Let’s face it, the yearbook wouldn’t exist without you guys – the organisers of this very rewarding project. Make sure you give yourself a page in your yearbook too! Do you have school staff helping with your leavers’ book? Give them at least a mention too and let’s give thanks where it’s due.
What is a yearbook committee and staff page?
A yearbook committee page gives the opportunity to thank everyone who has helped bring your yearbook from a glimmer of an idea to reality. No doubt there will have been many hours spent planning and putting the leavers’ book together, which definitely warrants a page of thanks (even if it’s just to thank yourself).
A yearbook committee page also let’s the rest of your year group know who worked on their yearbook. Some of your year may not even know a yearbook exists until they see they can buy a copy!
So, where in the yearbook should a committee / staff page live? What content should be there and how should it be laid out?
There are a few ways to incorporate a yearbook committee page, here are a few places to choose from:
- Page 1 of your yearbook is a great place. Open with an introduction to your leavers’ book and give everyone involved a mention. You could title your page ‘Special thanks to…‘ and list names of everyone who helped make your yearbook a reality (however big, or small their contribution). Follow your yearbook committee page with your message from the Head Teacher, I’m sure they won’t mind!
- How about a committee centre fold? A great way to break up your yearbook (as long as it doesn’t happen to be in the middle of a class of student profile pages). If you’re not using the centre pages for a year group photo, then why not pinch them for yourselves?! Take a group photo of the team and arrange it over the double page spread, or dedicate one page to photos and one to comments (we’ll go into more detail on this later).
- End your yearbook on a high with warm and fuzzy thanks to those behind the scenes. Reserve the last page of your leavers’ book for your yearbook committee page.
Now you’ve picked your perfect destination, what on earth do you put on that page?
It kind of goes without saying that photos and text are essential, but there are a zillion ways you can arrange them. One of these suggestions should help:
The classic – Get yourself a lovely group photo of the core yearbook team and write a couple of paragraphs about the yearbook – mention how long it’s taken to put together, how much you’ve enjoyed making it and any tips or well wishes for the future.
Pop your paragraph of text at the top of the page and the group photo beneath with a description of who is who – voila!
The double – I mentioned above pinching a double page for your committee page. This gives you plenty of page to play with. There are a couple of ideas I’m going to throw at you here:
1. Similar to ‘the classic’ take a group photo of your yearbook team and any other staff involved. Arrange this photo across the page (allowing extra space along the middle of the book, so no-one gets lost in the spine). Add a description of who is who, either outside of the photo, or on the photo itself.
2. Split your text and images over the two pages. Ask each of the core yearbook team to write a message and arrange these on the left-hand page. As you’ll have a bit more space, you could write what role they took in the yearbook project, and even a fun fact about each person.
On the right-hand page pop each team member’s photo (with their name), similar to a student profile page. The photo can match the other student profile pictures, or how about indulging in selfies?
The nod – not keen on the idea of thanking everyone individually? Perhaps you were just a very small group outside of school staff. That’s fine too. A very brief ‘thank you’ message certainly does the job:
“Thanks for all your help and support”
“Thanks to everyone involved in our yearbook”
“Special thanks to all contributors. Best of luck for the future”
There we have it. Yearbook committee pages come in all shapes and sizes, and we love a bit of teamwork appreciation. I hope this post has helped you decide where to put your yearbook committee page and what to put on it.
If you have any of your own ideas or suggestions, let us know and we’d love to help you share them with other yearbook teams.
