From the monthly archives:
Sometimes reunions with old friends happen when you least expect it.
I’m not a yearbook adviser. I didn’t come to the Adviser Academy this week expecting to sit in sessions and learn all about theme, or design trends. I’m a writer in Walsworth’s Marketing Department, so I’ve been here as an observer for the Yearbooks Blog.
If a tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound? Or, in yearbook terms… If you spend a year of long hours and hard work on a yearbook and no one buys it, was all that time wasted?
The Yearbook Marketing sessions at the Adviser Academy this week offered a great opportunity for advisers to learn creative ways to sell books to students and parents.
Walsworth’s Adviser Academy moved into its second day on Tuesday with half of the group in attendance making the bus trip up the road from Kansas City to Marceline/Brookfield, Mo., for a tour of Walsworth’s Printing and Bindery facilities.
The rest of the advisers stayed back at the Plaza Marriott to dive into more educational sessions. Topics on the morning agenda included classes on InDesign, Walsworth’s Online Design program, photojournalism and a round table for yearbook critiques.
Chronological yearbooks. Yearbooks with zero to seven sections. Yearbooks with only feature stories and photos.
These were some of the current trends in yearbook mentioned in the Adviser Academy’s Tad of Fad session on Monday afternoon. Led by Susan Massy, adviser at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in Shawnee, Kan., and David Zinsmeister, adviser at Manchester High School in North Manchester, Ind., the session showed and discussed examples of new and timeless design trends.
Yearbook advisers at Walsworth’s Adviser Academy got some valuable tips on ways to keep the staff motivated on Monday afternoon in the session “Yearbook = Fun… or at least it should be.”
Walsworth sales rep Keith Hughey, a former yearbook adviser for seven years, outlined some strategies to help keep the yearbook students energized throughout the course of the year.
Advisers from as far as the East and West coasts arrived in Kansas City on Monday morning for the opening session of Walsworth’s annual Adviser Academy summer workshop.
The group was welcomed to town by Alex Blackwell, Walsworth’s director of yearbook marketing, who woke the crowd up by polling the audience to ask which advisers were new to the job, and which advisers were experienced vets working on their 11th yearbook or more.
Yearbook advisers from all over the country will make their way to Kansas City next week for Walsworth’s annual Adviser Academy, and the Yearbooks Blog will be there with daily updates.
From Monday through Wednesday of next week, you will be able to check in here for a look in at all the sessions, adviser interviews and more.
Yearbooks got some more good publicity this week. This time from an article in The Shaunavon Standard, a Canadian newspaper, which wrote a feature story detailing how popular the yearbook still is with schools in their community.
“The kids’ enthusiasm and joy when a yearbook’s done and when we get it back in September remains the same. People just want to relive the year,” yearbook adviser Gail Balfour told the paper.
With the summer workshop season now in full swing, we know there are yearbook staffs all across the country getting to work on next year’s book at camp.
The Yearbooks Blog wants to hear stories about what’s going on out at workshops this summer – fun tales from the road, the twists and turns of developing a theme and interesting stuff from the sessions and activities.
If you haven’t wandered over to the Idea File area in a couple days, take a look at this story that was posted last week by good friend of the Yearbooks Blog – retired Florida adviser Anne Whitt.
One of the best ways to teach the craft to all the aspiring journalists in your classroom is to encourage reading. Whitt provides a list of 20 or so autobiographies and memoirs that provide a historical perspective on journalism.
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