I still love Dorion Bible Camp and still consider it "my camp" (their new slogan) but other
options to consider are Camp Gitchigomee and
Manitoba Pioneer Camp (my other camps).
Email me.
I do not believe Dorion Bible Camp sucks. But I do believe that my no longer being there
really sucks and I think the Kafkaesqueprocess by which I was ousted sucked. In brief, the Board decided the staff needed to heal our misunderstandings by a process of talking them through. I agreed
to do this, but, as far as I know, my co-workers would not, and yet I was the one paid out and let go.
No camp is
perfect and it's fair to say that every knowledgeable person would say that DBC did have
dysfunctions in our team operation (but that is not the same as saying they suck/ed). I agreed to the Board's plans for addressing those.
However, those plans were never put into action. The Board gave my counsellor and me their agenda and I
followed it. My counsellor declared me as "teachable"
and capable of returning to work. In order to "smooth" that return his recommendations included discussion of my co-workers' resentments
of me, guided by an experienced third party.
The Board also required me to agree to review everything about camp and I was very happy to agree to that. There are some
indications that they did go ahead with that phase, as well as addressing some of the systemic dysfunctions,
just not with my input as part of the discussion. I suppose that, despite the Mar. 31/04
mtg in which the board expressed that they wanted to reintegrate me, two weeks later they instead saw letting me go as a part of healing our dysfunctions (or possibly were
made to do this, whether they believed it or not).
I just really do believe that it would have been
entirely possible (with God's help) to have healed DBC's problems with me still part of the team.
Therefore, I believe that a significant core of dysfunction has not yet been healed.
Because this was, in legal terms, a
"not-for-cause" dismissal, the validity of their "reasons"
became moot and the only question was whether my severance was adequate. This means I too
can't assert that their reasons were invalid, since no "cause" was given (and no "reasons"
were made known to me for discussion). What you, I or the other guy think about reasons for or
against is irrelevant in a "not-for-cause" situation and that's what it was.
But it is my personal opinion (and this appeared to me as late as Mar. 31/04 to be the Board's
view) that this was not the best way to address our relational dysfunctions.
I am a Christian. Therefore, even now I believe in the Resurrection from the Dead
(and the Communion of Saints and Forgiveness of Sins for that matter).
