President S Message from Michele Rinka

August, 2016 Volume 1, Issue 2

President’s Message from Michele Rinka

BetterInvesting is on a calendar much like the school year. Our year runs from October through September. So at this time we are finishing up loose ends but also looking ahead to a new year. The Wisconsin Chapter just had our planning meeting and laid out broad plans for fall, winter, and spring.

Chapters are responsible for carrying out the educational mission of BetterInvesting by maintaining contact with clubs and individual members. We provide mentoring through club visits, educational classes, and training on using the BI website materials.

We have an opening for a person who has time to assist in chapter activities. Some volunteers are elected to be full Directors, others become Associate Directors who assist Directors with various duties, and some help out occasionally as Volunteers.

Not all directors are required to teach! We have open positions in the areas of planning, organization and administration duties.

On Wednesday, September 21, we will hold our Annual Meeting. Every Wisconsin member is invited to attend the meeting, either in person at the Brookfield library in suburban Milwaukee, or from a computer in your home. We will discuss our plans for the year and elect new directors. If you are interested in becoming active at the chapter level please send an email to contact@[email protected] addressed to John Murphy.

We use GoToMeeting for all of our chapter meetings. Members can just listen in or join the discussion or ask questions from your computer.

1 The week before the meeting, everyone will receive an email with directions for registering and then logging in to attend. We encourage your attendance.

Club Anniversaries

Each year BetterInvesting celebrates the 5 year incremental anniversaries of clubs. This year 24 of them have an anniversary. The oldest club, Wagon Wheel Investment Club, is 55 years old! And the youngest, B & B Legacy Investment Club, celebrates those first 5 hard years.

Chapter directors enjoy visiting clubs to deliver these handsome certificates and to meet with club members. It is also an opportunity to pass on information. We are encouraging clubs to dive into the online SSG Plus and Core SSG tools found on the BI website and are happy to show all the improvements that will make stock analysis easier and more complete. Often clubs request our free portfolio evaluation service, just to point out some of the various ways of looking at stock holdings. When we visit your club we will come armed with a camera and some yummy goodies. We would love to tell your story in a future newsletter!

Below is a list of the investment clubs celebrating a “5” year anniversary. If your club is listed and you have not yet been contacted, please notify us at [email protected]

Club Name Anniv. Club Name Anniv. Wagon Wheel Investment Club 55 Code Green Investment Club 20 Lakers Investment Club 50 Management and Growth Club 20 Hi Fi Investment Club 50 Stock Up Investment Club 20 Anything Investment Club 50 Kenlake Investment Group 20 Dodges Corners Investment Club 45 Dow-Lar Scholars Investment 20 Club Milwaukee Investment Group 35 Uppity Women’s Investment 20 Club Best in the Vest Investment Club 30 The Investos Investment Club 20 Oco Investment Club 30 LIFO-Ladies Investing for 20 Ourselves Coed Investors 30 WP Partners Investment Club 20 Ripon Breakfast Club 25 WIN (Women Investing Now) 15 Investment Club Learn to Earn Investment Club 20 Girls Exceeding the Market 15 SWWIG Investment Club 20 B&B Legacy Investment Club 5

2 EDUCATION DAYS IN WISCONSIN

Saturday, October 1, 2016 in Oshkosh

Saturday, October 15, 2016 in Greenfield, a Milwaukee suburb

Back by popular demand, Carol Theine, nationally known BetterInvesting teacher and Chairwoman of BI’s Advisory Board will be in Oshkosh on Oct 1 and Milwaukee Oct 15 to teach classes as part of our Fall Education series. In addition teachers from the Wisconsin Chapter of BetterInvesting will share their knowledge and investing expertise.

Class topics will include:  Finding investment gems to increase your returns,  How to avoid selecting poor performing stocks  Determining when is a good time to sell  Common mistakes in evaluating stocks  Getting the most out of the BI website and the Online SSG tools  And the very popular class on “I am so confused I can’t even spell SSG”

We will finish each day discussing a list of high potential stocks on which you can do further research to improve your returns.

Watch for a future email with more detailed information. Registration forms will be included.

