Dear GGA Parents Club Members

Welcome, congratulations to your upcoming competitive gymnast season, this is an exciting time. Meeting new people, getting to know our coaches, competing in meets. It is also an expensive time. But don't fret; the GGA Program is here to help you meet those financial obligations. Our program is designed to help you offset these costs by selling ad space to businesses, friends, and family members, helping you meet your total commitment requirements. After purchasing several programs from the different gyms we visited in the past, I can say nobody comes close to the quality of our program. 100% of the ad money that you collect will be credited toward your total commitment, with the exception of plaques, color pages and the initial cost of a banner. Please see notation at the bottom of page 2. (1) Should you exceed your total commitment, your money can be carried over into next year’s total commitment.

First of all, our entire program is done using desktop publishing software and submitted to our printer in digital form. Every ad you submit to us will be scanned unless you submit them to us digitally (then that opens a whole other can of worms). Most ads in the program are grayscale or black and white. If all you have is a color copy like business cards or ads from businesses we'll scan it directly to the computer and change it to grayscale there, do not make a photocopy of it. Newspaper ads are not the best to scan from. If you are putting your ad together on paper, try to give us the actual photos do not make photo copies of them, we will do our best to get them back to you. Some people like to use stickers or cutting and pasting typed lines on a paper for your ad, this is fine as long as we get the original mock up to scan from. If your photo (especially digital) is printed on regular paper it is very grainy, you can just give us your digital photo on disk or e-mail it to us.

Next, your template paper is made up of different sizes for different size ads. Your ad does not have to be given to us on the template but it needs fit inside the line of your template or be proportional to the template. Basically if it does not fit inside the lines we can't use it. Try to put a personal line on your ad, this serves two purposes, it not only personalizes your ad but it helps us keep them straight. Example: Go Suzie! When using photo’s put your daughter’s name and level on the back, paperclip your photo to your ad and write in pencil "place photo here" on the actual ad. If you are using several pictures on one ad please number the paper and your photos. The pictures taken by professional companies, like the action shots you buy at the meets, are copyrighted and shouldn’t be used without permission. Try to remember to ask when purchasing, most photographers will understand. But without permission we may have to do some modifications to the image. Like cropping it down, taking the background out, anything to change the image enough so it is not recognizable as the same image. We don't want any lawsuits do we? If you would like to use the professional individual and/or team photos that will be taken at the beginning of the school year, simply write that on your ads. We will have those photos on a disk and be working on the program before you get your hard copy so just let me know.

Now for the computer savvy people who like to give us a disk with your ad on it, here are the instructions for this year. Best file format is PDF; settings should be at 300 with fonts embedded. The reason for embedding the font is not all computers have and use the same fonts. If you use a font not recognized by the printer's computer it will be converted to the default font for that computer. A print out of your digital ad must accompany the sponsorship form. We need to be able to make sure everything looks as it did when you made it. Another word on fonts, it is better to use a font that is already bold rather than making it bold after you type it, this again is not picked up by the printer's computer. Also acceptable formats to convert into Quark are, Word, Publisher, PageMaker, Quark, Illustrator and Photoshop - save as tiff with LZW compression. Saving your pages in PDF format will always work best if you can do so. Another note regarding photos, if you need to make an image fit in a certain spot on your ad, put your mouse on the lower right or left corner and your mouse will look like a diagonal arrow. Hold the shift key while changing the size and this will keep the correct size ratio during the change.

We would like to have at least one picture ad in the program for all the gymnasts so no one feels left out. So if you have to put money into your daughter's account and it is coming out of your pocket why not have a picture of your daughter or your family in the program. Remember all of the program ad money goes towards the money that you owe, no matter if it is your ad or a company ad sponsoring your daughter. If you don't feel you're creative but have something in mind, talk to Amy or myself we can put something together for you.

Finally, we need time to put this whole thing together, so the deadline is the deadline. After the deadline date NO AD will be accepted! If you don't know the deadline date please ask.

BANNERS - make them simple the fewer the words the better. Look at the banners that hang in the gym now for ideas. If you have to stand right in front of them to see what they say then how can someone read it from across the gym floor? Eagle Graphics does our banners they will only do them if we keep it simple with the number of colors limited to no more than three. The cost of making the banner will come out of your account, which is approximately $60.

(1) There are a few exception to this. If you acquire a platinum, gold, or silver sponsor and they wish to have the plaque, the cost of the plaque will be deducted from your account. Also with the purchase of a full color page (see sponsorship form) there is a printing fee, therefore $70 of the $270 is for printing the color page, and that will be deducted from your account. Also with the purchase of new banner there is processing fee, therefore $60 of the $360 will go towards the processing of the new banner.

That is a lot of information to process. All of it is very important, but here is a quick rundown.

#1 We need a paper trail to keep track of all ads. Every ad must have a sponsorship form even if you email it, submit it on CD, or write it on a piece of paper, still submit a paper copy.

#2 Try to always submit original art, photos, and ads. No photocopies.

#3 DO NOT use staples or tape on the front on your photos or ad’s. Paper clips only.

#4 Your ad needs to fit inside the template or be proportional with the template.

#5 If you're submitting digital ads please read that section carefully.

#6 Please put your gymnasts name and level and the back of your photo.

#7 Please look at last year’s program and do not steel another active gymnasts sponsor. Some of these girls have worked hard and have had the same sponsors for a long time.

If you have any questions please leave a note in Darcie O'Brien's (L-10) folder.

Click here to download this form: How to make an ad

Click here to download a sponsorship form: Sponsorship Form

Click here to download a form for CHECK ONLY, No ad, No sponsorship, or No banner, Just a Check: Personal check Form

Click here to download ad templates: All Size Template Layout