Starting to Plan a Yearbook

Wednesday my yearbook co-adviser and I met with the rep from Herf Jones to discuss getting our yearbook started. One of our AP's (previously mentioned in testing posts) insisted on being in on the meeting. She came late and interrupted what we were discussing. She started asking about prices and telling the rep that the prices he was giving us weren't as good as they got with the previous company. She then told him "Well, these ladies will be entertaining other companies as well so they'll get back to you and let you know." She then stood up and shook his hand and basically pushed him out the door. We weren't done talking to him but she decided the meeting was over. Luckily I had warned him in advance that she was a bit abrasive (to put it lightly) so hopefully he didn't take it personally.

After the rep left she went through the yearbook that she advised in 2003 and told us exactly what she wanted us to do in this year's book. She kept saying that things were a "tradition" when to us they looked more like page fillers to waste space. When we offered up ideas she said "Oh, no that just won't work." One particular suggestion was to take individual pictures for "Senior Superlatives" (rather than a group photo with no names attached) so that "in twenty years they can look back and remember who was who." Her comment was "THESE kids won't keep the books for twenty years. They have them for a couple years and then they'll get rid of them." That really irked me. When you created a yearbook you're supposed to go into it with the mind set that you are capturing memories to be treasured for a life time.

I didn't know that I was signing up to recreate the exact book that our AP made two years ago. I think I'm going to be pretty frustrated at times having to work with her (she's not my immediate supervisor so I usually don't speak to her) but we're still planning on implementing most of our ideas and in the end our book will be a hundred times better than anything they've had in the past.