QUILL & SCROLL

Celebrate students' academic and journalistic achievements.

  quill & scroll 

 Contact:

 Phone: (319) 335-3457

 Fax: (319) 335-3989

Kansas Scholastic Press Association

http://www.kspaonline.org/ 

September 30: September Monthly Contest Deadline.     

 Missouri Interscholastic Press Association

http://mipanews.org/    
 National Scholastic Press Association

http://www.studentpress.org/nspa/

December 2: 2010-11 Publication Critiques - Entry Deadline  

IT'S NOT TOO LATE

to have your book critiqued.

National Scholastic Press Association 

Columbia Scholastic Press Association 

How are you going to use QR Codes this year?

Add video to your school yearbook. Balfour's QR codes make it easy.

BAL4.TV is an online platform from Balfour that allows you to safely and securely incorporate audio, video and other digital content into your printed yearbook - making it more engaging and desirable.

    This is obviously a rhetorical question. You're reading the question in an email, so I can't hear your answer. 

    So, what's with rhetorical questions?

      Marge Simpson (singing): "How many roads must a man walk down, before you can call him a man?"

       Homer Simpson: Seven.

       Lisa: No, dad, it's a rhetorical question.

       Homer Simpson: OK, eight. 

  So, to answer my own question, here's what's new.

more rhetoric 

Artificial light is not pure white. For example,  incandescent light has a yellow cast and fluorescent light emits a green light. Either way, your subject is bathed in unflattering hues.

Fortunately, our eyes adjust to lighting. Unfortunately, our cameras don't.

 THE SOLUTION  

1. When using a simple point-and-shoot camera, take a photo of the whitest thing in the locale. The camera adjusts to the setting.
2. On some cameras, a white balance button offers lighting options (sunny, cloudy, fluorescent, incandescent, etc.)
3. If the camera has a white balance setting, take a photo of a white card that's in the same light as the subject being photographed.

REMEMBER: When the light changes, you need to re-establish what white is right. When you adjust to changing light, the camera will balance the levels of red, green and blue..

 cool link 

Staying Up With the Action

     Establishing a beat system will help your staff keep up with what's happening in your school. 

      Using lists of clubs, classes and sports, have students brainstorm beat possibilities. 

     Write the list on the board. Decide if any beats need to be added to the list (scouts, youth groups, etc.)

     Next, have students chose beats. (They may have several to cover.)

     The core of beat coverage is getting background information and the history of the group/class/sport. Have each student write down their best sources of information.

     Once they gather their backgound information, staff members are ready to feel the beat by having their fingers on the pulse of the school. Students must turn in their beat sheets weekly and place upcoming classroom and extracurricular activities on the calendar.

     Now there is no reason to miss anything. 

click for a PDF of the BEAT SHEET 

>>What Is National Buy Your Yearbook Day?
 National Buy Your Yearbook Day (NBYYD) was created to designate a special time of the school year to focus specifically on yearbook sales and to allow your school to join with other schools in a coordinated national event. Note that NBYYD isn't meant to be a singular day for yearbook sales - rather, it's a day for your school to schedule their main yearbook sales period around and build excitement and a sense of urgency for the yearbook.  The goal of NBYYD is to help your school move away from having 'the yearbook on sale all year', which ultimately hampers yearbook sales. The day falls after most back-to-school festivities and before the holidays, so it's a perfect time to market the yearbook and reach out to those buyers who have not yet purchased.

>>Getting the word out
 Starting this week, you should receive a couple of emailsabout NBYYD. They will explain what NBYYD is, how you can promote the day, and provide suggestions to make their yearbook sale successful. We'll also hold activities and contests on the day of the sale for participating schools.

>>What You Can Do

1. Take advantage of Balfour's FREE Customized HTML Email promotion.

In order to promote NBYYD, we will send an email promotion to your yearbook buyers at no cost to you! To participate, you must be able to provide an email address list (in Excel spreadsheet format) to yearbooks@balfour.com by Friday, Oct. 14. Emails will be scheduled for delivery between November 3 - 7 

2. Balfour has tons of promotional resources to help you sell.

In the Merchandise Catalog that you received a couple of weeks agoor online at StudioBalfour (http://studio.balfour.com), you can browse and order all of Balfour's yearbook promotional materials like posters, banners, sales day promos and other on-campus visuals to alert students and parents about the sale.To order items simply email the supply desk at supplydesk@balfour.com and the items will be shipped to you that very day.  

In addition to these, there are plenty of FREE resources available. Customizable Yearbook Buzz flyers, NBYYD ads, 'Buy a Yearbook' web buttons, yearbook commercials and P.A. announcement teaser sounds are all available for download in StudioBalfour. You'll find these in the Plan & Create > Yearbook Supplies section (click on any of the Marketing categories).  

To log into Studio.Balfour, you will need your project number and your StudioWorks log in information. If you are a Balfour Tools customer and not a StudioWorks customer, you will use the following format to log in.

               Project Number:  212345

               Username:  sbadmin

3. Create excitement on Sale Day! 

Contests can be entered through our NBYYD email address at yearbookday@balfour.com OR on the Balfour Facebook Fan page.  Be sure to "Like" our Facebook page so you will be ready to participate. We'll also be posting news and tips about NBYYD on Facebook throughout the next month.