The Yearbook Blog

SoYoung Jun, yearbook adviser at El Cerrito High School, noticed that yearbook sales have been on the decline in the past few years. When asked, students told her they could not afford a book. In this current economic environment, this comes as no surprise. However, Ms. Jun decided to do something about it.

On a whim, she sent out an email to parents and staff members through the school e-mail tree. She asked if anyone was willing to sponsor a book for a student. She also asked for name submissions of students who deserve a yearbook, but cannot afford one. She wasn’t sure what to expect, but knew she had nothing to lose.

In one week, she received $50o in donations. This may not seem like a huge amount, but it’s $500 more than she would have gotten and all it took was one email! It also means that about 10 more students are going to receive books that otherwise would not have!

With such success through such little effort, Ms. Jun is now looking at other ways to get more books into more students hands. She plans to send a similar email to their school Alumni Association and offer Gift Certificates as a way for friends and teachers to purchase books for others as gifts (regardless of he recipient’s financial situation).

Great job, Ms. Jun!

Here's Julie getting her $100 American Express Gift Card for coming in 2nd Place in the Ultimate Sales Challenge. (*Excuse our dress. We were sorting yearbooks for distribution!)

When it comes to fundraising and book sales, Julie Fox–yearbook adviser at Central Middle School in San Carlos, CA–is a true guru. In 2009, as a first-year yearbook adviser, she won 2nd place in the Herff Jones Northern California Ultimate Yearbook Sales Challenge.

In 2009, the yearbook staff at Central Middle school not only wanted to increase sales, but they wanted students to buy early. So they motivated them by offering complimentary name stamps to all students who ordered books within the first 6 weeks of school. The price covered the cost of the name stamps and more. Each Monday during the sales campaign, teachers received a list of students who had not purchased. Homeroom teachers encouraged students who had not purchased books and new orders came in every Tuesday. The week the free name stamping disappeared, parents were notified of a last chance offer with order forms and personalized money envelopes in weekly mail folders. Increase in sales: 10%, and for the first time ever, the school was able to prepay, making them eligible for the prepayment discount.

How does she top it for 2010?

For her  2nd year as an adviser, Ms. Fox noticed that Central’s yearbook did not have a name, so she asked the school to help. At a school-wide assembly, the yearbook staff announced their Yearbook Naming Contest. They explained the importance of a yearbook name and shared examples of other schools’ yearbook names. They then opened it up to the entire student population to submit their ideas. The names started flooding in. With Principal Lynette Hovland’s help, the staff narrowed it down to 2 choices: Hoofprints or The Round-Up. (Their mascot is the Mustangs.) Instead of just having students vote on one of the final two names, the staff decided to turn it into a fundraiser. They placed two jars in the school office, one labeled “Hoofprints” and one labeled “Round-up.” They then asked students to vote for their favorite name by placing spare change in the jar.

Three weeks later, not only did Central Middle School’s yearbook have a new name, but the entire school was excited about the yearbook and being a part of creating a tradition that will stay with the school forever. Talk about great publicity! And if that wasn’t enough, the yearbook staff raised an extra $170 by simply placing 2 jars in the office.

What’s the secret to her success?

“The yearbook belongs to the students, not the yearbook advisor.  My role is to help the students create the book that showcases the entire student body,” shares Ms. Fox. “If I help them do a good job, then the students and staff will buy the book.  It’s all about talking the talk beforehand (through advertising) and following through with a great product.”

Kingman Academy Middle School in Kingman, AZ, figured out a way to do it. They got Guardian Air (an emergency air ambulance company) to take them up for free.

I’ve pasted an article about it below, or you can go to the Kingman Daily Miner  website to read the original post by Aaron Royster.

KAOL students take flight for yearbook photo

KINGMAN - Some of the Kingman Academy Middle School yearbook staff got a new perspective on their peers - thanks to Guardian Air.

On March 25, Guardian Air pilot Mike Mickelson took students Sarah Christiansen, Sana Khan and Bryce Todriff with respiratory therapist Pat Alred and flight nurse Jill Swape on a flight above the school. With four cameras, a few with batteries that died mid-flight, the trio took more than 50 pictures to make sure they got a shot for the yearbook in their limited trip.

“Everything turned out great and we got a good picture,” Todriff said.

The aerial shot of the students and faculty in formation for the yearbook is an annual tradition, Khan said. This year the students voted to form a coyote paw print, representing the school’s coyote mascot.

In past years, the Arizona Department of Public Safety has accommodated the yearbook editors with a helicopter trip to take photographs. Due to budget constraints, DPS notified Kingman Academy Middle School they wouldn’t be able to assist this year, Khan said.

“We were all really sad because we wanted to go up for three years,” Christiansen said.

That’s when Todriff said he had an epiphany. They could turn to Guardian Air and request the ride.

The students were briefed on safety before the stepped on the helicopter. While the flight was less than 10 minutes, the trio exuded enthusiasm about their experience.

“It was phenomenal,” Khan said.

The flight crew was friendly and joked with them, Khan said. It helped ease the tension for Khan, who found the experience way different than flying in an airplane.

It was the first time Khan and Christiansen flew in a helicopter.

“I was really scared,” Christiansen said.

Both Christiansen and Khan said they got a great view of their classmates, and a look from above of their respective houses.

As eighth-graders, it will be the last time Christiansen and Khan will get the opportunity to fly in a helicopter to take a yearbook photograph for the middle school.

For Todriff, it was his second time flying in a helicopter. He had previously flown with the Arizona Department of Public Safety on a ride-along.

“It was fun,” Todriff said.

Todriff will get a shot at a third ride next year, when the seventh-grader said he plans on working as a yearbook editor.

Holly Madison and Dmitry Chaplin dance in the first episode of season eight of "Dancing With the Stars."

Okay, the celebrity is Holly Madison, star of “The Girls Next Door” and “Dancing with the Stars” and the job was “playmate editor” for Playboy Magazine, but still…

Here’s her exact quote from an interview with The Oregonian.

“I used to kind of joke around that I ended up with a job where, I learned this job in high school — everybody, when they’re in high school, goes, ‘What am I ever going to use this for?’ — but I was on the yearbook staff. We used to have to lay out the yearbook on computer, and I never would have been able to jump into that job with no training if I hadn’t been on the yearbook staff.”

Click here to read the full interview.

Here’s a sweet blog entry by Jim Burke, an English teacher, about a dinner where his wife’s 90-year-old uncle brings his yearbook and shares the stories from his past:

The Way We Were: High School 1938

To read the original post on Jim Burke’s blog, click here.

I know. Your first thought to this headline is, “I run my yearbook program like a real-world business. How come I’m not getting recognition?”

It’s amazing how many people still think of yearbook as a “glorified photo album”. Many administrators still believe they can just throw anyone into your yearbook class because all your doing is “taking pictures and putting them in a book. How hard is that?”

Well, kudos to the yearbook advisers at Nauset Regional High School in Massachusetts for getting their local paper “The Cape Codder” to publish a story about their yearbook program. It probably helped that a yearbook staffer, who wrote the article, is an intern at the paper. You can read the article here:

http://www.wickedlocal.com/orleans/news/education/x844655140/Making-memories-Yearbook-run-like-real-world-business

Maybe if more schools got local papers to run stories about the “behind the scenes” in yearbook production, schools and administrators will start appreciating yearbook class as a program that teaches students much more than “scrapbooking” skills.

In my continued mission to convince yearbook staffs of the larger importance of yearbooks in our society, I am sharing this “feel good” story about a man, a class ring lost 20 years ago, and the yearbook that brought them back together…

http://www.delgazette.com/local.asp?ID=1600&Story=3