Greenwich Country Day School - Spire Yearbook (Greenwich, CT)

Page 85 text:

Spire Board Makes Needed Revisions Throughout the year the staff of The Spire strove to keep imagination and new ideas as its bywords. The general attitude was .not to advocate change for its own sake, but to revise certain aspects of the book which might be im- proved by change. Perhaps the most important of these changes was the consolidation of the class write-ups, i. e., one write-up, with the exception of the ninth grade, for each school division instead of a write- up for each class. By this revision we hoped to achieve a greater continuity and unified idea. The divider pages were splashed with color and expanded to two pages, the faculty pages were increased and given fewer group and more in- dividual pictures. In addition, two new articles were added and a third revised. GCDS goes in- ternationalv and GCDS serves community and nation were added to give a more complete pic- ture of the school year, Inside GCDS was changed to The class of '63 remembers , in which we tried not only to present more intimate facets of school life, but also to show just what aspects of GCDS the graduating class best re- members. Once these changes and revisions had been incorporated into our dummy, work was begun on the actual printing of the yearbook, in our own print shop, located in the basement of the school itself. Write-ups were linotyped by Mrs. Fricke, and pages laid out and set up by the Spire board members themselves. All was done in only one hour a week! In spite of sometimes conflicting opinions on issues of layout, captions, or general policy, the yearbook was finally published, and, although only time can tell, we feel that it will transport us back to GCDS and help us relive some of our happy experiences there, no matter how distant we may be in time or miles. ROW l: Lawrence, Nelson, i-Iornblower, Weber, Bounds. ROW 2: Fisher, S., Vanderbilt, Blair, Chisholm, Fisher, C.,Manger, Fisher, T. ROW 3: Hinton, Kitendaugh, Ley, Knowles, Willers, Mr, Nicholson.

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Pr1nt Shop throbs w1th constant activity The Print Shop constantly throbs with the steady pulses of aspiring printers. It is quite a job for Mr. Fricke to keep a shop as large as ours in order, but the young printers are ready to help out when they are not printing pads, blotters, bookmarks, short selections for Impressions, which is put out annually by the Print Shop, or setting up one of Mr. Bliss's ideas from his Idea File. Once a week this steady beat is quickened when the Spire staff invades the Print Shop. The linotype is constantly clacking and the Little Giant goes to work. Mr. Nicholson, the staff ad- viser, tries to keep The Spire, which is nearly always two weeks behind, up to date. The Print Shop has an important role in the school besides that of teaching. Among countless other jobs, it prints up office forms, reports and announcements sent home to parents, and pro- grams for inter-school activities. In the fifth grade, students have their first opportunity to take printing. They begin with simple exercises such as note pads and book- marks. In sixth and seventh they go on to Impressions, hand setting and printing inspira- tional poems or prose which they select. Ninth graders are mainly concerned with pub- lications, and eighth graders look forward to the day when they, too, may grace the staff of The Spire, Ex Multis or Alumni Bulletin. Shortly after mid-year the school received some photographic equipment for the darkroom, located in the Print Shop. Several enthusiasts, under the direction of Mr. Cooper, found work in photography very rewarding and enjoyable. Not only did they learn the mechanics of devel- oping and printing, but they also delved into the chemical processes involved.

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ROW 1: Plowden, Watson, Fairchild, Greene, Symmers, Malozemoff, Hansell. ROW 2: Knapp, Searls, Stevenson, Murphy, Adams, Mr. Merriss. ROW 3: Warner, Green,Shean, Towe. Rogers. Ex Multis board chooses best of the best At three o'clock Monday afternoon, everyone in the ninth grade drops his diligent work and scrambles to his publication meeting. A few have other commitments, but the best of the rest come, jocularly perambulating into Mr. Merriss's room, where he is doodling aimlessly. The well-known and perhaps dilapidated folders bearing the names accepted,', rejected , may- be , and 'ffor considerationn are pulled out of the file and are thrown upon the desk. After the staff shuffles around, slams the door, yaks a bit, and finally quiets down, Mr. Merriss proceeds to read the first composition taken from the thick pile which had been collected on the previous Friday. During the first meeting we cleared the usual fuzzy details, procedures were outlined, work divisions established, and responsibilities allotted. We decided not to elect the editors until the end of the year, so that elections could be based on how much work the staff as a whole felt that each individual had accomplished. We found that this plan provided a goal for us to strive for. The whole board worked in one big bubbling group. We organized the comp-collecting system, and Mr. Merriss advised some gentle nagging to spur those teachers on,'. At first our opinions about the compositions wavered, but these past months have mellowed our tastes, and our accepted pile is becoming pleasantly plumpl' with choice, selected master- pieces. New ideas for the oh-how cute theme, and illustrations by our more artistic members were constantly popping up. We found reading comps of several hundred different styles most enjoyable. Monday afternoons passed quickly by, with Mr. Merrissis voice droning on and on, inter- spersed with laughs, tears, nudges, and groans. We were certainly all very content sitting peace- fully in our easy chairs while that hectic Spire board was running in circles with activity.