The Chairman's Corner

By Robert Fraser
January 2017

I hope everybody had a great holiday season. I know I did! I love celebrating the Christmas holiday with family and friends and winding down the year to celebrate the new one.

Typically, our industry allows us this time to reflect on the past year to recognize the successes and failures that we all experienced in our businesses so that we can make changes to assure success in the new year. I'm thinking of a phrase that I'm sure you're all familiar with: "hope springs eternal." Most of us associate those words to celebrate the upcoming baseball season each year and the desires for our home team to win the World Series. If you look up that phrase on Google, you'll find that it was derived from a quote in 1734. As far as I know, I don't think there were any baseball teams vying for a championship back then. The other fact that is amazing to me is that it is from a proverb that suggests 'it is human nature to always find fresh cause for optimism'. Wow. When was the last time our media allowed for the possibility of any cause for optimism? It seems they work on promoting causes for pessimism in our society, but I digress.

We all know that our industry is on the cusp of some pretty big changes, whether we like it or not. Optimism is a virtue and never more so than with our California Moving & Storage Association. We can have a tremendous impact on those changes if we stay positive and committed to the goals we want to achieve. Get involved and ask others to get involved. If there are movers and competitors in your areas who are not CMSA members, go talk to them. Find out what their challenges are and ask them to join our Association. There really is strength in numbers. We do have somewhat of a window of opportunity here to coalesce ideas and strategies to shape the future of our industry and Association. With the start of a fresh new year, my fellow members, ask not what your Association can do for you ... you know the rest.

I'd like to remind all of you to register early for our last double-digit CMSA Convention in May. In case you haven't heard, we are fast approaching our 100-year anniversary. This year's 99th Convention will be at The Mission Hills Golf Resort & Spa in Rancho Mirage. Get all of the information and reservation forms on the CMSA website or call the CMSA office. Register now for reduced rates and look forward to a lot of fun in the sun with your families, friends and movers and shakers.

We can ALL be winners. Hope springs eternal.

January 2017 - CMSA Communicator