Camp Tartan – scots, sibs and kids weekend

LIATHANO RAMIREZ
GRAPHIC DESIGNER

JORDAN FOX
COPY EDITOR

1/29/2024

Alma College is hosting its annual Camp Tartan Scots, Sibs and Kids Weekend from Feb. 16-18. This is a fun-filled weekend catered toward siblings and family members of current Alma College students between the ages of seven and 18. 

“Our target audience for Scots, Sibs and Kids weekend is the siblings or kids of current Alma students, but we are also opening up the opportunity to the family members of faculty and staff members as well,” said Brendan Murdie, Assistant Director for Student Engagement – Student Activities, who is organizing the event. 

“We hope that this event will encourage students, faculty and staff to bring their siblings or kids to Alma’s campus for a great weekend filled with events that will be fun for siblings and kids of all ages,” said Murdie. 

Activities for the weekend include watching the Alma College women’s basketball game against Hope College at home in the Art Smith Arena, video game tournaments at Block House, open climb at the rock climbing wall, arts and crafts, board games, a magic show with Kid Ace, a field day and community service project, pizza and ice cream social, a planetarium show and more. 

Visiting siblings and kids will stay in the current student’s room, giving them an opportunity to experience living in a residence hall at Alma College. 

Registration for this event can be found at alma.hometownticketing.com and is open until Feb. 9. The cost to register for this event is $25 for one child and $30 for two and includes a t-shirt and entry into all programs for the weekend. 

“[David Blandford, who has worked at the college for over 20 years,] said that the event has been around at least that long, but it was something that we had to stop doing for a bit because of the Covid-19 pandemic. We restarted the tradition last academic year, and are continuing that again this year,” said Murdie. 

This weekend gives relatives a chance to see what life is like on a college campus, lets them learn more about Alma College and the Alma community and allows students to spend time with their relatives during this exciting event. 

Students who attended the event when they were younger with their college-aged relatives detail the amazing experience it was and even go as far as calling it one of the reasons they chose to attend Alma College. 

If you are a student who does not have any younger relatives but would like to be involved with the event, it is unfortunately not possible now, but the college is looking into more options for student engagement in the future. 

“At this time, we don’t have any large-scale plans for students without younger relatives to participate, but we are exploring options that might allow us to do this. If students have any ideas or feedback in this area, they can send that to me,” said Murdie. 

Although Murdie is in charge of the overall event planning, he has not operated alone. “I’m working with a committee of folks from around campus to help me put this on, but each of them [is] planning individual aspects, and I get to put it all together. Those committee members are Kenton Elworth, Ben Sobczak, Nicholas Nemeth and Mya Morris. I’m very grateful to them for the help they’ve provided during the process of planning this event,” said Murdie.