a Young CMF Club ?

[humble_pie]

hello moderators - very best new year's wishes & thank you so much for your neverending hard work. As everyone knows it has paid off in spades. I remember when i first joined cmf forum in june/09, it was definitely a sedate place. One could even say sombre.

brad was the first member to put up photographs, as i recall. They were to illustrate his recipes. Early 2010. In no time at all, an explosion of colour & images rained down upon cmf forum. Fast forward 18 months & today the forum is a multi-ring circus hooting on night & day, studded round-the-clock with pictures, charts, songs & videos.

rambling on, may i pick up & underscore barwelle's call for a Young CMF Club, possibly as a dedicated new subject in General Discussion. It's not so much that youth finance is a whole other ballpark, with no relationship to traditional finance. It's more that the cmf class of 2012 now comprises a significant number of talented under 26s who have lots of issues in common, along with unique ways of helping each other out.

here is barwelle's message:

http://canadianmoneyforum.com/showpost.php?p=104045&postcount=14

[FrugalTrader]

Interesting. Do you mean a sub forum for younger members? Or a thread? I'm hesitant to spread out the topics further, but if there is interest from a number of members, then it's something we will certainly consider.

[KaeJS]

I don't want to rain on anyone's parade...

But, as a young CMF member myself, I just don't see the point in dividing up material and information based on age.

Also, I think humble's point of:

"a significant number of talented under 26s who have lots of issues in common, along with unique ways of helping each other out."

Is kind of invalid. How can one age group help each other out more than people from various age groups? If we only had 20-25 year olds helping each other, we'd all be in deep trouble. We need the older (wise) folk to keep us in check and share their life experience.

[Sampson]

This is an interesting concept - age groups within our CMF community.

I wonder how financial goals/interests within age groups (boomers, Gen X,Y,Z'ers) compare within CMF, and amongst the general population as a whole.

I suppose there would be more bias towards retirement/findependence among our group, but what about other goals (buying RE, vechicles etc). Too bad we can't make a complex poll on this forum.

[humble_pie]

re any possible youth board, i think it's up to the young people & the moderators to figure everything out.

frugal you are right, not creating too many classes of topics is a first-rate principle to follow. But a youth group has such a heavy weighting. I mean, the forum can have recipes & current events & coffee lounge, so far so good, but having an active youth membership is in a gold-standard class by itself.

one thing i've noticed is how well the young cmf members integrate themselves with everybody else. Kudos to all of them ! but then, a few days ago, suddenly they began hailing each other in a special kind of way. Barwelle's post made me wonder if they'd like a topic for themselves. Perhaps something open-ended, along the lines of the cmf coffee lounge. Maybe something like a beer pub.

it's not right for old crocks & pies to offer suggestions because the younger members themselves will have much better ideas, of course. It would be my wish, though, that the groups would not be mutually exclusive. Crocks & pies would be allowed to post in the beer pub & the kids would all be tremendously welcome wherever they might go, just as they always have been.

(later addition) kaeJS raises a valid point. I certainly didn't mean any exclusion or segregation of younger or older members.

notice, please, that the coffee lounge didn't mean that people stopped posting on hard-core finance threads. If anything, they posted more, now that they had a place to go for refreshments.

[Four Pillars]

We need the older folk to keep us in check and share their life experience.

Like Belguy? :eek::eek::eek::eek:

[KaeJS]

Like Belguy? :eek::eek::eek::eek:

Exactly like Belguy, so that people can see the importance of Risk Mitigation and how certain securities are deemed more appropriate for different life stages.

[Toronto.gal]

KaeJS also meant the wise folks. ;)

Nice post KaeJS; I agreed with every word you said!

And HP, it's not just the young ones that integrate nicely, so do the other groups. :)

Great forum for all ages!

[KaeJS]

KaeJS also meant the wise folks. ;)

Yes, I meant wise folk.
Edited my original post. ;):D

[Toronto.gal]

Would be nice if Julian Marchese were to join us. :)

http://seekingalpha.com/author/julian-marchese

[the-royal-mail]

You forgot to insert the sunglasses and mention "Buy, hold and prosper" when you mentioned belguy.

[Barwelle]

Thanks humble for taking note!

I read this thread last night and have been struggling to decide how I feel about it.


But, as a young CMF member myself, I just don't see the point in dividing up material and information based on age.
...
How can one age group help each other out more than people from various age groups? If we only had 20-25 year olds helping each other, we'd all be in deep trouble. We need the older (wise) folk to keep us in check and share their life experience.

I do see some merit in having a "Young CMF Club." I would envision it as a place where the 20-somethings (and teenagers even??? Don't know if we have any yet) can post and ask questions about topics specific to beginner and young investors, but we wouldn't bar out the older folks from the conversation of course! If they want to weigh in on the topics, they would be welcome to. It would be a place where everyone can go to talk about things specific to the younger age group.

On the other hand, I don't know if there would be that much traffic on such a subforum.



Perhaps something open-ended, along the lines of the cmf coffee lounge. Maybe something like a beer pub.

I was thinking that too... open a single thread like this in General Discussion or General Personal Finance. I guess it would be more of a social thing then anything else if it would be just a thread. But if it gets huge, then look at opening a subforum. That would be better than opening a whole subforum, having it flop, then having to fold it into other subforums.

This got me thinking about a different approach: it might be good to have some sort of Newbie forum, especially with all the new members signing on. I see posts in random places from new members saying things like "I've just started to think about investing, what mutual fund should I put $1000 in?" and "how do I buy stocks?" I know some of the veterans here get annoyed with getting these types of questions all the time, especially when running a search would find you answers or similar previous threads.

Could have some kind of CMF University sticky, with basic PF info.

[ddkay]

nice barwelle I'll +1 that idea for a newbie lounge. I believe threads are more efficient than subfôrəms in most cases - no one has to ask for permission, just make 'em and if they stand the test of time mods could pin topics for better accessibility.

[humble_pie]

a beer pub - the only place in canada licensed to sell to minors - all U need is to know the difference between a common stock & an asparagus stalk.

[canabiz]

Now I know why this kid fancies himself as a good reporter lol.

[riseofamillionaire]

at 26 I barely qualify. Lets get this club going :D

[MrMatt]

I thought you meant Young forum as in <15, as in kids learning about money.

I don't see the financial situation of young adults as being generally any different than any age group.
The specifics of the situation, trade offs etc might be more or less in common with different age groups, but that doesn't really matter.

Determining risk tolerances, handling Credit cards, buying a car, buying a home, saving for retirement, asset allocation. It's all the same pattern no matter your age.