PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE

Bob Houle, President, Space/Gulf Coast Chapter

This quarterly edition of our Chapter's online newsletter is jammed packed with information we hope you will find valuable in helping you become a BetterInvestor.

September marks the end of our fiscal year and, as is our normal practice, we planned a comprehensive "State of the Chapter" report for our membership. But you know what they say about making plans. In our case, Hurricane Irma had a mind of her own and ripped right up the center of the Florida peninsula and literally knocked everyone offline.

But don't despair. In this issue we've tried to capture all the important things we hoped to report to you. There's a lot there so we've used the online technology that produces this newsletter to embed many hyperlinks to various portions of our Board's report -- please click on the hyperlinks and learn more about what we've done and our plans for supporting you, our BetterInvesting members in the upcoming year.

Good news and bad news. Bad news first: we won't be holding an Investors' Education Fair this year as planned. The good news is that is because the mother of all investors' education fairs is going to be held in Orlando next year, right around the time we were planning on holding our own event. That's right, BI's National Convention (BINC) will take place 17 - 20 May 2018 at DoubleTree by Hilton in Orlando (SeaWorld).

BINC 2018 will offer over five dozen sessions on selecting stocks and other investments, planning for retirement, managing a portfolio and much more. Investors of all experience levels be able to find sessions to meet their interests, from the basics of investing in stocks to discussions of investment clubs, exchange-traded funds, mutual funds, dividend stocks and options. Panel discussions on stock selection round out the event — attendees are sure to come away with several investment ideas to study. Registration is taking place now so reserve your spot by clicking here. Here's a peek at the BINC2017 Program to give you a taste of what's to come in BINC 2018.

On behalf of our Chapter's Board of Directors we are looking forward to meeting you at BINC2018 and finding out how we can help you (and your family & friends) achieve financial security and independence through BetterInvesting.