Maschinengewehr, school magazine of Masaryk Grammar School, won the first place in regional round. And because of this success in September, we moved forward to the competition School magazine of the year held by High Clubs Association.
Our redaction received the invitation for Multimedia Day in October organized by Faculty of Social Studies at Masaryk University in Brno. Together with Simon Sagner (oktava B) we set on the trip to Brno one rainy Friday morning to present our magazine as well as our school.
The whole event took place on 24th November, exactly 300 days after our new president had been elected. How do we do a president? This was one of the things we found out about in Brno. During the debates with the journalist professionals, we had the chance to get to know how it works during the elections, presidential campaigns and how the journalists need to be prepared for the elections. The programme was excellently composed and everybody could find whatever they liked. The were a lot of workshops for elementary, high school and university students during the whole day. We took part in the debate “How to take pictures of the president” and the main debate “How to make the president”. We personally met some professional journalists, photographers and redactors. Luboš Pavlíček and Igor Zehl, regional photographers, the ČTK editor in chief Radka Matesová Marková, journalist and moderator Jindřich Šídlo, Dominika Hejl Hromková, Aktuálně.cz editor and many others were invited.
The part of the programme was a results announcement for categories: elementary schools, high schools. Between 9 to 12 am there was medial fair where we could circulate and see many stalls presenting the magazines and newspapers such as CTK, Radio R, Svobodná Evropa and many more. Together with Šimon we won some pens in a small competition. We learnt about some possibilities of scholarship in the Czech TV or the possibility to take part in Medial Olympics. The stalls were surrounded by the boards with all magazines in the competition. We were excited, overwhelmed and stunned by the creativity of other editors and student magazines redactions.
Shortly after 1 PM there was ceremony for high schools held. To our surprise there were a lot of sub-categories: such as: The best title, content, graphics, the price of the jury and the overall winner. With our MG magazine we finally won the jury award. Our final result was 17th place out of 34.
Despite the fact that we spend more then 10 hours travelling, we were excited and happy about the trip. Smiling and awarded we returned to Pilsen. We were surprised how many magazines are supervised by the teachers or even by the headmaster. Magazine Maschinengewehr is fully managed, organized, designed and created by the students only, and we are very proud of our work.
Anna Marie Potůčková, 3. A, loose translation
