Spring is here. Why doesn’t the breeze delight me? Stars appear. Why doesn’t the night invite me?

— Larry Hart

It has long been the belief in this space that the National Association of Chain Drug Stores is the most relevant retail business association in the United States. Our reasons are too complex, varied and important to go into here. Suffice to say, NACDS, in our view, provides more, and more meaningful, services to its retail and supplier membership than any comparable trade organization.

That being said, it is equally true that NACDS has, at this moment, reached a crossroads, both in its long history and in its intent to provide its membership with the range of services for which it is justly renowned.

Put another way, the NACDS Annual Meeting, the crown jewel in the NACDS portfolio, is about to get under way. In years past, the Annual Meeting, usually convened at The Breakers in Palm Beach, Fla., has been an unparalleled occasion for the industry to assemble, for retailers to renew longtime friendships with their counterparts, for retailers and their suppliers to once again reconnect, for the chain drug and tangential retail industries to learn and relearn how the industry and the wider world surrounding and supporting it are faring.

All this will happen again this year — with a difference. The 2021 Annual Meeting will be an affair held “virtually.” In this instance, however, the virtual designation will make it more necessary, more meaningful, more critical than ever. The reasons for this are many — and sometimes confusing.

At the outset, let us reiterate that the usual assortment of business services will once again be available. Put another way, retailers will meet and greet their friends, and retailers and suppliers will sit down together to resolve old issues, open dialogs on new ones, and explore the numerous opportunities to retain old business and gain new challenges.

More to the point, NACDS has designed the Annual Meeting so that the process of arranging appointments will be as simple as it has always been. The association, long admired for its ability to bring buyers and sellers together, will perform that role again this year. Only this year the playing field will be expanded, for the simple reason that, due to the new virtual format, more retailer and supplier personnel will be allowed, even encouraged, to attend. Put another way, where in the past attendance was limited to a handful of senior executives at each attending company, this year attendance will be expanded — to just about everyone with the desire and need to attend. The result will be more people with more items on their individual agendas. And more productivity.

Then, too, the 2021 Annual Meeting will likely expand the role traditionally played by regional retailers. In the past, that role has been largely a supportive one, as suppliers naturally gravitated to the major retailers. In the past 12 months, however, the regional retailers have proven to be the backbone of community pharmacy in America. They have been there when being there was more critical. They have time and again answered their communities’ call. They have been there when being there was more urgent. They have, in a sense, represented the chain drug store community.

So it will be that this year, in a virtual environment, small and regional drug chains will get the opportunity to reap the benefits of the altruistic year they have just spent. They will, rightly, be the beneficiaries of the attention, praise and gratitude they have justly, and belatedly, come to deserve, from their fellow retailers, from the supplier community, and from the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.

So the parting word here is simply this: Don’t fear the water. The temperature is fine. And NACDS is fully aware of the stakes, and thoroughly and competently positioned to insure that the 2021 Annual Meeting turns out to be the most productive meeting yet held. And that’s saying a lot.