Volunteering
May 1, 2023I became a volunteer with the Triad Chapter of BetterInvesting™ about 23 years ago. Back then, there were four independent BetterInvesting™ chapters which served three of North Carolina’s major population areas and the western section of Virginia.
Our chapter’s mission was stock market education. We promoted a fundamental analysis methodology to identify publicly traded companies that grew their revenues and earnings per share at a reasonable rate. We believed well-managed companies with a modest debt and sustainable growth rates would produce favorable investment returns over the next four to six years.
The Triad Chapter of BetterInvesting™ organized and held classes in the Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem area. Our classes were mostly aimed at relatively new BetterInvesting™ clubs and/or individual newcomers who were seeking information about how conservative investors selected and monitored their investments, plus the tools they used to identify promising companies. We also assisted small groups of like-minded investors to begin their own local BetterInvesting™ clubs.
The four chapters noted above were eventually combined and renamed. Now, we are the North Carolina Chapter of BetterInvesting™. We serve the entire state of North Carolina and the extreme western corner of Virginia. Fortunately, we do not travel as much these days. We can now hold “virtual” meetings and classes thanks to the many recent internet communication tools, for example, GoToWebinar™ for very large groups and GoToMeeting™ for smaller informal groups.
In 2013, the North Carolina Chapter of BetterInvesting™ sponsored a new investment club called the “NC Triad Model Investment Club”. This name was selected because most of our founding members were chapter directors and volunteers who lived in the Greensboro, High Point, and Winston-Salem area. Our club met monthly in the various public libraries in the Triad area. Perhaps the most unusual thing about this investment club is that we invite anybody, who might be interested in learning about the BetterInvesting™ methods and tools, to attend a few of our monthly meetings. Visitors are always welcome.
Shortly after our first meeting, we began using GoToMeeting™, an internet-based communication tool, to “broadcast” our live club meetings. We still post our clubs’ meeting schedules and internet links on the NC Chapter’s local event webpages and through emails to the BI members in our service area who subscribe to our mass emails. Our club meetings are open to the public. Our club membership has grown over the years. We have had members, guests, and visitors scattered from the North Carolina’s Blue Ridge Mountains to the Outer Banks.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic caused us to stop having face-to-face meetings. Fortunately, we already had several years of experience using GoToMeeting™ to conduct our meetings. Last month was the first time more than eight brave club members wanted to have an in-person meeting again and to broadcast it to the others like we used to do three years earlier with GoToMeeting™. This meeting was a trial by fire. The online-only portion of the meeting continued uninterrupted despite several very long Wi-Fi dropouts that we experienced in our favorite library with the face-to-face meeting group. Maybe this was just a one-time event? We will certainly try again one of these days. On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for attending and participating in a meeting from the safety and comfort of your own home.
Many of the North Carolina Chapter of BetterInvesting™ directors, associate directors, and volunteers are senior citizens about my age. We are likely to retire over the next four to six years. So, we are currently working on our chapter’s future “Succession Planning” and “Continuity of Operations”. That is… we need to identify our chapter’s critical positions and/or functions. We need to identify candidates to be trained and who will assume those duties in the future. We need to make sure more than one person has access to and can successfully use certain applications, accounts, and maintain our chapter’s critical files.
Are you interested in learning new skills or honing those you already have? Are you interested in helping the North Carolina Chapter of BetterInvesting™ to grow and thrive? We always welcome volunteers interested in helping with chapter events, teaching, writing newsletters, maintaining our webpages, using our mass email system, controlling GoToMeeting™ meetings, and other areas. We need your support!
For additional details, please feel free to contact us at president@northcarolina.betterinvesting.net .
Thank You,
Ron Cox, volunteer
NC Chapter of BetterInvesting™
