AASCIF - april-may-june04 From the AASCIF president

“You can never have too many friends.” I don’t know who said this first, but my mother said it often. And as with so many other things, she was right.

We shouldn’t compromise our beliefs just to make or keep friends, but we surely can be patient and generous to find the common ground that is almost always there in some measure. We don’t make personal friends just because we may need them someday. But especially in our businesses, who among us can afford to presume we will never be in need of a friend—maybe even a lot of them?

Our organization provides us with a great opportunity to make good friends, and it’s easy to do it with so many nice people and so much common ground. Our organization surely asks some people to be a particularly good friend to others. Individuals on our AASCIF committees are generous with their time and talent for the benefit of all of us. We had some great friends in 2003 who served us on committees, and on behalf of all of us, I say thanks to you.

Many are back in 2004 serving us again on committees—a really good friend is someone you turn to more than once. And, we also have new appointees who I’m confident will prove themselves the kind of friends you can really count on. In January our committees met to plan their work for the coming year in service to you. They have aggressive plans for the coming year with a “think outside the box” attitude that will serve us well for the times.

Have you made new friends? Have you been a good friend lately? Time is short and there are competing demands on it. Perhaps—if you’re lucky—you see no pressing problems. It’s tempting then to weigh the effort v. the immediate rewards. But, the best time to make new friends is before you need them.

Our own organization, Minnesota State Fund Mutual, is now celebrating its 20th year. Well before we were organized and well before we had an opportunity to be a good friend, AASCIF members came to the aid of our first board to help guide with key information and ideas. We are grateful.

We needed a good friend then. We’ve enjoyed lots of good friends since then, whether we earned them or not. We never know when we’ll need them again.

There’s no shortage of good reasons to be a good friend today.