Team Building
Staff Activities
To promote staff bonding and create a positive, engaging environment in the publication room, I helped facilitate a haunted house activity during Halloween. Within teams and independent sections, staffers had to construct a haunted house out of cookies, candy, and frosting. There were some creative and innovative architectural decisions, and at the end, my fellow EIC and I voted and announced the winner.
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Another way I have helped foster a fun atmosphere is through dedicating time during class once and a while for exciting activities to let loose. A popular activity is Just Dance where everyone comes to the front of the room to dance and laugh.
Fun Slack Channels
Aside from only having informative channels on Slack, we also have fun channels for staffers to contribute to such as a pet pics channel, a random channel, and more. At the start of some weeks, a Slack Challenge is included on the agenda where staffers receive a prompt and provide a response and reply to others in the respective channel.
Moostipher the Muse Moose
On The Muse, my Co-EIC and I decided that we need a publication mascot as a way to boost morale. We left it up to the staff to vote between a moose and a seal as our mascot, and by an almost unanimous vote, the moose won. Our stuffed animal mascot, Moostipher, inspires and uplifts the staff.
Themed Stay-Afters
In order to proof pages, provide critiques, and foster communication, we hold after school stay-afters on both The Muse and Marquee. Here, all staff members are able to work together and bond in the process. To make the stay-afters fun, we often make them themed with categories such as pajama party, holiday, favorite singer, etc. For the Marquee, I lead proofing stay-afters and ensure all pages are checked by at least three people, and then I delegate the pages among myself and others to apply the proofing edits. On The Muse, we have a multitude of stay-afters throughout the process of our print issue production including our mid-point stay-after, first page deadline stay-after, and proofing stay-afters.
Promoting Staff Work
To promote positivity and celebrate the amazing work of the staff, my Co-EIC and I create award presentations at the end of each quarter to celebrate staffers and editors spanning from all sections of the publication. Additionally, we nominate a staff member per period on a regular basis to be our Star Staffer. Their photo is posted on the bulletin board and they are celebrated for their dedication and exceptional efforts to the staff. Another way we celebrate the staff is through WOW Wednesday and Triumphant Thursday. Each week, we nominate a recently published piece of content to celebrate and reflect on among the staff. We note what makes the piece so excellent and discuss how we can continue to produce engaging and quality content.
