Agenda - First Affirmative Pre-conference Advance

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Sessions marked with an asterisk (*) have been submitted to the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards for Continuing Education Credits.

  • October 24
  • October 25
  • October 26
  • All Days
October 24
Time   Session/Event   Speakers/Presenters/Sponsor
7:00 AM - 8:00 AM   Morning Workout with Coach Fletch
How is your workout program working? Join Coach Fletch to get your day started.
  Dale Fletcher View  
7:15 AM - 10:30 AM   Eco-Trek (Group of 10)    
8:00 AM - 10:30 AM   Free Time    
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM   Transformative Investing: Introducing First Affirmative's Vision and Strategic Direction
Based on input from many Advisers, market and competitor research and our assessment of the needs and desires of our Advisers and their Clients, First Affirmative has created a new organizational vision and a set of concepts for the direction our business will take over the next several years. We are excited, and hope you will be too!
  George R. Gay  
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM   First Affirmative Lunch    
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Breakout Sessions  
  * Investment Solutions: Sell PROCESS Rather than Performance or Product
Financial Planning and Investment Advice is best handled as a consultative, process-based relationship rather than as a product sale. When markets are difficult, focusing on process helps to keep your existing clients and makes you more attractive to potential new clients. Learn how to present your services, and ours, as disciplined, client-focused processes that will allow you to help you help your clients.
  Kevin O'Keefe  
    Networking Solutions: Transformative Investing @ Ning
While some advisers and staff have fully embraced our new Transformative Investing site on NING, others are having challenges in understanding how best to benefit from the site and how to integrate it into their business routine. Christie Renner will lead the group through a familiarization session focused on usability and functionality.
  Christie Renner  
    Community Solutions: What, Why, How
Most of us agree that Community Investments are among the highest impact options in SRI. Historically, it has been difficult to include community investments in our Solutions. Andy Loving will discuss the importance of Community Investing and Johann Klaassen will provide an understanding of what First Affirmative has been doing and what our new trading capabilities will allow us to do in the future. We will also discuss the new First Affirmative "white paper" on Community Investment Solutions.
  Johann Klaassen, Andy Loving  
2:10 PM - 3:10 PM Breakout Sessions  
    Compliance Solutions: Mandatory Compliance Meeting for First Affirmative IARs
All First Affirmative Investment Advisory Representatives (IARs) have a requirement for an annual Compliance Meeting and review of USA Patriot Act and anti-money-laundering provisions. This session will be designed to meet all necessary requirements.
  Kathy Sutherland  
    Practice Management: How to Attract High Net-Worth SRI Clients   Jobie McCormick, Steve Schueth  
    Networking Solutions: Network Member Benefits
First Affirmative offers network members a unique package of services for advisers seeking tobetter serve the special needs of socially conscious investors. This session will help you to better understand how to access and utilize the full array of member benefits. We will also have vendor updates to provide you with an overview of recent enhancements as they are available to our network.
  Mark Bateman, Danielle Burns View , Scott A. Fenn View , Andrew T. Frommeyer View  
3:15 PM - 3:30 PM   Afternoon Break    
3:30 PM - 5:30 PM   Knowledge Café: Wisdom of the Crowd
This interactive session is designed to provide an open and creative conversation on a topic of mutual interest. Working together, we will surface our collective knowledge, share ideas and insights, and gain a deeper understanding of the issues involved. The topic will emerge out of our experience together earlier in the day. What will be the burning issue on which we will want to focus as a group? Maybe "transformative investing." We'll see?
  Steve Schueth, Barbara Simonetti View  
6:30 PM - 7:15 PM   First Affirmative 20th Anniversary Reception
Join us as we celebrate 20 years of specialization in SRI! Awards, recognitions and the always moving "Why We Do What We Do" Presentations.
   
