Vanguard Yearbook

Layton Vanguard had a yearbook for the first time for the 2012-13 school year. We put it together at the end of the year, and it was a real  learning experience. We had a lot of pictures to go through in a short amount of time. Our yearbooks ended up costing $15 for a paper bound, and $25 for hard bound.

This year we plan to work on it throughout the year, as activities are happening. This will hopefully encourage the youth to take their cameras and take pictures on their outings and activities.  I expect this year's yearbook to cost $20/$30 respectively, due to more photos of more activities. The youth have LOVED their yearbooks. It has been a great pleasure to watch the kids open their yearbooks and their smiles as they saw special photos. Listening to small groups as they looked through together, and hearing their excited comments and giggles confirmed just how valuable these books are to them!

I have set up an account with Picaboo and use their services. They have a nice yearbook builder with a lot of options. They have a tutorial, but I would be happy to meet with other mentors who are working with their Journalism committees.

The only drawback that I have found is that we can't qualify for free shipping because we don't order 50 or more books. That means we pay 8.99 for the first book, then .99 per book after that- just for shipping! 

I'm looking into the possibility of ordering different yearbooks on the same order form to combine to get the minimum for free shipping.  If that is the case, I will be happy to share our group account for other groups to make their yearbooks on the same account/ order. We ordered 20 copies this past June, but with our larger group and  the possibility of combining yearbook orders with another group, we may be able to save money. Free shipping comes with 50 or more books ordered at one time. I submitted a question to the customer service help desk in regards to having a couple of different books on one order.

Hopefully I will have an answer soon.  It looks like I may be able to set up a *storefront* with the different yearbook options available to be selected. The drawback would be that we would have to set a deadline for orders and agree on a date that we will order (this past year, I had something come up and ended up not ordering until after *Showdown*, but we were able to include that final outing in the yearbook!).  The order had a 3 week shipping time listed, but it arrived a little quicker.

I'll be happy to answer any questions!

Brenda K
aka sahrow