At the January meeting, the NCATA Board of Directors voted to change the name of the organization to BikeWalk NC. We hope that the new name will help people more quickly recognize the purpose of the organization as a statewide voice for people who travel under their own power. Our mission is still to support all facets of active transportation (skating, walking,
running, cycling, etc. for utility or recreation) but we found that our elevator speech was hampered by having to define active transportation every time. Also, it’s just easier to say BikeWalk NC.
With our rebranding we also took the opportunity to redesign our web site from scratch, providing a cleaner look and what we hope users will find to be easier navigation. The new site runs on WordPress, which should be easier for our volunteers to use and maintain than our original Drupal based site. That means we’ll be putting a lot more content on the site, while we also leverage our new Facebook page for dynamic sharing and discussion.
Part of January’s rebranding discussion underscored our continued commitment to serve all active transportation users. We are fortunate to have a large and very active bicycling community in NC that provides a lot of volunteer effort and energy to our mission. We also have experienced transportation professionals and walkability advocates working with us to promote pedestrian interests. We have volunteers with backgrounds in public health, law enforcement, education and engineering. Some of our members are focused on recreation while others are focused on utilitarian trips. Our diversity makes us more credible and effective advocates. Our numbers make us powerful. We hope you’ll join us.
