Strength in numbers and the Magic of Working Together. (National Commentary).(Brief Article)

The theme of this year's Credit Congress, the Magic of Working Together, captures the progress we have made in the past leadership year. We held our first joint meeting of the National Board of Directors and Affiliate COOs and CEOs in December, and have been working with a renewed spirit of partnership throughout the past six months.

We were pleased to release a Volunteer Leadership training series, in both video and CD format, produced under one of the National Strategic Initiatives. Glenn Tecker, a leading trainer in the area of volunteer boards, serves as host of the three hours of instruction about the roles and responsibilities of volunteer leaders. We hope that this series will be used locally and nationally to help our volunteers to understand their important and critical roles in our organization for years to come. We are also thrilled to have Mr. Tecker participating in this year's Credit Congress as the leader of two sessions on the topic of board governance.

We have just embarked on a major marketing campaign to attract new members to our NACM organization through your NACM Affiliate. This campaign is one part of a full marketing effort undertaken this fiscal year, and funded by the membership dues increase that went into effect in October 2001. The campaign was designed by Frost Miller, a marketing/public relations firm, retained by NACM-National after discussions and agreement by the Strategic Planning Committee last summer. This year's effort includes three parts: the creation of a marketing "Brand Bible," the launch of a public relations campaign and the launch of a membership marketing campaign.

Frost Miller has created a marketing "Brand Bible" which will be distributed to all Affiliates at the Las Vegas Credit Congress. Created to assist NACM Affiliates with marketing membership and services, the Brand Bible is a "how to" marketing manual. It will include details and information about direct mail campaigns, e-mail marketing campaigns, sales calls, and will provide a blueprint plan to help every Affiliate launch a Get-a-Member campaign.

The Public Relations campaign, scheduled to kick off in July, will include publishing articles about business credit and NACM in publications to ...