7:15 PM - 9:30 PM   Awards Dinner    
October 25
Time   Session/Event   Speakers/Presenters/Sponsor
7:00 AM - 7:30 AM   Morning Workout with Coach Fletch
How is your workout program working? Join Coach Fletch to get your day started.
  Dale Fletcher  
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM   Breakfast: First Affirmative    
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM * How a Corporate Trustee Can Help Advisors Achieve Their Client Goals
Corporate Trustees organized under Delaware Trust Laws are uniquely capable of providing trust services to support and enhance the relationship of Investment Advisors with their clients. Delaware law also makes it easier for corporate trustees to retain and take investment direction from investment advisors. This session will describe the structure and benefits of several types of trusts enabled or enhanced under Delaware law. Methods of, and requirements for, changing trustees will also be discussed.
  Thomas M. Forrest View  
10:00 AM - 10:15 AM   Break: First Affirmative    
10:15 AM - 11:45 AM   Operations Solutions
During the course of the last twelve months, following the opening of our new office in Boulder, First Affirmative's operations have been reorganized into an Adviser Services Team, a Client Services Team and a Billing and Compensation Team. This session will address the question of "Who Does What" at First Affirmative and help you to understand how to best and most efficiently coordinate with our support teams.
  Ritu Henningsen View , Julie McNamara, Kathy Sutherland  
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM   Lunch: First Affirmative    
1:00 PM - 2:15 PM * Life Planning Solutions: Planning for Incapacity and Death of Loved Ones
Life is tough. It kills us all. As clients age, the financial planning process can become more complex. As clients' parents age, caring for them often becomes an important part of the family financial picture. In fact, most financial plans never even consider elder care or end-of-life details. This session will provide basic information and advice around engaging clients in conversation about elder care planning and end-of-life issues. It's designed to be highly interactive?we will learn from each other's experiences.
  Steve Schueth  
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM Breakout Sessions  
    Business Relationships: Network Leaders Roundtable Discussion (by invitation)
Last year, we conducted extensive interviews with our top 30 Network Leaders. Holly Testa did follow-up interviews regarding Community Investing, Shareholder Advocacy and Succession Planning. We plan to invite this year's 30 Network Leaders to attend a round-table discussion, specifically focused on their feedback about the Strategic Direction Presentation that George will make on Friday morning.
  George R. Gay, Holly Testa  
  * Life Planning Solutions: Investing in Yourself: Stress Management Coaching
Each of us, and each of our clients, has stress in our lives. Some stress is useful or motivational; chronic, excess stress will debilitate us over time. Learn how to manage stress through the practice of mind, body and spirit wellness. Understand how a coaching relationship can benefit you and your clients.
  Dale Fletcher View  
    Practice Management: How to Attract High Net-Worth SRI Clients (Repeat)
Attendees can expect to leave this interactive session with practical ideas to improve their current marketing efforts. We will present useful data and facilitate group work. Each advisor will develop a clear, concise ?elevator speech? so that they can easily speak with prospects about how they are different from local competitors. We will also help advisors understand how to conduct a successful seminar?getting prospects into the room; preparing excellent, interactive presentations, and ensuring that 80% or more of the prospects sign up for appointments before they leave the seminar.
  Jobie McCormick, Steve Schueth  
3:30 PM - 3:45 PM   FAFN: Break    
3:45 PM - 4:45 PM Breakout Sessions  
    Investment Solutions: Introducing G-Sphere Driven Portfolio Options
This session will introduce our risk and diversification focused Portfolio Optimization Software, G-Sphere. This software drives several new investment solutions. George will also discuss several new folio options that are now ready to go into wide release.
  George R. Gay  
    Networking Solutions: Transformative Investing @ Ning (Repeat)
While some advisers and staff have fully embraced our new Transformative Investing site on NING, others are having challenges in understanding how best to benefit from the site and how to integrate it into their business routine. Christie Renner will lead the group through a familiarization session focused on usability and functionality
  Christie Renner  
  * Case Study: The Anatomy of a Meltdown-Muni Mae
Even before the Credit Crisis began, the management of Municipal Mortgage & Equity LLC, had begun to exhibit questionable behavior. Our speaker, an experienced shareholder class action attorney, will describe the numerous clues that existed that something was wrong at Muni Mae, clues to be alert for in other companies.
  Thomas Burt View  
4:50 PM - 5:50 PM Breakout Sessions  
  * Life Planning Solutions: Financial Literacy and a Healthy Connection with Money
This session will be a discussion of how to support clients in expanding their current paradigms of prosperity. These ideas were captured in Mackey's award winning book: The Intersection of Joy and Money, named Most Life-Changing Book and Outstanding Book of the Year by Independent Publishers. Rev. Dorothy Emerson has done extensive research on promoting financial literacy for women and how we teach kids about money. Mackey and Dorothy have collaborated to develop a six-session adult education program on these subjects.
  Dorothy Emerson, Mackey McNeill  
    Shareholder Advocacy Solutions
In the past, many advisers have identified First Affirmative's capabilities in the Shareholder Advocacy process as a weakness in our offering. In the last year, Holly Testa has interview many advisers to determine their understanding of what our true abilities are, as well as to understand what advisers would like to see us do. Earlier this year, Holly wrote a "White Paper" on the subject and will present this information in this session, as well as leading the discussion as to what we should do next.
  Holly Testa View  
    Investment Solutions: First Affirmative's Investment Process - from GeneSIS to Final IPS
What happens after you complete one of First Affirmative's Confidential Client Questionnaires with a prospective client? In this session, we'll walk through the process from questionnaire to IPS and Manager Addendum. Come and see - the black box will be opened, secrets will be revealed, mysteries will be exposed!
  Johann Klaassen  
6:45 PM - 7:15 PM   First Affirmative Financial Network Reception    
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM   Dinner: First-Year Participants Dinner    
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM   Dinner: On Your Own in Whistler    
October 26
Time   Session/Event   Speakers/Presenters/Sponsor
7:30 AM - 8:00 AM   Breakfast: First Affirmative    
8:15 AM - 10:15 AM   Investment Solutions: 'Popcorn' Presentations from Separate Account and Model Folio Managers    
10:15 AM - 10:30 AM   Break; First Affirmative    
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM   Close the Loop
The goal of the pre-conference advance meeting is to provide a special and useful experience for our advisers. Your feedback is critical for us to understand what we did well, what we can do better, and new directions we might take. We work together to make this event the best possible, and we appreciate your honest appraisal and your suggestions for improvement.
   
