdue, but I had good reason...I was busy organizing a Rock Camp for Girls with some very awesome people!

Last summer, I was privy to seeing that documentary, Girls Rock! about the Rock Camp for Girls in Portland, Or. (for more sentimental descriptions of that experience please see my previous blog titled "I get mushy"). Needless to say, the documentary (along with my lived experiences) completely and utterly spoke to me; and motivated myself along with my coordinating partner Jenn, to start a Rock Camp for Girls in Montreal.

Fast forward 11 months......

It's been a really busy year: grant writing, scouting locations, sealing sponsorships deals with music stores, two fundraisers, community outreach, policy meetings, outreach meetings, event meetings, fundraising meetings, website meetings, promotion meetings, and meetings about meetings...The workload is kind of like ebbs and flows (like before outreach went out I was working 15+ hour days for two weeks between my paid job at Girls Action and my volunteer work for Rock Camp)...I DO NOT want to re-enforce organizer/activist burn out rhetoric, but when I wake up at 8 am on a beautiful Saturday only to run to the copy store or to a meeting in Jenn's backyard- I don't even mind; and when we got our first camper application, well, it was like finding this explosion of pots of gold at the end of a psychedelic rainbow from another dimension. Saying it made the work worth it is an understatement.

I guess this is part where I talk about the camp...It's at the Ukrainian Federation; a lovely community centre with two stages and tons of room for band practice and the final Showcase concert (on the Saturday following camp, the girls get to perform the songs they wrote at a big concert open to the community!). From August 3-7th, 20 girls will get together to learn instruments and practice vocals; form a band and practice; write their own song; do some non-music related anti-oppression workshops to switch it up a bit; and then perform! While the camp is technically a music camp, it's also a space where girls, musicians, mentors and community members (not that these are exclusive categories) can come together to share skills, learn from each other, make meaningful connections, and have a good time...Music is the medium (and if they happen to write a wicked song and rock out on stage all the better, right?).

So were about a month away from camp (oh geez) and volunteer and camper applications are still up for a lil while (www.girlsrockmontreal.org). So if you're as overly excited about guitars, d.i.y. anything and everything, rocking out with musicians and 20 girls, making zines and whatever other lovely workshops people decide to facilitate as I am, you should check it out (or at least block August 8th- The Showcase concert- off on your calendar).