One of the most important tasks you will tackle in wrapping up this year’s yearbook and getting ready for next year is organizing the yearbook room. This list of tasks will help get you headed in the right direction.
Staff Management
Whether you are still wrapping up this year’s yearbook, or you have already submitted all the pages and you are looking ahead, here is a list of crucial year-end tasks to think about.
If you want a group of motivated staffers who love yearbook and get along with each other, the year doesn’t start in September — it starts in May. Here is a detailed look at how I have arranged our year by month, with ideas for how to keep kids excited all year, because these moments will be the highs that counteract the stressful, discouraging lows.
Here is a chance to borrow and steal my ideas on recruiting new yearbook staff members. Just about every idea has been drawn from my myriad yearbook experiences, from high school until the present day. A fun icebreaker from high school, a college yearbook tradition, a casual conversation at a national conference… all have become resources in my quest to recruit and retain the best yearbook staff that I can.
At our school, yearbook is not a mandatory activity, but one that requires staffers to dedicate their own free time. It always proves to be a challenge to finish our 308-page book with an extracurricular staff of only 16 members who don’t get a grade. Encouraging them to work is not an easy task, but we have learned some surefire methods needed to meet our deadlines.
With the Fall National High School Journalism Convention just around the corner next month, read what some experienced yearbook advisers have to say about the value of attending the national conventions and how you can make the trip easier.
Keep your staff motivated and feeling good about their work. Do that by telling them and telling others. Reminding them of the good job they are doing will help overcome those challenging times when things are not going right, or a deadline is approaching and there is too much work.
Yearbooks thrive on ideas. Designs, photos, articles, themes – all the elements of a yearbook need them. The thoughts generated from frequent brainstorming sessions are the lifeblood of any publication.
Before the yearbook staff can get down to business creating the yearbook, it’s important to create the right atmosphere in the yearbook room. Developing the right culture will set the proper tone for the year.
When you paint a room, the first thing you do is the prep work. Creating a yearbook is like painting a room. You and your staff need to do the prep work: plan, think what look you want to achieve; and check your tools. Then create. If all of those things have been done, you should have the book you envisioned.