11:00 AM - 12:15 PM   First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC Annual Meeting of Investors    
11:05 AM - 2:20 PM   Eco-Trek Zip Tour (Group 1/10 people)    
11:25 AM - 2:40 PM   Eco-Trek Zip Tour (Group 2/10 people)    
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM   First Affirmative Financial Network Advisory Board Lunch and Meeting
The First Affirmative Advisory Board will meet over lunch to review business strategy and discuss company priorities for the future. Invitation only!
   
Friday, October 24, 2008
Time   Session/Event   Speakers/Presenters/Sponsor
7:00 AM - 8:00 AM   Morning Workout with Coach Fletch
How is your workout program working? Join Coach Fletch to get your day started.
  Dale Fletcher View  
7:15 AM - 10:30 AM   Eco-Trek (Group of 10)    
8:00 AM - 10:30 AM   Free Time    
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM   Transformative Investing: Introducing First Affirmative's Vision and Strategic Direction
Based on input from many Advisers, market and competitor research and our assessment of the needs and desires of our Advisers and their Clients, First Affirmative has created a new organizational vision and a set of concepts for the direction our business will take over the next several years. We are excited, and hope you will be too!
  George R. Gay  
12:00 PM - 1:00 PM   First Affirmative Lunch    
1:00 PM - 2:00 PM Breakout Sessions  
  * Investment Solutions: Sell PROCESS Rather than Performance or Product
Financial Planning and Investment Advice is best handled as a consultative, process-based relationship rather than as a product sale. When markets are difficult, focusing on process helps to keep your existing clients and makes you more attractive to potential new clients. Learn how to present your services, and ours, as disciplined, client-focused processes that will allow you to help you help your clients.
  Kevin O'Keefe  
    Networking Solutions: Transformative Investing @ Ning
While some advisers and staff have fully embraced our new Transformative Investing site on NING, others are having challenges in understanding how best to benefit from the site and how to integrate it into their business routine. Christie Renner will lead the group through a familiarization session focused on usability and functionality.
  Christie Renner  
    Community Solutions: What, Why, How
Most of us agree that Community Investments are among the highest impact options in SRI. Historically, it has been difficult to include community investments in our Solutions. Andy Loving will discuss the importance of Community Investing and Johann Klaassen will provide an understanding of what First Affirmative has been doing and what our new trading capabilities will allow us to do in the future. We will also discuss the new First Affirmative "white paper" on Community Investment Solutions.
  Johann Klaassen, Andy Loving  
2:10 PM - 3:10 PM Breakout Sessions  
    Compliance Solutions: Mandatory Compliance Meeting for First Affirmative IARs
All First Affirmative Investment Advisory Representatives (IARs) have a requirement for an annual Compliance Meeting and review of USA Patriot Act and anti-money-laundering provisions. This session will be designed to meet all necessary requirements.
  Kathy Sutherland  
    Practice Management: How to Attract High Net-Worth SRI Clients   Jobie McCormick, Steve Schueth  
    Networking Solutions: Network Member Benefits
First Affirmative offers network members a unique package of services for advisers seeking tobetter serve the special needs of socially conscious investors. This session will help you to better understand how to access and utilize the full array of member benefits. We will also have vendor updates to provide you with an overview of recent enhancements as they are available to our network.
  Mark Bateman, Danielle Burns View , Scott A. Fenn View , Andrew T. Frommeyer View  
3:15 PM - 3:30 PM   Afternoon Break    
3:30 PM - 5:30 PM   Knowledge Café: Wisdom of the Crowd
This interactive session is designed to provide an open and creative conversation on a topic of mutual interest. Working together, we will surface our collective knowledge, share ideas and insights, and gain a deeper understanding of the issues involved. The topic will emerge out of our experience together earlier in the day. What will be the burning issue on which we will want to focus as a group? Maybe "transformative investing." We'll see?
  Steve Schueth, Barbara Simonetti View  
6:30 PM - 7:15 PM   First Affirmative 20th Anniversary Reception
Join us as we celebrate 20 years of specialization in SRI! Awards, recognitions and the always moving "Why We Do What We Do" Presentations.
   
