The NACAC AA Executive Council in its meeting on February 22, 2016 held in San Juan, Puerto Rico with all of its members present, with the exception of Abby Hoffman, who was excused, decided to start a project to adopt a new logo, which will identify the NACAC Area and create an image of the organization, attractive for marketing, media, social media and for all our stakeholders of all ages.

Also, present was IAAF Interim General Secretary, Jean Gracia who was representing President Sebastian Coe, who is a NACAC Council Ex Officio Member.

NACAC AA President, Professor Victor Lopez, appointed NACAC General Secretary, Professor Michael Serralta, Chairman of the new logo project. The Council decided to have a contest among all NACAC AA stakeholders, where individuals or organizations, submit proposals with a deadline of June 24, 2016.

Also, President Lopez recommended to the Council that in order to create interest and give an incentive to the participants in the contest, to award the winner with a trip, free of charge, to the 2017 IAAF World Relays Championships that will be held in Nassau, Bahamas in April 22-23, 2017. Due to the lack of response by the NACAC AA stakeholders during the months leading to the deadline, it was extended for June 30th plus the NACAC Executive decided to open the contest worldwide.

The NACAC AA office received nine proposals, all very good and professionally done, with eight coming from individuals from the NACAC area and one from Ghana, Africa. The eight NACAC countries represented were, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Costa Rica, Grenada, Honduras, Jamaica, and USA.

A jury of experts in graphics arts, media, marketing, publicity, plus two members of the NACAC Council and a NACAC athletes representative, was appointed by the NACAC AA Executive to review the proposals and to select the new logo. The Jury met last Tuesday July 12, 2016, both in person and through a conference call and after discussions and analysis of each logo proposal, a selection was made based on the criteria previously established. Then the Logo selected was sent to the NACAC Executive Council for ratification and final approval. The NACAC Council unanimously approved the Logo selected by the Jury.

The Logo was unveiled Sunday July 17, 2016 in San Salvador, El Salvador during the Closing Banquet of the IX NACAC U23 Championships 2016 and the winner of the contest was Santiago D. Garcia, a graphic artist from Honduras.

With the launching of the new Logo the NACAC AA will start a new campaign of marketing, television broadcasting, a new web page that will be launched after the Rio Olympics and an overall new business and publicity approach. In order to achieve this goal, the NACAC AA is putting together an International Circuit of one-day meetings plus is expanding the championships calendar that will include, around 20 Area Permit One Day Meetings and new championships such as, the Half Marathon, Mountain and Trail Running and moving the NACAC Seniors (Open) Championships to the even year the same week as the European and African Championships.

The NACAC AA expects to have all their championships and APMs confirmed with the host countries and cities up to 2020 by September 2016. That will give our Stakeholders and sponsors plenty of time to organize and promote the different competitions. The idea is to put together a very attractive package for marketing and television in order to come up with the resources to eventually award prize money in all the APMs and in the NACAC major championships.

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