As
the MBAA Heritage Chair and our District Midwest Heritage Chair, I am pleased
to share with all of you...history in the
making! District Cincinnati has
formally changed its name to
"District Midwest".
At our two previous Board of
Governors meetings in Portland, Oregon in July 2012, and our most recent
meeting in Austin, Texas this past October, much of the dialogue centered upon
ensuring value and driving relevance to our membership. Our MBAA Strategic Plan
and its accompanying objectives deal with encouraging more participation in our
local districts. Answering this call,
many of us in District Cincinnati began discussing the possibility of changing
the name of our local district from “District Cincinnati” to, well, something
else that would better reflect just who we are.
Over the course of several district meetings, members discussed the pros
and cons of the name change.
The “preservation debate” is rarely,
if ever, an easy one. Our district
name-change certainly fits that billing.
Some members were very much opposed to the change, citing the
long-standing heritage of Cincinnati and its brewing traditions. We were, after
all, one of the original districts present at that first Chicago meeting where
our founders formed MBAA in March of 1887, a remarkable claim! Just a few years ago, we even changed our
district emblem to better reflect this.
I reminded our members that, in
order to drive relevance and better reflect its purpose, even National MBAA has
changed its name three times since 1887! In like manner, our name change to
"District Midwest" also drives relevance and better reflects our
purpose. The name is far more inclusionary. It acknowledges and receives with
open arms the gifts of the separate brewing heritages of the entire state of
Ohio, all of eastern Indiana, and all of northern Kentucky.
The change was agreed upon at our
April 6, 2013 district meeting, quite fittingly, at the Morlein Lager
House...in downtown Cincinnati. And...on March 20th, 2014, District Cincinnati officially became District Midwest! Now we begin a second
challenge, that of creating an emblem that properly represents just who we are
as a district, while at the same time recognizing our 127 year district history. This has been a wonderful, "Hands-On-Heritge" experience for all of our members!
Rick Seemueller
District Midwest Heritage Chair