7:15 PM - 9:30 PM   Awards Dinner    
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Time   Session/Event   Speakers/Presenters/Sponsor
7:00 AM - 7:30 AM   Morning Workout with Coach Fletch
How is your workout program working? Join Coach Fletch to get your day started.
  Dale Fletcher  
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM   Breakfast: First Affirmative    
9:00 AM - 10:00 AM * How a Corporate Trustee Can Help Advisors Achieve Their Client Goals
Corporate Trustees organized under Delaware Trust Laws are uniquely capable of providing trust services to support and enhance the relationship of Investment Advisors with their clients. Delaware law also makes it easier for corporate trustees to retain and take investment direction from investment advisors. This session will describe the structure and benefits of several types of trusts enabled or enhanced under Delaware law. Methods of, and requirements for, changing trustees will also be discussed.
  Thomas M. Forrest View  
10:00 AM - 10:15 AM   Break: First Affirmative    
10:15 AM - 11:45 AM   Operations Solutions
During the course of the last twelve months, following the opening of our new office in Boulder, First Affirmative's operations have been reorganized into an Adviser Services Team, a Client Services Team and a Billing and Compensation Team. This session will address the question of "Who Does What" at First Affirmative and help you to understand how to best and most efficiently coordinate with our support teams.
  Ritu Henningsen View , Julie McNamara, Kathy Sutherland  
11:30 AM - 12:30 PM   Lunch: First Affirmative    
1:00 PM - 2:15 PM * Life Planning Solutions: Planning for Incapacity and Death of Loved Ones
Life is tough. It kills us all. As clients age, the financial planning process can become more complex. As clients' parents age, caring for them often becomes an important part of the family financial picture. In fact, most financial plans never even consider elder care or end-of-life details. This session will provide basic information and advice around engaging clients in conversation about elder care planning and end-of-life issues. It's designed to be highly interactive?we will learn from each other's experiences.
  Steve Schueth  
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM Breakout Sessions  
    Business Relationships: Network Leaders Roundtable Discussion (by invitation)
Last year, we conducted extensive interviews with our top 30 Network Leaders. Holly Testa did follow-up interviews regarding Community Investing, Shareholder Advocacy and Succession Planning. We plan to invite this year's 30 Network Leaders to attend a round-table discussion, specifically focused on their feedback about the Strategic Direction Presentation that George will make on Friday morning.
  George R. Gay, Holly Testa  
  * Life Planning Solutions: Investing in Yourself: Stress Management Coaching
Each of us, and each of our clients, has stress in our lives. Some stress is useful or motivational; chronic, excess stress will debilitate us over time. Learn how to manage stress through the practice of mind, body and spirit wellness. Understand how a coaching relationship can benefit you and your clients.
  Dale Fletcher View  
    Practice Management: How to Attract High Net-Worth SRI Clients (Repeat)
Attendees can expect to leave this interactive session with practical ideas to improve their current marketing efforts. We will present useful data and facilitate group work. Each advisor will develop a clear, concise ?elevator speech? so that they can easily speak with prospects about how they are different from local competitors. We will also help advisors understand how to conduct a successful seminar?getting prospects into the room; preparing excellent, interactive presentations, and ensuring that 80% or more of the prospects sign up for appointments before they leave the seminar.
  Jobie McCormick, Steve Schueth  
3:30 PM - 3:45 PM   FAFN: Break    
3:45 PM - 4:45 PM Breakout Sessions  
    Investment Solutions: Introducing G-Sphere Driven Portfolio Options
