You can read our Mission, a Vision of Rowe, and a bit about our History.
Unitarian Universalist Rowe Camp & Conference Center is a spiritual and educational organization offering opportunities for the presentation and exchange of a wide variety of ideas and beliefs consistent with Unitarian Universalist principles and values.
Our purpose is to help people make better sense of their lives and help them make their world a better place in which to live.
Our mission is to provide opportunities for people to explore diverse, far-reaching subjects in order to learn about themselves, each other, our cultures and the earth, and go forth with new knowledge, insight, and courage. We do this by offering, in a safe and supportive environment, camp and conference programs that touch people's depths and have a lasting effect.
Unitarian Universalist Rowe Camp & Conference Center is affiliated with The Unitarian Universalist Association of Churches, 25 Beacon Street, Boston, Ma. and is a member of the Council of Unitarian Universalist Camps and Conferences (CU2C2).
Rowe Camp, founded in 1924, is an amazing and most unusual place. Located in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts, this one small camp in the Connecticut Valley touches the lives of many people very deeply. When people come here, their lives are often transformed. They find a respect here they have rarely felt in their lives, for Rowe believes that people are good, and that they can be even better.
Rowe respects tradition while staying fresh. The abundance of ways to express feelings of acceptance, safety, warmth, creativity, excitement, and love have enabled us to keep things changing and growing for many years.
We encourage and allow the emergence of that which is deep and often buried in everyone - that which is special and waiting to be born. In all fairness, Rowe Camp & Conference Center has some advantages over some of the institutions of the larger society, for example, school. We openly encourage and respect individuality, and do not have to teach arithmetic or history.
We are really people specialists. People find it exciting to be in a community which bonds us and lifts us to a place we could never reach alone, a place we can only reach together. And it is hard to portray a love this deep in words. One week, or three weeks, this vital and intense experience cannot be captured in a few sentences.
Rowe Camp is open to spirit, though that openness is implicit, not explicit; it is "in the bones," in the structure of the camp. It is not taught or preached, but it is there for those who can see and hear it. For over fifty years the counselors in our high school summer camp, elected by the campers, have been called Spirits. But each person makes his or her own interpretation of what that means, there is no agreed-upon definition. This is consistent with 20th Century Unitarianism, whose main dogmas are that dogmas cannot capture truth, and that each person must find her or his own truth.
Rowe Conference Center, founded fifty years after Rowe Camp, is built upon that same spirit, and people can often "feel something" when they come here. We offer a wide variety of different ways to approach this most ineffable of topics and we have a deep respect for the many ways people are different. Most people who come to Rowe could leave with no awareness that there is a religious affiliation underlying our center. There are many paths up the mountain, and we hope to honor all spiritual paths. On any given retreat we may focus on only one, or there may be no conscious spiritual focus. We hope to offer some options to those who come, and the perception is always left to the experience of the individual.
We believe that life itself is the greatest miracle. We get so caught up in our day-to-day lives that a chance to slow down, to let go, to stop what we normally do, becomes an opportunity to reconnect with what we have too long neglected, or even forgotten. Rowe provides such a space. Enabling people to reconnect with that deeper knowledge is wonderful work. Rowe is an attempt to bring out the best in us, without ignoring the wounds we have suffered, or the part our shadows play in our lives, or the difficulties we face in the larger society. We offer an environment in which people can touch deeply into themselves and perhaps change in ways they never imagined possible.
Some say we must change society or we can never change people. Others say start with yourself. We believe changing ourselves and the world are woven together, that we must be willing to act in the world and for the world before we are sure of the results of our actions. Our world needs all the positive energy it can find. But action divorced from a sense of how we, too, have been injured, how we, too, are a part of the problems we see outside ourselves, can only lead to the perpetuation of those problems.
Rowe Conference Center is an adult education center with strong respect for those who are committed to learning throughout their entire lives. For those who work here, being in the presence of such engaged and engaging people is a real joy. We are a learning center, but one that seeks wisdom more often than knowledge, one that looks to help people deepen their spiritual path, one that seeks to inspire thoughtful and meaningful action, action in service to the many life forms on our amazing planet.
We hope Rowe can be a place to laugh out loud, to see the world from a different perspective, to retouch a lost idealism, to regain a sense of optimism, to regenerate and be inspired, all in a warm environment that is safe and cozy and where people don't take themselves too seriously.
We invite you to take a break from your hectic life, reconnect with the earth, or go through a transition in life in a place that supports the process. The focus on inner transformation needs to be balanced by the awareness that to be fully human we need to take responsible action to transform our world. We want to empower people to realize that they can bring about a real change, both in themselves and in the world. But individuals must find their own way, their own energies, their own rhythm, their own method to help the process along.
Rowe offers a place to learn and to deepen certain skills, to find new ways of being alive, and to experience what it is like to be in a real community, if only for a weekend. In many ways the path people are seeking is quite simple and natural. We tend to think of life as complex, but if you look at the great breakthroughs, they often turn out to be simple, and sometimes even obvious.
