Hello Bivio Club Members;

My club has come to a crossroad, and we are looking for
feedback on how often other clubs meet? Currently, we meet
monthly, however, life appears presented us all with some
challenges.

Feedback is requested for the following questions:

1) How often does your club meet?
2) How does that impact your bookkeeping
3) What are some of the positives of meeting less often,
and drawbacks.

Thank you in advance,

Michelle

Michelle,

Life always has a way of getting between us and our objectives, which is why
it's important to do everything possible to keep our focus on our future
goals.

We do that in a number of ways, with regard to retirement. We may have the
maximum amount of money withheld from our paychecks as a way to force us to
invest on a regular basis. We may join a club to keep the notion of
investing "in our face" every single month.

If your club is bored, then address the boredom. Or, if other priorities in
life are forcing the investment in your future safety and comfort to take a
back seat, then address that issue, instead. Too many of us jump both feet
first into the investment club "thing" and treat is as a hobby. And as you
know, hobbies get boring so we go in search of other challenges.

Problem is, as boring as it may be (actually the issue is the SLOWNESS of
the process), investing for retirement is of utmost importance, and we need
to do everything we can to view this as a priority in life, not another
hobby. It's as important in our everyday lives as choosing the right
daycare, making sure we are not overspending our budget, or figuring out how
much insurance we need.

Even if you don't wish to get into the nitty gritty research stuff, you can
still be a participant in your own future with mutual funds and regular
investing. However, most people look up and find that it's been 5 years
since they actually investigated their funds or stocks! They are losing
wealth, rather than gaining it, simply because they are not paying
attention. Investment clubs force us to pay attention--month after month
after month. So don't let the members of your club minimize the importance
of this decision.

> 1) How often does your club meet?

Nearly all clubs meet on a monthly basis. I've known some who meet every
other month, but committing two hours per month is a small price to pay for
staying informed. And with a little effort, those meetings can be fun!
Maybe you simply need to shift in a way that would jazz up those meetings.

> 2) How does that impact your bookkeeping

Bookkeeping isn't affected.

> 3) What are some of the positives of meeting less often,
> and drawbacks.

Positives? Your members don't have to concentrate on their future.
Drawbacks? Your membes don't have to concentrate on their future. They go
hand in hand.

From my perspective, and I do club visits for my chapter to help clubs in
transition, members usually stretch out meetings as a first step to closing
the club. I don't advise it. I suggest that you make the meetings so
interesting that NO ONE will want to miss them. And less homework could be
part of that plan.

Good luck to you,

Lynn Ostrem, President
garbagecop@foxinternet.net
Crow River Investment Club
www.bivio.com/crowriver

J. Michelle Sudduth wrote:
> Hello Bivio Club Members;
>
> My club has come to a crossroad, and we are looking for
> feedback on how often other clubs meet? Currently, we meet
> monthly, however, life appears presented us all with some
> challenges.
>
> Feedback is requested for the following questions:
>
> 1) How often does your club meet?
> 2) How does that impact your bookkeeping
> 3) What are some of the positives of meeting less often,
> and drawbacks.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Michelle
Michelle,

We meet monthly and I think that it is not a good idea to
meet any less often. Here is my reasoning:

If a club is forced to meet less often, I believe it is a
sign that there are deeper issues than some life challenges.
We have all had certain members have to miss 2 or three
meetings in a row to handle some life crisis, but the rest
of the group goes on. It is hard to focus the attention
needed on a club be meeting sporadically, such as quarterly.
It takes you out of the routine of investing regularly. My
concern if this was proposed in my club is that we are just
postponing the inevitable, i.e. the eventual dissolution of
the club. I'd suggest a frank meeting to really get issues
out and decide if the club goes on or folds.