Club Contacts

We recently sent an email to club contacts. Your club contact is the one member of your club to receive special mailings and other information from both BetterInvesting national headquarters as well as from your local chapter. Information on naming or changing your club contact is on your annual club dues billing statement. This dues statement is also one of the items sent only to your club contact. Club Presidents, please check your roster to select or update your contact person.

3 CLUB NEWS

LIFO Ladies Investing For Ourselves

Front row left to right - Jill Markham and Renee Scherkenbach Back row left to right - Kathy Miller, Pat Wotkowiak, Lisa Clark, Sandy Miller and Margie Briskie

Our club, Ladies Investing For Ourselves (LIFO) was formed 20 years ago when all our kids were little and we ladies wanted to learn about investing. We started with 23 members, $25 a month investment, and learned to do the SSG with paper and pencil. Our first stocks included Wendy's and Johnson & Johnson. Every member knew at least one other partner when we formed and through the years, close friendships formed. We gained and lost members through our twenty years together, we welcomed the Toolkit software so we could more easily and quickly analyze stocks, we participated in some local BI trainings, traveled to the Chicago Stock Exchange and a couple of weekend trips north of Milwaukee, enjoying our friendship.

My only regret is our portfolio never reached $100,000. We were so close a couple of times though. It was a great experience being in a club. I would highly recommend it. Submitted by Kathy Miller

4 First Yorkville Investors Club

First Yorkville Investors (FYI) Club was established in February, 1995, with 8 members. All were friends living in the town of Yorkville (thus their name FYI). They started with two goals in mind-learn more about investing and have fun! They meet on the 3rd Friday night of each month and begin with a potluck dinner. A large part of the meeting is social, sharing food and fellowship. Meetings rotate among partners’ homes.

The club’s organizational structure began with the foundation of NAIC principles. They participated in Wisconsin Chapter NAIC workshops to learn how to do an SSG and how to evaluate stocks. FYI partners recall teaching one another how to “graph” stock performance using graph paper and colored pencils!

They elect new officers every two years sharing the responsibilities of each office except for Financial Partner. There have only been two Financial Partners in the 21 years of the club. FYI partners annually randomly select a stock from the club portfolio and then report on that stock at each meeting. The club tries to maintain a balanced portfolio by intentionally buying stocks to meet their operating guidelines: Major companies 25%; Med-large companies 50%; small companies 25%. Early on the club had many large well known companies in their portfolio. They soon realized that these large companies did not produce the growth they were aiming for. Over the years they have learned to seek out companies that meet their growth criteria.

There have been 18 partners in the club over the 21 years. Today there are 12 partners with 5 of them from the original eight. Submitted by Tedi Winnett

Here we toast our 20th anniversary. Sitting L to R: Colleen (Sam) Meinke, Julie Rossman, Ron Bormann, Michelle Schmalfeldt. Standing L to R: Chuck Meinke, Scott Lauber, Gary Rossman, Tedi Winnett, Landen Bormann, Russ Skewes,Mike Raap, Jeff Schmalfeldt.

Appleton Area Winners Investment Club 5 Elaine Siegrist/Jeff Carpenter/Shirley Schloemer (in front), Kathy Salm (vice president)/Barb Fleming -in front,Stephanie Malaney (secretary)/ Anne Siegrist/ David Belling(treasurer). Not pictured: Connie Polley , president, Mary Mares (co treasurer), and Clarice Belling.

Our club was formed in January of 1990. Prior to that we were a study group made up of members from the local chapter of the American Association of University Women.

We started out with 20 members with each member following one stock. Since then we’re dwindled to 11 members and currently own 13 stocks which means a few people are following more than one stock.

Our first stock purchases were Nike and Merck. We still own Nike but have sold some of it over the years either to balance our portfolio or to invest in other stocks We make a point to do a PERT review twice a year with each member reporting on the stock they follow with a recommendation to buy, hold or sell. Recently we started incorporating the use of the online Stock Comparison tool when reviewing our portfolio.

From the beginning, our club’s main focus has been education. We all enjoy learning about investing and include special education meetings when we set our schedule. These meetings have included book discussions, guest speakers and watching BetterInvesting webinars.

The club continues to follow NAIC principals which are to invest regularly in good quality companies with the intent to hold the stock for 3 to 5 years. Submitted by Mary Mares