If you missed Homecoming last weekend, here’s your chance to get a taste of what it’s like to be part of this community. Girls Volleyball played Cony on Friday afternoon, and the student body turned out in force to support their Panthers… who responded with their first win in two years!

The new NYA website is designed to be a window into this school spirit and the same kind of enthusiasm and focus you’ll find at music and drama performances, art shows, and, yes, even Algebra and Biology classes. (OK, perhaps without the cheering crowds…)

Get on campus in person whenever you can – it’s worth it. But if that isn’t possible, you can always stay connected through www.nya.org, and on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Flickr.

(Have you become a fan of North Yarmouth Academy on Facebook, yet? I’ll walk you through the simple steps in the next post here.)

Stay tuned, and stay connected.

If you were already following NYA on Twitter yesterday (9/8/09), you would have known that video of Convocation speeches was posted on YouTube shortly after the ceremony (thank you, Chris Mazzurco.) It was a beautiful morning, and the speakers were brief and moving. If you couldn’t be there, this is the next best thing. Have a look for yourself. Here’s Alex Ward making his fellow students proud:

Can you live without Twitter? Hmmm. Probably. But it is another way to stay connected to the NYA community and get a flavor for what life is like at school from day to day.

It’s pretty easy to sign up*, and then you just jump in. Listen. Find people with similar interests. Join conversations. Broaden your mind. NYA is leading the way…

*If you’d like help, leave a comment here or email walter@briggsadv.com, and I’ll send you some step-by-step instructions.

Welcome to blog post #1 at the NYA Website Project Blog. We’re well along in the process of redesigning nya.org, and we think you’re going to find the new site easier to use, more engaging, and a better representation of the leadership and excellence that defines our school.

There are two goals we set for the new website:

• It should communicate the characteristics of the school that make it a unique and special institution.
• It should work to keep community members connected to the school and to each other.

NYA has a brand… A personality… A set of attributes that make it attractive to those of us who work or study there – or choose to send our children there. That brand should be understood both explicitly and implicitly by any visitor to nya.org. Visual design, functional organization, and content are the tools we use to help make that happen.

NYA also has a community. Students, parents, alumni, faculty, staff… all connected at one time or another to one another through our relationship with the school. We’d like to help keep those connections going longer and make them stronger.

In the past couple of years, the internet has evolved dramatically into a participatory, social, conversation medium. We plan to use a number of channels like Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and lots more to make nya.org a leader in the school website genre. For starters, if you click on the little orange NYA box on the twitter feed in the right-hand column, you’ll find a way to follow NYA’s updates.

We’ll be posting more details here regularly, and invite you to comment and participate. Subscribe via RSS, follow the NYA Twitter feed (twitter.com/nyatoday) or just check back often.

So, stay tuned… and be connected.