How ironic it is that TOCA’s 20th anniversary celebration, set for May 12-14 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is themed:” Celebrating Deep Roots, Strong Branches, New Heights.”

If there ever was a time for our members to support our organization with deep rooted feelings of pride for TOCA, strong branches with emerging leaves of splendor from 20 years of strength, and looking into the next decade reaching for new heights at a time when pessimism has reached low to sap our spirit, this is it!

Please go to http://www.toca.org, learn all about our meeting and register today. The location is the beautiful Wyndham Rio Mar Beach Resort in San Juan. You won’t want to miss the meeting!

As we surveyed members in early February about attendance because of the economic calamity facing the U.S. and the world, I fully understood the frustration by our members and the difficult decision to attend the meeting. What I couldn’t understand was the underlying thinking of some in management who said “the perception” of San Juan as an exotic location was keeping some management folks from approving the trip.

I always feel communications professionals are trained to deal with perception. They do it in their marketing communications every day to their customers. They take their skills and create the perception that’s reality to the audience they are trying to reach. We lead by showing our audience perception isn’t reality -- that intelligent, forward-thinking leaders play a role in changing perceptions.

I also always believe that you spend your way out of a recession. Hey, and what better way than by buying airline tickets (reasonable to San Juan by the way), making reservations at hotels (similar in pricing to other TOCA meetings), taking tours or playing golf (OK, the golf is a little more expensive than usual, but the tour isn’t) and much more.

TOCA is your organization – through 20 years a celebration of longevity, camaraderie, professional development and recognizing communications excellence. We hope you will consider this meeting the start of our next 20 years and be part of history!

Recession? We know times are tough. But we also know how important it is to learn how to meet the challenges ahead as we communicate to all our audiences – customers and readers.

The agenda is taking shape. Here are the highlights:

• Wednesday morning tour of Old San Juan. Or golf at the picturesque Rio Mar Country Club on site at the resort.
  
  
• Wednesday afternoon will feature a couple speakers that will offer useful tips regarding how to get more value out of websites and podcasting. Jon Wuebben, author of “Content Rich – Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web” – will look focus on “Writing for Website Optimization.” Whether you're an editor or marketing communications/association specialist, Wuebben will help you optimize your technology to the benefit of your readers and/or customers.
  
  
• Our second Wednesday speaker will be Kenneth Piner, who will build on last year’s introductory discussion by Chuck Zimmerman on podcasts and focus on how to embellish your podcasting to make them more effective and profitable. There also may be a TOCA panel on technology and you may look for a survey from our program committee in March or April leading up to the meeting.

• Wednesday night will be a special treat for TOCA members. We will have an evening reception at the resort that will be breathtaking.
  
  
• Thursday’s program will begin with a Rainforest Tour especially designed for TOCA members with special access to areas and trails within the rainforest. The tour is in the morning because that’s the only timeframe allowed for access to it.
  
  
• The Thursday afternoon program will feature Jim Paluch, of JP Horizons, Inc., who will lead a presentation on working in the future “smarter and with lean tools” and then moderate a TOCA panel of members on the same issue. Should be enlightening and thought-provoking.
  
  
• Thursday night will be the annual awards dinner, where the best of TOCA members’ writing, design, photography and marketing communications work will be honored.

For those interested in staying after the meeting ends Thursday night and into the weekend, please note that on your registration. Our meeting planner, Shirley Bachmeier, has reserved some extra days in Puerto Rico at the resort at the TOCA room rate.

Thanks to the program committee chair Stacie Zinn and her crew for lining up this year’s program. Please contact our office if you need more information – 952/758-6340. Or email us at tocaassociation@aol.com. See you in San Juan!

Please make sure to read the message from your TOCA Board of Directors:
http://www.canyoncomm.com/toca/tocamembership_sp09.html