From: gibbsm@ll.mit.edu (MargARET D. Gibbs)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv.soaps
Subject: Re: AMC: TAN: YEARBOOK!!!
Date: 27 Jul 92 14:53:53 GMT
Organization: M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory

Genevieve, Laura, and others:

To answer your question:  "What is this yearbook thing anyway?"

Last fall, Mary Allison, Jeep Meranda, and a few other people 
started talking about the possibility of creating a yearbook/album 
of the AMC fans in this newsgroup.  (Jeep had done a yearbook for 
the ATWT group previously, and Mary had organized one for a
mailing list.)  More discussion of the idea ensued via email, 
so as not to clutter the AMC conversation.  Then Mary posted 
to the net to ask for volunteers to organize the yearbook 
(there was even some suggestions of making a video tape with 
AMC r.a.t.s.-ers).  The response was underwhelming, and the 
idea was dropped for several months.  I was one of the original
volunteers (as was Mary), and decided to run a vote (in March) to see 
how many people were willing to participate in various yearbook
options (ie:  color or B&W, multiple copies or one circulating
copy, central editor/copier or each participant copy their own page
the required number of times).  There were a *lot* of voters, and 
the final decision was to create a color yearbook, with individual 
copies for each participant.  People sent in pictures, money, and 
short blurbs about themselves... we had 57 participants!  The deadline 
for yearbook contributions was originally May 15, but it was extended 
until June 1.  If you started reading this newsgroup after that time, 
that's probably the reason you never heard of the AMC yearbook.  

Here's what I wrote to the participants, which pretty much sums up
the major part of the album:

     Everyone sends in two or three pictures (non-returnable), plus 
     a check.  Also, everyone emails a short "blurb" about themselves. 
     The editor gets color photocopies made of the pictures,
     prints up the blurbs on a Mac, pastes the pictures to the blurb
     pages, puts them in a binder, and sends the "yearbook" to 
     the participants.   Everyone gets an 8-1/2 x 11 page.    
 
Besides the pictures and blurbs, the yearbook contains a color map of
Pine Valley (as imagined by Jeep), a montage of some of the AMC
characters (a beautiful pencil drawing rendered by Robin Griswold),
some candid shots of the stars taken by fellow r.a.t.s.ers, some
creative writing, puzzles, and a cast list (well, the cast list
is somewhat sketchy after 1987, but it's not bad!)  Also, there's
a section where people talk about what they remember from AMC past
storylines.  I collected the yearbook contributions, typeset the
blurbs, and did a lot of organization; Jeep did the copying, cutting,
and most of the pasting, plus the putting together of the yearbook.

OK, so now whoever has taken the time to read all of this knows what
the yearbook is, and its history.  Maybe you don't really care about
it, but perhaps you're wishing you could get a copy.  I'm afraid the
only extra color copy we made is going to be sent to AMC, so you're out 
of luck.  :-(

Wait a minute... Jeep tells me that we could still make black-and-white
copies of the yearbook for $6, and even include a color map of Pine Valley!
So if you're interested, send me some email and we'll see what we
can do for you!  :-)

-- 
Margaret D. Gibbs		"Practice random kindness and 
Assistant Staff			 senseless acts of beauty"
MIT Lincoln Laboratory
gibbsm@ll.mit.edu