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

Page 86 text:

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.

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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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Alumni Bulletin keeps in touch with graduates All publications have their problems. The most prevalent problem of the Alumni Bulletin was to procure a staff, for, at the start of the year, there was but one member, Mr. Witherbee. As it turned out, Mr. Witherbee, beginning the season alone, set himself to the tedious task of contacting the Alumni, and keeping in touch wth them. This being accomplished, the board showed a gradual increase in members. As usual, the school was infested by ambitious Bulletin,, photographers snapping photos of the newest aspects of the school to indicate to the Alumni that their school was forever changing and improving. When all the replies were finally received from the class secretaries, the task was to rewrite and assemble them in a fashion interesting to the Alumni. Although the actual printing of the Bul- letin was done by Mr. Fricke, there were letters to be signed and envelopes to be printed and ad- dressed by the staff. The last few weeks of activity included assembling the many copies of the mag- azine, stapling them, and finally mailing them to our Alumni scattered all over the country. Cer- tainly, for the work they accomplished, congratu- lations are in order for the board, but, for his diligent work on its behalf, the Board of the Alumni Bulletin wishes Mr. Witherbee to accept its sincere appreciation. Bartlett, Park, Bunnell. Mr. Witherbee, Martin, Fish.