Bob

Our club meets once a month. We also divided the membership into three
research committees and these meet once every three months (in order to
present our findings to the members at large.) We also have a Christmas
party that is not a meeting - we found that having a meeting at a restaurant
just didn't work. Too much vino! We collect our checks quarterly, so once
a month meetings don't have any impact on that. Meeting less often than
once a month just doesn't work. In fact, we are sometimes presented with
the problem: what do we do between meetings if a stock goes down a lot? We
solved that with a telephone tree. Spice up your meetings with
refreshments, a 15 minute social time, and get speakers. We're never bored.

Marcia De Fren
Wise Women


----- Original Message -----
From: "J. Michelle Sudduth" <ms1@bivio.com>
To: <club_cafe@bivio.com>
Sent: Tuesday, November 16, 2004 11:17 AM
Subject: club_cafe: Meetings


> Hello Bivio Club Members;
>
> My club has come to a crossroad, and we are looking for
> feedback on how often other clubs meet? Currently, we meet
> monthly, however, life appears presented us all with some
> challenges.
>
> Feedback is requested for the following questions:
>
> 1) How often does your club meet?
> 2) How does that impact your bookkeeping
> 3) What are some of the positives of meeting less often,
> and drawbacks.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Michelle
>

Our club is down to meeting quarterly (if we're lucky); we
have found the less we meet the better our returns are.
Less churning and associated trading costs have been
reduced. We have over 30 members and we're lucky to get 5
or 6 attend a meeting. These few members are the most
knowledgable about investing and seem to make sound
decisions. Less meetings reduce the "stock tip" mentality;
where a member shows up with a tip his brother in law's
neighbor's friend gave him. Let's be honest, we're all lucky
if we can match an the S&P 500 index in the long run. Most
mutual funds don't come close.

Our club, Stock Pirates Investment Club, meets every other
month and this has been fairly successful for us. We have
14 members that break down into three groups. There are
about 6 of us that are at every meeting, another five or six
that attend most of the time and three of four that never
attend. We established a quorum as half of the members and
so far have not had a problem with that. At first, we were
somewhat worried about the fact that some members never
attend but finally decided if they trusted the members at
the meeting to make decisions and they paid their dues
(which hasn't been a problem) why be concerned if they don't
attend. Conversely, if they want to provide input then show
up. We have tried to make the meetings interesting and have
had guest speakers and assigned research projects. We also
plan each meeting around dinner. We conduct the meeting and
then eat, drink and be merry. A food theme is established
for the next meeting and all members bring something.

Dave
Stock Pirates Investment Club


J. Michelle Sudduth wrote:
> Hello Bivio Club Members;
>
> My club has come to a crossroad, and we are looking for
> feedback on how often other clubs meet? Currently, we meet
> monthly, however, life appears presented us all with some
> challenges.
>
> Feedback is requested for the following questions:
>
> 1) How often does your club meet?
> 2) How does that impact your bookkeeping
> 3) What are some of the positives of meeting less often,
> and drawbacks.
>
> Thank you in advance,
>
> Michelle

Michelle, if you are listening...

These two gentlemen state that they have successful clubs by meeting only
4-6 times per year and having 16% to 42% of their members
participate--maybe. That's a mutual fund, but a club. Please don't gauge
your situation against this scenario!

Lynn Ostrem, President
garbagecop@foxinternet.net
Crow River Investment Club
www.bivio.com/crowriver

M. Ostrem,

No it's not a mutual fund. All our members are invited to
attend all meetings. Some choose to attend, most don't.
Meeting monthly is ridiculous. It may a fun way to
entertain yourselves, but your returns will likely be worse
the more you meet and trade. We're here to make money long
term and I would venture to guess our annual returns blow
away most clubs here.


Lynn Ostrem wrote:
> Michelle, if you are listening...
>
> These two gentlemen state that they have successful clubs by meeting only
> 4-6 times per year and having 16% to 42% of their members
> participate--maybe. That's a mutual fund, but a club. Please don't gauge
> your situation against this scenario!
>
> Lynn Ostrem, President
> garbagecop@foxinternet.net
> Crow River Investment Club
> www.bivio.com/crowriver