It was September 7th, 2005 and I waited full of expectation and wonderment, I couldn’t wait; I knew she would be beautiful. Through the months we’ve have been through a lot: waiting, quarrels, squabbles, disagreements, great displays of affection, midnight indigestion and sickness, and last of all, exactly 9 months later, our little darling arrived: June 7th, 2006, our yearbook was finally in our arms - we were happy.

“Though I have never given birth, I’ll bet it feels much like producing a yearbook” - This is a quote from what my Yearbook teacher, Mr Pattinson, wrote in my yearbook today.

Our yearbook - SJAM’s 2006 Reflections - is our pride and joy. Two classes over the year have put sweat and tears into making the yearbook a success, more people than I could count or name had a hand in it’s production. For this I am glad. I had a role in it’s editing, and for a while there we weren’t sure we’d have it done for the end of the year. But we did it, and if I dare say: I’m proud.

It’s not perfect, but it’s ours, and we worked hard for it - THANK YOU to everyone who helped, everyone! I learned a lot.

Our school, Sir John A. Macdonald, is a special school in a lot of ways. We represent 76 nations, we are the most diverse school in the area. We are even under special designation by the United Nations. So we strive to have our yearbook done by June for those who’s Educational Visa may be up come summer time.

Also, we have a $35 student fee at the beginning of the year that covers all manner of things from text books to the Yearbook - everyone gets a yearbook. Though, this put some restriction on what we are able to do, since the full $35 is not ours, we don’t have TONS of money to flaunt about to make the best yearbook ever made. We have to be wise, and raise any money for “EXTRAS”, like colour pages, personalized covers, and a yearbook CD, or we can try hard (really hard) to meet certain deadlines to get deals from the distributor.

We did a lot of new things this year - for OUR school any ways:

• We designed our very own yearbook cover - using no templates, and including pictures relevant to our school.
• We had colour “mug shots” for every grade for the first time ever. Doing colour in the yearbook is difficult, because our publisher/distributor (Jostens) demands that all colour pages be submitted by December if we want our yearbook done by June, they are the first to be printed I assume.
• We gave opportunity to personalize yearbooks this year. You could get your name printed/embedded with subtext, and up to 4 icons of your choice.
• We devoted a 2 page spread to our wonderful Co-Op department, which had been under-appreciated (ie: non-existent) in years before.
• And lastly, we are selling yearbook Cd’s, which will be sent out during the summer, but will have MORE PHOTOS, videos, and music from events that couldn’t make into our yearbook publication.

I’m proud of what we’ve accomplished, but that isn’t to say we hadn’t had our set backs.

Putting a yearbook together can be very stressful, especially when you realize that the pressure is on: you have a school who will chew you up if you make a terrible product, and even worse if they don’t get their product. Not many people realize, but you don’t have a whole year to create a WHOLE yearbook, you have to send in segments of the yearbook by certain deadlines - and this is what causes the most pressure.

• We had the trouble of sharing 4 or 5 cameras - at the beginning of the year - to just 1 still standing at the end of the year.
• We had some issues with “technical ability” of some students, which we worked around - some simply decided to put their talents to better use, such as creative marketing efforts and fund raisers, or arranging photo shoots - some didn’t like their pages being meddled with - I’m SORRY
• We have a spread of baby pictures and present day pictures. You’re supposed figure out who is who - we forgot about giving people the answers…. It makes for interesting debate, and no one in particular is at fault, except perhaps the editors (don’t you point your fingers at me!!!)
• I became ill with Mono - dependence needed to be shifted - the team pulled it together, and got a lot of work done considering the circumstances, even though their may have been a lot of tension in the air
• We seemed to cut it close to some deadlines (completely missing/ignoring some) and that didn’t make Jostens too happy.
• Font issues became apparent in revision stages - we weren’t too happy with Jostens.
• Mr Pattinson delayed surgery to make sure the final section was sent off - this guy has dedication
• Graduates… Don’t even get me started - this section is a pain… always a pain, and everyone felt it.

Working on this yearbook was one of the greatest experiences of my life, I learned a lot about leadership and life in general

• When you commit - make sure you’re really committed - people depend on you, and when you lose their confidence, it’s hard to win it back.
• Editing is a lot of work, it’s hard to be sensitive to everyone - sometimes you need to decide whether it’s worth hard feelings to scrap a page, or to meddle with some one’s work - generally you decide to meddle, which brings me to my next point…
• If you take on the responsibility of trying to make a quality product, you have to be prepared to be the “BAD GUY”
• The team is a great resource, don’t let them down.
• Find your strong players, and make sure they’re in the key positions, and let them in on decisions that play in on their strengths - sometimes let them make all those kinds of decisions
• Sometimes you have to make decisions - fast, and you need to decide if you’ll be able to live with it if you’ve made the wrong one
• Everyone works differently, allow room for this
• Don’t get your superiors angry - ie: Teacher… Very Very Bad…

I still have to maul over a lot of what has happened, so stay tuned for more on the yearbook. But through thick in thin, it’s important to stay determined, and work together - you will achieve an awesome product. Thank you guys - and to all the students of SJAM, hope you enjoy your yearbook.