Hopefully you have noticed that the NCA website looks quite different from what it was before. That's because now the website focuses on news and feature articles about the costuming industry.
Why did we make this change? The basic idea behind it is that news and feature articles attract attention, and the more traffic we get to the NCA website, the higher profile the association will have. Another motivation behind the news-oriented website is that one of the NCA's purposes is to support the costuming industry as a whole, and a website that shares news and resources does that.
The website design is modeled on news websites. The back end of the website is provided by a company called MetroPublisher. New NCA managers Ed Avis and Kathy Furore have used MetroPublisher-designed websites for another association they manage -- Association of Printing and Data Solutions Professionals -- and a trade magazine they publish -- el Restaurante.
Avis and Furore, who are married, are journalists by trade. They have been managing Costumer, NCA's member publication, for the past five years. You may recognize some of the articles on the website as past Costumer articles. You also can find new articles created for the website itself, and abbreviated articles from other sources with links back to the originals.
The popular Product Parade portion of Costumer magazine also is being reproduced on the website. If you are a Vendor member of the association and have a new product, definitely send a photo and information Kathy at kfurore@yahoo.com. Your products deserve more exposure!
Another thing you will notice on the new website is more advertising from Vendor members. As traffic to the site increases, the value of that advertising will rise, and providing value to all of our members is a worthwhile endeavor. If you are a current Vendor member and would like to use some or all of your advertising credit on the website, please contact Ed Avis at executivedirector@costumers.org or 708-646-2799.
Would you like to contribute to the website? We would love to have articles, photos and other material from members. Please send those things to Kathy at kfurore@yahoo.com.
Stay tuned as the site grows in the coming months!