TORONTO - The Toronto Gay Ski & Snowboard Club has been actively serving the needs of the LGBTQ community in Toronto for the past sixteen years.
On March 3rd, at their regular evening social held at boutique bar in Toronto, the club announced that it is leaping into the future: the Toronto Gay Ski and Snowboarding Club (TGSC) will be rebranding itself in time for next year’s ski and snowboard season.
Why Rebranding Now?
This is being done to ensure that as an inclusive organization, we are visibly open to all members of our diverse community.
TGSC was established in 2001 by David Solomon and some of his close friends. The club’s focus has been primarily on Local Trips, Out of Town Trips, Social Events and the once-per-year charity event with SOY.
The current leadership has made diversity and engagement a priority to overcome these issues. A minor brand refresh was done in 2010 to add Snowboarding to the group name, along with the rainbow snowflake logo, with the addition of the motto "We Belong".
Membership has broadened to include many women, visible minority and trans members, but still falls far short of being representative. The current brand supports neither the LGBTQ inclusive nature of the club nor the regional/national relationships of the club.
Aligning with OUTSLOPES
TGSC will become a "Local Member Club", aligning itself with the international OUTSLOPES Brand.
OUTSLOPES is a growing LGBT Ski & Snowboard experience company, with membership world-wide, working to build and unite the LGBT Ski & Snowboard communities by creating social recreational trips & events to bring the communities together.  Local Member Clubs, like Toronto, provide regular volunteer based trips for areas that have a larger concentration of members.  Taking many of the back-end operational pressures off local leadership, OUTSLOPES will manage membership services, and provide operational support, as well as increased marketing awareness, allowing Toronto Club leaders to focus on planning local trips and events.
Rebranding
In order to address issues of visible inclusivity, the Toronto Club is taking their alignment with OUTSLOPES one step further.  Licensing the OUTSLOPES branding to use locally, the Toronto club will get a fresh new look and feel, one which better reflects the true inclusive nature of the club.
The OUTSLOPES logo is itself a representation of the organization as a "LGBT Safe Space" with the internationally recognized pink triangle as the base.  The triangle is split to give the illusion of a mountain range we skiers make our life riding.  A swoosh through the mountains represents the tracks left behind by skis or boards.
Licensing this logo, Toronto is added to the bottom for the local club to promote it's own unique identity as a member of OUTSLOPES.
What this means for existing members
Existing Toronto club members will begin being migrated over to OUTSLOPES during the summer.
By becoming part of OUTSLOPES, members will enjoy access to trips and activities of other Local Member Clubs across the OUTSLOPES network of clubs, and increased services and access to OUTSLOPES Member Discounts for trips and activities, and a fresh new easy to navigate and use website.
Over the summer the task of migrating the membership and mailing lists will take place, and members will begin to receive regular email updates directly from OUTSLOPES that will include news and information about trips and offerings, as well information specific to their local club in Toronto.