The Planning Committee oversees the Telling Bee. You are responsible for scheduling, deadlines, special support for teachers and students, troubleshooting, parent communications, book preparation, and the book launch.Here are the steps to running a successful Telling Bee.
1) Scheduling: You need to have deadlines for the following parts of the Telling Bee -
- Storytelling by students, teachers, and other staff members (4-6 weeks).
- Writing, editing, preparing final drafts. Each class submits a chapter of stories.
- Inputting stories, designing the book, preparing the camera-ready manuscript.
- Printing the book.
- Planning and celebrating the book launch.
2) Communicate with the parents: Send a letter home explaining that the school is launching a Telling Bee.
3) Special support: There will probably be a few students who find it hard to tell in class. They might have trouble with English, or be severely shy. The Planning Committee should ensure that teachers and students get extra help if needed. EVERYONE should have the opportunity to participate in the storytelling!
4) Principals, caretakers, secretaries: For people who are not part of a class the committee should provide a special opportunity for them to tell their stories to a listener or group of listeners. These tellers should write their stories down so they can be included in the book.
5) Desktop publishing: After collecting the edited chapters, the committee inputs them with a standard word processing program (whichever the Telling Bee Book designer prefers). The copy should be carefully proofread, with special attention given to names and story titles. After a final proofread, the designer can create a camera-ready manuscript. YOU SHOULD ALWAYS PROOFREAD ONE EXTRA TIME!
6) Extra money: If the committee chooses, you can seek paid acknowledgements from local businesses. These are usually congratulatory notices, not commercial ads. The monies raised from these "ads" can defray the cost of printing. They should run at the back of the book.
7) Making a book: For printing/copying you can take the manuscript to a local copy shop, or try your Board of Education's printing department. Try to keep printing costs as low as possible, while still getting a nicely printed and bound book. You should decide if you're going to sell the book at cost, or include a mark-up to help pay for the costs of the project.
8) Celebration: Plan and carry out a celebration of this extraordinary book! Children can tell their stories in the various classrooms, books can be sold and autographed by the students, you can have a ceremony where people thank the grandparents, parents, and friends who told them stories in the first place.
Please feel free to contact Telling Beekeeper Dan Yashinsky at any time. Phone: (416) 654-1542, e-mail: dan@tellery.com.