This session will introduce our risk and diversification focused Portfolio Optimization Software, G-Sphere. This software drives several new investment solutions. George will also discuss several new folio options that are now ready to go into wide release.
  George R. Gay  
    Networking Solutions: Transformative Investing @ Ning (Repeat)
While some advisers and staff have fully embraced our new Transformative Investing site on NING, others are having challenges in understanding how best to benefit from the site and how to integrate it into their business routine. Christie Renner will lead the group through a familiarization session focused on usability and functionality
  Christie Renner  
  * Case Study: The Anatomy of a Meltdown-Muni Mae
Even before the Credit Crisis began, the management of Municipal Mortgage & Equity LLC, had begun to exhibit questionable behavior. Our speaker, an experienced shareholder class action attorney, will describe the numerous clues that existed that something was wrong at Muni Mae, clues to be alert for in other companies.
  Thomas Burt View  
4:50 PM - 5:50 PM Breakout Sessions  
  * Life Planning Solutions: Financial Literacy and a Healthy Connection with Money
This session will be a discussion of how to support clients in expanding their current paradigms of prosperity. These ideas were captured in Mackey's award winning book: The Intersection of Joy and Money, named Most Life-Changing Book and Outstanding Book of the Year by Independent Publishers. Rev. Dorothy Emerson has done extensive research on promoting financial literacy for women and how we teach kids about money. Mackey and Dorothy have collaborated to develop a six-session adult education program on these subjects.
  Dorothy Emerson, Mackey McNeill  
    Shareholder Advocacy Solutions
In the past, many advisers have identified First Affirmative's capabilities in the Shareholder Advocacy process as a weakness in our offering. In the last year, Holly Testa has interview many advisers to determine their understanding of what our true abilities are, as well as to understand what advisers would like to see us do. Earlier this year, Holly wrote a "White Paper" on the subject and will present this information in this session, as well as leading the discussion as to what we should do next.
  Holly Testa View  
    Investment Solutions: First Affirmative's Investment Process - from GeneSIS to Final IPS
What happens after you complete one of First Affirmative's Confidential Client Questionnaires with a prospective client? In this session, we'll walk through the process from questionnaire to IPS and Manager Addendum. Come and see - the black box will be opened, secrets will be revealed, mysteries will be exposed!
  Johann Klaassen  
6:45 PM - 7:15 PM   First Affirmative Financial Network Reception    
7:00 PM - 9:00 PM   Dinner: First-Year Participants Dinner    
7:30 PM - 9:00 PM   Dinner: On Your Own in Whistler    
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Time   Session/Event   Speakers/Presenters/Sponsor
7:30 AM - 8:00 AM   Breakfast: First Affirmative    
8:15 AM - 10:15 AM   Investment Solutions: 'Popcorn' Presentations from Separate Account and Model Folio Managers    
10:15 AM - 10:30 AM   Break; First Affirmative    
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM   Close the Loop
The goal of the pre-conference advance meeting is to provide a special and useful experience for our advisers. Your feedback is critical for us to understand what we did well, what we can do better, and new directions we might take. We work together to make this event the best possible, and we appreciate your honest appraisal and your suggestions for improvement.
   
11:00 AM - 12:15 PM   First Affirmative Financial Network, LLC Annual Meeting of Investors    
11:05 AM - 2:20 PM   Eco-Trek Zip Tour (Group 1/10 people)    
11:25 AM - 2:40 PM   Eco-Trek Zip Tour (Group 2/10 people)    
12:30 PM - 2:00 PM   First Affirmative Financial Network Advisory Board Lunch and Meeting
The First Affirmative Advisory Board will meet over lunch to review business strategy and discuss company priorities for the future. Invitation only!
   

 



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