The story of Bass Pro Shops
buying Cabela’s caused me to read more about John Morris, the Bass Pro
founder. Springfield MO is just up the
street, 180 miles or so, from where I grew up.
Fresh water fishing is abundant in the lakes, ponds, and coal pits of
Southwest Missouri, Northwest Arkansas, Southeast Kansas, and Northeast
Oklahoma.
Those stories of John Morris as a
young man brought back many memories from decades ago. In decades past, coal mining companies in NE
Oklahoma would simply dig a hole for the coal beneath the surface, piling the
dirt on the ground above. Once the coal
was mined, the pits were left open, and were primarily on private land. These pits filled with water, and held some
of the largest large-mouth base I’ve seen.
These coal pits dotted the landscape and offered excellent fishing. You simply had to know where they were, and
you had to have permission from the landowner to fish the coal pits.
My cousin Bobby knew where all
the coal pits were, and he knew the owners.
He and I spent many summer afternoons in a flat bottom boat, fishing
those coal pits. The memories are hazy
at this point, and get better with age.
It seems though, that I recall the sounds of silence, a beautiful golden
sun, and the anticipation of the bobber suddenly plunging into the water, as a
5 to 8 lb. large mouth locked on for a snack.
Those memories are unique to a
specific time and place. But you have
your memories of those years, which bring a smile to your face. What are they? You are welcome to share them with us,
fishing story or otherwise, if you are so inclined, at https://centurionag.blogspot.com/.
In other news, let’s talk
portals, which we referenced in our April update. Over the years, the transfer of documents has
occurred by courier, by U.S. Mail or other post, by fax, and by email
attachment. All of these methods remain
available to all of us. The documents we
send to you, and that you send or transfer to us, need to meet two criteria, we
believe. First, transmission needs to be
secure. Second, the transmission tools
need to be relevant.
From a security standpoint,
courier and post are the least secure, followed by unsecure email
attachments. Faxes and secured email
attachments are more secure. Portals,
with good security protocols, provide the highest level of security, and offer
an interface that is familiar to all of us.
You may always, if you choose,
drop information in the mail. That will
remain a tried and true method to get information to us. When we receive the information, we scan the
documents, and shred the hard copies. We
have had a fax number for many years, and will retain it. We have been using secure file transmission
through Sharefile for two or three years, and we will retain the use of
Sharefile for secure file transmission for another two or three years.
Going forward, any communication
we prepare for you will be posted to your portal. For households, this would include documents
such as quarterly reports and annual reviews.
The portal could also contain folders for financial statements, tax
returns, insurance details, and other documents which touch your finances and
our work together. For non-profits, this
would include documents such as quarterly reports, annual reviews, and
Investment Policy Statements (IPS). For
plan sponsors, this would include documents such as your Plan Document, Summary
Plan Description, Adoption Agreement, IPS (if applicable) Form 5500, our annual
review, and committee meeting notes.
We will also prepare hard copies
for any meetings we have with you, until such time as you and we are
comfortable reviewing this communication in electronic form. Note that there will be no “requirement”
that you use the portal for document transmission, though we will be promoting
its use. How we receive documents will
be left to your discretion, and it is easy for us to manage these documents,
regardless of how we receive them.
Beyond the security of the portal
though, is its relevance. Just about all
of us, when we are looking for information, or needing to take action,
logon. Many of us logon to check our
bank or other financial institution balance from time to time. Many of us have also chosen to forego paper
statements, instead opting for an email alert that our statements are ready.
Whether it’s making airline
reservations, checking our bank balance, making dinner reservations, receiving
results from the doctor, or so many other uses, the first step seems to be
entering a pin and password from our smartphone, tablet, laptop, or
workstation. The portal offers the same
environment.
If you have already registered as
a portal user, you may access your portal by going to www.centurionag.com, and going to Client
Login, at the top right corner of the page.
If you haven’t registered as a portal user yet, let us know, and we will
send you the link to do so. And, this is
a collaborative work. As you use the
portal, give us your feedback. Also, let
us know what features you think would be useful, and any feedback about how we
structure the sections. This space is
new enough that the vendor partners we use are very receptive to design feedback.
We look forward to hearing from
you.
Until next month.
Randy Brunson
For the Centurion Team
No comments:
Post a Comment