Cosmopolitan Toastmasters

Important Links:      Letters-to-the-Editor ;   Club Photos;   Official Partnership Agreement; Club Investment Plan

Cosmopolitan Investment Club Meeting Minutes, NOVEMBER 2020  Theses are the last minutes and highlights entered at the club website.  Sanjay, our new secretary, sends the minutes via email to members only.

DoubleTree Hotel, Bloomington *  6:30 - 8:30p * 3rd Monday's * $20 dinner meeting

Note: The DT Hotel has been sold, and dining is still closed, so we met online with the ongoing help of Lloyd Mielke who provided us with access to the Cisco Webex Meeting Application.  We are all hopeful we can return soon.  The staff at the hotel has also been changed.  We are in limbo.  There is nowhere to go.

Open:  Club President George Heim dropped the gavel and began the meeting at 6:30 p.m. sharp.  We had an 81% ownership in attendance..There seems to be some comfort as we get used to the Webex system.  Several of us chose a cool background.  These apps work best on a desktop or laptop. Using smartphones is much more difficult.  There were no guests.

Roll call:  With a quorum (over 50% ownership) were represented, so we were able to conduct business, without counting proxies.  note: David Mitchell explained that if a quorum is present, absent members have no voice whatsoever.  Proxies don't matter, unless we have less than 50% in physical presence.  Is this true?  Probably. 

Special Orders:   No matter what is happening, we break at midpoint for 10 minutes at 7:30.  Also, the Education Report is set at meeting's end.  Those who want to leave after 8:30 may, and those who wish to hear the education report can stay for the 15 allocated minutes to 8:45.  Elliot delivered the Eduction Report on commodities futures, emphasis on gold.

Meeting Minutes:  Sam read the meeting minutes, but only the new business section.  note: We could save some time here, by everyone reading these minutes online on meeting day.

Treasurer's Report:  Jerry Doffing, as usual, read the comprehensive monthly treasurer's report:  Since Jerry usually sends the Treasurer's report to all members on or a day before the meeting, I have dropped repeating it here. He pointed out that we're up $15,948 or 14.85% so far this year.  So you can take your percentage of ownership and calculate how much taxes you will owe for 2020.  This will be reflected in your k1 statement at years's end. 

Please check your contributions since 1/1/20. If you have not made the required minimum contribution of $500.00 annually, consider making that at our next meeting. Two of our 18 members have not contributed for 2020 yet.  This is not optional.  

Membership:  We are currently at 18 members with room for 2 more.

Current Holdings Analysis:  A well-prepared Jerry, performed his usual analysis of our current holdings. His accompanying handout is usually an outstanding brief assessment of our stocks along with buy, sell and hold recommendations.  He doesn't prepare this handout every month.  It would be better if those who proposed an owned stock, make a monthly presentation about the stock instead of Jerry. Jerry made the following recommendations for NOVEMBER: DXCM-Buy, HEI-Hold, ONEM-Buy and ZYXI-Hold.  He followed up later with several motions (see below).  Treasurer (Financal Partner) Jerry Dee also covered our open orders on: AMD, GRBK, HEI, LULU and UNH.

Current Holdings Actions:  Jerry moved to shift our Limit-Order on UNH from $288  to $298. That passed.  He then moved to change our limit order on GRBK from $16.69 to $18.69.  That also passed.  Both Lloyd and Gale moved to sell our ZYXI, but it was postponed to meeting's end.....where it died.  

***** 7:30 BREAK ****

Stock Presentations: Jerry presented TSM, MU, SHOP and GFI.  Lloyd presented SQ. 

New Business: Jerry moved to purchase 100 shares of TDOC at market and immediately sell a covered call on the April $220 call which is currently $10.09 at midpoint.  That passed.

The following J.Dee motions using Market-Orders all passed:  Buy 150 shares of TSM, 250 MU, 200 JD and 1000 GFI.  These caused us to run out of cash if all our open-orders are executed, so Jerry moved to cancel our limit order on LULU.  That passed freeing up the necessary cash. 

The Finale':  Once again, a very special THANKS to Lloyd who served as host for our virtual online meeting, and for agreeing to serve the club as Eduction Partner.  President George did a outstanding job (as usual) of keeping the meeting moving and forcing compliance to Sir Robert?s Rules. George has turned out to be an excellent meeting leader.  He, however, has expressed a desire to step down after so many years. 

Closing:  It was  8:30.  President and Chairman George Heim dropped the gavel, and invited the members to stay for Lloyd's education session, with Elliot leading a presentation on gold.

Education Report:  Several members hung around for Elliot's presention.

A reminder:  Normally, a stock presentation should contain 3 elements:  1) some basic fundamentals, 2) discuss the chart looking for standard and/or unique patterns, and finally 3) offer the story (no numbers or charts) just talk about this company, sector and/or industry.  These Covid-19 days, just #3 seems enough.

Comments:  Sam has been club secretary for over 10 years.  Your much beloved octogenarian secretary is going to retire for the next election, which is in December.  If you volunteer to run for the coveted office, you don't have to maintain this website, (I would be happy to show you how to maintain it), however, all you need to do is send an email with mostly motions that were made and passed and any critical news for members who missed the meeting.  You can keep it pretty simple.

Club President, George Heim, who has been Presient for about 4-5 years, is also ready to hang up his prestegious position.  we really need others to step up to the plate and fill these 2 slots.  We are very fortunate to have Jerry willing to continue as Financial Partner, which is the most demanding of the 3-officer positons.

Elections are during our December meeting.  Prepare to nominate yourself or others (especially if they skip the meeting).  Come on, Guys, don't leave all the "work" to just 3 guys year, after year. 

**********************

Here's what Jerry did the following morning:

                                                      -2018 Liar's Poker Highlights-  

We have lost several Liar's Poker Players, so here are some old highlights, until we admit some daring souls who would like to play.           Here's last October 2019 highlights:

We had 7 players for Liars' Poker with the inclusion of Dr. Dave and Tom Nyberg.  We missed Tim Deegan, but were fortunate to have a good group playing.  It started out with Dr. Dave determined to take the King of the Hill away from the pompous self-award bearing Norm Grant.  After several failed costly attempts, Dave backed off.  Art was his usual self, bidding conservatively sometimes, and then going forward like a madman with outrageous bids.  Norm and Jerry were somewhat subdued all evening until late, when a miracle and a misstep by Tom Nyberg enabled the normally subdued Jerry to go for the Grand Slam.  We were all shocked when he took the throne from Norm.  Bill Kalina actually was a bit more aggressive, which caused him to overstep losing a few rounds. Sam, played brilliantly and left with a few bucks ahead.  Art had a rough night...financially.  As usual, Jerry made a few "love dates" during the game, as his mind seldom roams from "chicks" and "strippers", except when he was watching the Packers game on his phone.  Winning K-of-the-H was a miracle.  See photos below.                        

Section 2 article d.- Dumb-Ass-Loser Rule:  If a slam bid is made (the bubble has none) and the total count is also zero, then the dumb-ass bidder (who went for the grand slam) is obligated to: rise, apologize, and pay out $2 to each player.  Optional: He should apologize profusely to the King and offer him a drink.

                       Click on:   Liars Poker Rules  to play properly.

Important Links:      Letters-to-the-Editor ;   Club Photos;   Official Partnership Agreement