What’s the big picture at NYA? It doesn’t take long to realize that the “Big Picture,” per se, is an illusion. Or, rather, it’s the synthesis of lots and lots of little pictures – thousands of individual stories that have played out over the 200-year history of the school. And of new stories that are happening every day. Stories that are rich and fascinating and engaging and meaningful. Stories that can be told in photographs. And sentence fragments. ;-D

The best way we can help you connect to the big picture that is an NYA education is to let you see those stories as they happen – and to let you tell those stories as they happen. Flickr is one cool medium to make this easy and fun.

Think of Flickr as a giant, multi-person photo album in the internet cloud. It’s a running (edited, thankfully) stream of what’s going on at NYA in photos taken by faculty, staff, parents and kids. It runs the gamut from classroom to community service, sports events to artworks. Take a look to see what’s going on, and then join in by sending your NYA photos to us. The address is photos@nya.org. At this time, you can only send them one at a time, and there’s a little (approval) lag between when you email and when they show up; but we’re learning to walk before we fly.

Who’s going to be first to send a photo? You?

Stay tuned, and stay connected.

NYA Facebook Fan Page

Whether you use facebook to find old friends, stay connected to far flung family, or follow your favorite philharmonic,  something you should definitely do is become a fan of your favorite school, North Yarmouth Academy. It’s a great way to get a flavor of what life is like on campus in a way that’s different from the news you find on the school website, though that will be changing soon. Using social networking and social media are an integral part of our new web strategy for exactly that reason.

Whether you are prospective students and families, current students and families, alumni, staff or whoever, social network sites are a way to connect with the school on real world, real time level. Try it!

I could walk you through the steps to sign up for your Facebook account, but it’s probably easier to just go there and follow the (metaphorical) bouncing ball. They try to make it pretty easy. If you want a tutorial, go here for some great beginner videos about the site. (Warning: it’s called Facebook for Grownups.)

Once you have your account, search for North Yarmouth Academy, or click here to find the NYA Fan Page, and click “Become a Fan” and that’s it. You can see what’s going on, and add comments of your own.

Stay tuned, and stay connected.

Millie, Mary, Kristen, Liz, Marnie, Meghan, and Jen

Wendy’s story:

When we were first looking at schools in 2000, we were concerned about how sending our children out of our community would affect them socially. NYA is 35 minutes away from our home, and we worried about how Marnie and her younger brother (Duncan ‘08) would make friends. Would they? Would we parents ever see them?

We attended an Admissions Information Night at NYA, and one parent of a grad told the assembled group that the connections her daughter forged at NYA were so strong that her friends still came to visit, long after graduation, even when her daughter wasn’t home. That was a remarkable moment for us. Fast forward to 2009…

We got into the habit of making pizza in our wood-fired oven for groups (sometimes very large groups) of our kids’ NYA classmates and friends and those nights turned into great, social, laughing, eating, bonding events that transcended ages. We grew to adore our kids’ friends, and have an open door to them anytime.

One thing about open doors at NYA is that people use them.

Marnie spent most of the Summer in Seattle, but we still enjoyed visits in Arrowsic from her friends. Here are Kristen and Millie with Charlotte Briggs (’11), after pizza and before a hilarious game of Things in a Box.

Kristen, Charlotte, Millie

We missed Marnie, of course, but clearly we feel fortunate to know the people she met during her years at NYA, and we know that we’ll always be connected to them.

On a side note – since this IS about the website – I asked each of the girls (Kristen, Millie, Marnie) if they ever went back to nya.org to see what’s going on, and they all admitted to regular use of the Works Cited page when writing college papers. I believe the amusement over that coincidence has been making its way around various Facebook and mobile phone channels. And, the faculty loved hearing that one!

Stay connected,

Walter & Wendy Briggs