I had been looking forward to the Walsworth Adviser Academy ever since I learned about it in May. As a new adviser, I had my fair share of anxiety about my abilities regarding our yearbook program, and I was eager to be taught by the professionals.
The Academy was, in fact, a huge success. The sessions eased my mind, but the Plant Tour showed me just how extensive the yearbook production process is, and just how dedicated Walsworth is to ensuring quality for their customers.
A successful yearbook is one that readers enjoy, so they buy it, enabling the staff to meet its financial obligations.
“If you meet those two criteria, then your book is a success,” said Susan Massy, yearbook adviser at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School in Shawnee, Kan., and leader of the Roundtable Yearbook Critiques session at Walsworth’s Adviser Academy on Wednesday morning.
While a portion of the attendees for the 2011 Adviser Academy split off from the group on Wednesday to take a plant tour of Walsworth’s printing facilities in Marceline and Brookfield, Mo., the rest stayed behind to continue on with seminars at the Kansas City Hyatt Regency.
Full-day sessions covering InDesign, Photoshop, Online Design, photography and yearbook coverage were on the agenda.
Advisers ranging from as far as Arizona and California all the way to New York converged on Kansas City Tuesday morning for the opening of Walsworth’s third annual Adviser Academy summer workshop at the downtown Hyatt Regency.
Company President Don Walsworth welcomed the visitors with a brief history of the family-owned company and a reassuring reminder that yearbooks remain relevant because they remain a “keepsake” that “lasts forever.”
Betsy Lazo, the first-year adviser of the yearbook at the O’Bryant School in Roxbury, Mass., will be a guest speaker during the opening session of Walsworth’s Adviser Academy in Kansas City on Tuesday morning.
Lazo and her yearbook staff at O’Bryant received some positive local media attention this year for helping to turn around the school’s yearbook program. For the first time in the school’s history, this year’s staff was able to deliver yearbooks to students before the end of the school year, allowing them to have a signing party.
