Last weekend I was fortunate to represent Maryland and our school district in Dallas Texas at Balfour Advisor Academy. I am the yearbook club advisor for my school, and we currently work with the company Balfour to produce our yearbooks.
Previously we worked with Herff Jones, however, the yearbook representative that I had when I started advising left Herff Jones after my second year working with her. I stayed with the company for 2 more years through multiple representatives and issues with the quality of personal relations from them. None of them could even begin to measure up to her ability and willingness to always “make it work” (as Tim Gunn would say). She was by far the best representative I have ever had the chance to work with. So when I found out she was working with Balfour I just had to change companies! I needed to have her back! The representative really makes or breaks the experience of creating a yearbook, as it does with any business relationship.
Last year was our first year working with Balfour, but I knew it would be a non issue since I had my dear Jeanne back. I picked up the technical aspects of the new yearbook creating software fairly quickly, its pretty much like photoshop. Jeanne helped me through it by coming to our club meetings every Friday, bringing me my favorite drink from starbucks, and working with the students to help them become more proficient with the software. Her willingness to be there whenever I needed her reminded me why I missed her so much and why I was so grateful to have her back!
We completed the yearbook and awaited its arrival. The day it was due to arrive at school, we found out that there was an issue with the delivery which caused it to arrive the second to last day of school. Jeanne came to school and helped me organize and deliver all the yearbooks in order to get them out as smoothly as possible. Without her I wouldn’t have made it out alive. Thank you Jeanne!
Not only was she always there, she provided me opportunity to attend the Balfour Advisor Academy in Dallas Texas, as well as the Ignite Journalism University, Balfour’s summer yearbook workshop, July 27-July 31, at Pepperdine University in Malibu California!
The Advisor Academy was an amazing experience! I learned so much about developing a yearbook, and was able to network with so many amazing people. I am looking forward to using my new knowledge to step up our yearbook this coming year. Being that the yearbook is created in a club, it’s a lot different from an actually yearbook class. I met with a few other middle school yearbook club advisors and discussed ways to make the yearbook development more student centered and still keep the same level of greatness we’ve had in the past few years.
