... October General Body Meeting ...

Renee insisted that her noble accomplishment be put on the blog so here it is. Renee won. Renee and Marcela won. Yes, yes. They did build the longest bridge that held the most weight equipped with nothing but 10 index cards and a foot of scotch tape. LaTasha and Alex did come through with the style points though – their suspension bridge held its own but it did fall short on the length requirement not to mention that Tari was a pretty tough judge. That was a pretty cool icebreaker – we were all given index cards and scotch tape and asked to build the longest bridge that could span two desks and hold the most weight.





A quick review of October’s events followed starting with the September general body meeting where our speaker, Mr Morgan, spoke of what it takes to transition from a regular 9-5 engineering/ science job to a community service role and why it is important for us as Black professionals to do so.





This months featured speaker was Mr. Paul Hart of the World Financial Group and he spoke of building wealth. Several money building vehicles were reviewed with a focus on what tax categories they fell into i.e. Tax Now, Defer Taxes and Tax Never. He spoke of looking up to people who have built their wealth successfully and attempting to mirror their decisions; a good example being the several no-maximum-limit life insurance plans with associated cash values and death benefits that a lot of people in power (over 90% of congress) own. He spoke on the importance of building accessible wealth and ensuring that you leave your family with wealth and debt. Am I being too generic without giving specific details on how you should invest? Its on purpose. I am just but a keyboard drone with no formal training on how to advice people on wealth building. Talk to Paul Hart about how to build you wealth.





We closed up by looking at the next series of upcoming events, as listed below. We do not hold monthly meeting in November and December due to Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays and we also skip out on the January Power Lunch as well for similar reasons.

- 11/02: November Power Lunch at Corner Place, 2783 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA
- 11/10: NSBE Junior Meeting. The last meeting focused on Robots and Seitu Barron, one of our Mechanical Engineer members, presented and the kids got to make motors from scratch. The November meeting will focus on Computer Science and Engineering and Makinde Adeagbo, a facebook engineer will present on computers and the kids will write a couple of programs.





- 11/13: The BRN conference sponsored by Network Associates. Cynthia Wesley, The BRN CEO was at hand and she gave a moving speech on the importance of networking within and outside NSBE. Her speech on this was unrivaled and I have to say she did a great job getting everybody motivated about heading out to the conference. I got mine. Got yours? More details can be found on the BRN website.

- 11/16-11/18: NSBE Region 6 Fall Regional Conference sponsored by Microsoft. Bill Gates will be the keynote speaker and this conference should be one of the more exciting conferences that the region has put together in the past couple of years. Check out the website for the agenda and other details.
- 11/29: NSBE Happy Hour. Azucar is a great Cuban place in San Jose. They have some nice food for the hungry and apparently the drinks are to die for. 71 E San Fernando St, San Jose, CA 95113





- 12/05: December Food Sort at the Second Harvest Food Bank, San Jose Distribution Site, 750 Curtner Avenue, San Jose, CA 95125
- 12/06: NSBE Social. Viewing of the “Color Purple” in San Francisco at the Orpheum Theatre. Tickets are in the $80 range.
- 12/15: December Holiday Party. A white elephant party where we get to close down the year in style, gear up for the Christmas season, exchange gifts and celebrate the friendships and relationships we have developed. Location TBD.
- 01/26: General Body Meeting. First of the 2008 calendar year.