Club of the Month: November 2001

Girls with Guts

Bottom(L-R): Janet, Judy, Michelle, Linda, Stacy, Stephanie
Standing: Connie, Candace, Sanja   (Not Shown: Bonnie)

CHICKS: Where did you all meet? 
GIRLS w/ GUTS: We all met via Michelle, most members knew Michelle personally, with the exception of 2 who are connected with the other members. Of our 10 members we have a mixture of friends and family; there is Michelle, her sister Stacy, Mom Linda, sister in law Sanja, best friends Janet and Connie, Stephanie who is a friend of Janet's, Bonnie who is Connie's sister, and Candace along with her Mom Judy.

Where are you located?
We are located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. However, we do have one member who is in Kelowna, British Columbia.

How long have you been together?
Only 5 months.

Do you meet online or face-to-face?
Our meetings so far have been face to face, although as the winter approaches we will begin holding them online. As it stands right now it was important to get to know each other in person, as well as have an excuse to get together with the others and a few bottles of wine. We have 10 women, which is a nice easy
number for now.

What prompted you to start the club?
Michelle heard about the chick's, on the radio (Leza Gibbons, Hollywood Confidential). She went online to check out the web site and immediately went to Chapters to pick up the book. She was so excited she called up a few girls and gave them virtually no choice but to join. We had 10 girls in no time flat, and a few we had to turn away (sad but true).

How did you come up with your name?
Michelle and Janet came up with the name early on, before the club was officially formed. They were trying to get something set up on the internet and
were trying various user names, except all were taken. Michelle blurted out Girls with Guts (still don't know where it came from) and it seems to have stuck
with us.

What stocks do you own?
We currently own Pfizer, as of September 28/01. We were able to purchase it at a reasonable price. Our small portfolio has to date done well; we are up 0.41%, compared to the S&P which is down 8.94%.

What is the greatest benefit you've received since joining your club? 
The opportunity to learn about the stock market in a safe environment, we are all at the same market knowledge level. It has been an asset to have other people to bounce your research and ideas off of. Plus, the evenings out with wine and food are a pretty good benefit.

What has been your greatest problem running the club? 
Establishing our bank account and trading account. We used Action Direct through the Royal Bank of Canada, and had numerous issues. We probably talked to 7 different people and got 7 different responses as to what we needed to do and what they needed from us. It took us 3 months to get this set up with them, and once we finally did we had no instruction as to how to use it.

Any funny stories?
Our funniest story so far is probably our first and only purchase. Michelle had become so frustrated with the delays from the bank that when we finally were allowed to trade there was only 30 minutes left before the market closed. Keeping in mind that we had no instruction related to online trading, and that we were in such a rush to finally get our trade completed, we made a big boo boo. We did not make the conversion into Canadian funds!! (Or Michelle didn't, to be precise) Ouch! This hit hard, but luckily we were able to cover the cost and live with the fact that we made our second purchase with Pfizer as well.

What advice do you have for other clubs either starting out or that have been around awhile? 
Get on top of things right away, it keeps the momentum going and allows time for delays and errors. Oh yes, remember to convert your money first!