There are a lot of changes coming as we embark on the journey of “branding” our district!

The goal is to maintain our own identity while aligning ourselves closely with Toastmasters International to enhance our professional profile.

District leadership is excited about this new venture and believe that with everyone’s assistance, we can eventually have the most outstanding district presence on the Internet.

Branding is a time-consuming process so I apologize in advance for any inconsistencies that may cause temporary confusion. We have ideas that are proven effective and we are going to experiment with some new concepts as well. We’ll keep things that work and toss the things that don’t.

The most notable and immediate change will be the front page of our web site. The web is a valuable and under-used marketing tool. Unlike other districts, we are now going to target the non-toastmasters through our web site (in alignment with TI).

Our team will also address the issue of too much information for members. Countless toastmasters have written informative articles that are not being used as the valuable resources they were intended. Why? Because many are outdated.

District leadership respects and values your time, so we are going to adopt methods that will ensure your voice is heard.

By streamlining the resources, our members will be able to readily access the most current and accurate information. This is especially important at a time when TI is making so many changes in policy.

There have been some questions about logo. TI is showcasing a new logo and the district has a similar one. However, just like TI, we will continue to selectively use the original logo. It will take time for the public to accept the new image without some visual relationship to the original.

Another change in TI policy is that they have requested we not us a district theme on our web site and business cards. We can, however, use it on materials promoting the district only, such as our district contests and conference.

As part of our branding, we will be reformatting the District 26 Dialogue as well.

Our objectives are to 1) limit it to 6-8 pages, 2) present news in short, easy to scan paragraphs, 3) ensure the articles are of district-wide appeal, 4) direct you to informative web articles.

Few people print the newsletter, but for those who do, we are going to save you some ink by using only graphics that are relevant to the articles. We ask those submitting news to include a photo whenever possible.

Please note that the “branding” applies only to the district. Individual clubs are still free to project their unique identity.