Rowe Camp and Conference Center is part of what our friend Gail Straub calls a vast global network of consciousness and change, people who want to be part of the personal, social and spiritual transformation, people who can hear "the murmur of the earth" through the concrete, people who know how little they know. Rowe is a place where the sacred can enter into the everyday, where people can touch ancient truths. To offer a space where these experiences are more possible, more likely, more common, is work worth doing. We allow and encourage the emergence of that which is special in everyone, that which is deep and often buried, and that which is waiting to be born.
Rowe Camp began with a dream - or perhaps with the meeting of two people with much the same dream. The pastor of the Rowe Unitarian Church in the 1920's, Rev. Anita Pickett, wanted to create a regional center for religious education. Rev. Charles Wellman in nearby Deerfield was concerned about a "youth" problem he encountered while attending conferences at the Isles of Shoals. There he and his wife, Maude, felt the young delegates weren't getting much out of their experience - they were young and they didn't "fit in." The Wellmans were looking for the right place to hold a summer church conference for young people.
Lucy Emerine Henry from Deerfield, who had grown up in Rowe, suggested the town as a lovely spot for the retreat. There the Wellmans, Mrs. Henry, and Rev. Pickett searched for a suitable location. They found a cottage called Bonnie Blink, on Old King's Highway. The cottage had belonged to Mary P. Wells Smith of Greenfield, an author who had described Bonnie Blink thoroughly in her well-known children's book, "Two in a Bungalow."
Bonnie Blink was situated in the present-day "Oval." Photographs from that time show an extensive orchard behind the cottage, and a grassy knoll where the Rec Hall currently stands.
The cottage was rented for the summer of 1924, and church volunteers helped prepare for the first camp offered. Thirty-four youths attended, with the girls sleeping in the large upstairs rooms, and the boys in tents on the hillside. Everyone brought his or her own table settings. Meals were served at long tables on the porch. The well-structured week offered daily chapels, conferences both in and out-of-doors, swimming in Pelham Lake, hiking to Pulpit Rock, and field trips. Each day ended with a candlelight service in the chapel, a tradition that still remains to this day.
Topics discussed in conferences the first year included "Leadership and Young People," "Personal Leadership," and "Religion and the New Day," covering problems of race, industry, and war. As an outcome of the discussion on war, the campers passed a resolution unanimously protesting a "National Mobilization Day" scheduled for September 12th. The Secretary of War quickly responded with an explanation of the purpose of that "defense test." This camp action established for future camps the tone and relevance of conference topics which would interest teenagers in their modern world.
In the second year, the camp adopted resolutions that strongly favored "the outlawry of war, the adoption of the machinery of peace such as arbitration treaties, a World Court and a League of Nations"; "the consideration and application of the principals of brotherhood to international relations, to the entire industrial system and to our own racial and social problems," and "belief in such conferences for Young People as that held in Rowe for the last two years and calling upon our elders to help multiply and to support such conferences in all parts of the country."
In the spring of 1927, Rowe Camp incorporated, establishing a permanent foundation for the camp organization. Bonnie Blink was acquired and enlarged. In 1928, the Sibley apple orchard was purchased and an adult "Alliance Week" was begun. In 1930, five cabins were built, and certain federations offered their own conference weeks. The corporation received the deed to the Memorial Chapel in 1932. In the following years, more land was acquired from the Sibleys and additional buildings were erected. In 1949, the water storage reservoir was made. The Sibley Barn was used for crafts and dancing.
The camp facilities were steadily improved in the 50's and 60's. The Rec Hall, called the "Super Blink," was completed in 1966. Camp programs were enlarged to include Junior and Senior High camps, and the facilities began to be used all summer. The dream for a large recreation building came true, when after the death of Emory Sibley, the farmhouse, barn, and adjacent land was acquired by the camp in 1974. Sadly, on New Year's night of 1978, Bonnie Blink burned down.
Rev. Douglas Wilson came to Rowe Camp in 1971 as assistant director of the Junior High Camp. He felt profoundly touched by the "Rowe spirit." Doug wanted to share the wonderful energy of Rowe Camp with adults. The additional space offered by the Sibley residence allowed Doug to realize his vision, and adult retreats were offered in the fall of 1974 through Rowe Conference Center.
Most of the Conference Center's programs are open to everyone. Over the years an amazing variety of activities have been offered. Many programs offer a therapeutic component, and the leaders of these programs have been some of the most gifted therapists in the country. All of us have had experiences in our lives that have hurt us, and too often these experiences have allowed us to heal. In the warmth and safety of the retreat setting, it is possible to relive these experiences, re-experience the pain, and with the loving guidance of a wise and experienced teacher, to heal the old wounds that too often prevent us from living our lives fully. This has formed a base of much of our programming, derived from the Human Potential Movement.
To find out more about our wonderful programs, click on the links to the left or sign up for a free catalog.