I would like to welcome you to the official web site for the Missouri JCI Senate. Your Senate organization has been recognized for a number of years for our communications efforts, and this site is an important part of those communications. We are always looking for ways to improve our online product, so please pass on any suggestions you may have to webmistress Debbie Velten or to me.

Communication is always important to a successful friendship. And, friendship and fellowship is what the Missouri JCI Senate is all about. We exist to help foster those continued friendships from our time in the Jaycees, and allow us the opportunity to meet new friends we did not make when we were younger.

If you read the purpose statement in the Missouri JCI Senate's by-laws, you will see one of the main points states, "To promote fellowship and continued contact among JCI Senators." After visiting with many of you, I took away a definition of this statement to mean our organization allows us to keep up with friends we made while we were Jaycees, and to make new friends after our Jaycee careers have ended.

Many of you are familiar with the Disney/Pixar film "Toy Story". In this animated movie, Woody is a cowboy and the leader of the toys in Andy's room. He feels threatened when a new toy, astronaut Buzz Lightyear, arrives and a rivalry forms. These two don't work together much until they must, after having been lost by Andy at a local gas station. By the time they get back to Andy's room, having escaped the toy-killing boy Sid next door, they find they have become good friends who look out for what is best for each other. If you watched the sequels "Toy Story 2" and "Toy Story 3", you will see that their friendship continues to grow, even after Andy goes off to college.

Looking in the mirror, many of us can relate to this tale in our own Jaycee lives. We all had those folks that were rivals, either in our local chapter or across the state or nation. I know I did. We often would work for the implementation of our plan for the organization, which may or may not have been a matching plan from the rivals. Yet, over time, we developed friendships that continue to be this day. I consider some of these former rivals as my best friends and confidants in the Senate.

The Missouri JCI Senate, through our purpose statement, gives us this avenue to continue with the friendships that we developed in our younger days in the Jaycees, and get to meet an even wider group of similar-minded former Jaycees who also become friends. And, we get the privilege (sound familiar, Boni) to have these friends for the rest of our lives. This is what "Friends Forever" is all about.

That being said, the action is for you. I challenge you to come out to some of the many events your Senate organization has planned; I challenge you to get out there and rekindle those long friendships from Jaycee days gone by; I challenge you to find a new friend where you both will grow from the relationship; I challenge you to take advantage of the Missouri JCI Senate "Friends Forever" experience today.

Friends today . . . Friends tomorrow . . . "Friends Forever".