Investment clubs and Investments partnerships have been around for decades. They are the abridged version of chamas, and merry-go-rounds and obviously my choice bet for those new to investing and wish to learn about investing in friendly group settings. After awhile though individuals eventually find that the skills and experiences gained guide and encourage their own personal investing too.

Most of us belong to and fairly understand chamas, merry-go-rounds and saccos and how they work. Fact is a lot more can be achieved through these structured investment partnerships, if the advantages of leverage are understood and utilized in more structured and focused frameworks; when goals and investments objectives are clearly spelt out and rules of engagement clearly defined.

Pooling cash for the sake of it maybe as defeatist as it can be. The reason I believe and have argued before that having some fixed deposit bank account as an ultimate investment strategy and to an extent sacco savings is more like lending out your dairy cow for the promise of some periodic litre of milk without caring to know where the calves go! Still, chamas, merry-go-rounds and saccos would not be of any use if their focus was to periodically boost our ego and feed our ever craving appetite for more cash and toys.

My challenge has been for folks to explore the leverage of both ‘other peoples time’; OPM (stop taking your ducks to eagle school, it’s frustrating and unnecessary) and ‘other people’s money’; OPM to create the endless possibilities of dreams. There will be a price to pay in the process of learning of course, but the benefits will far much outweigh the apparent bouts of occasional failures. As they say; you can’t discover the new seas until you have lost sight of the (familiar) shore. A ship that has not been launched is just some pretty artwork…….. and that’s just about it.

In the club dynamics, there’s not only the benefit of different perspectives (some clubs have benefit of diverse skills and expertise brought onboard) but eventually, a stronger financial bargaining power than we could have had as individuals, to pool resources to buy into big investments.

My considered opinion is that we have within us the potential, the opportunities and the means to mould our dreams into endless realms of possibilities. The question is do we even know it? It’s amazing but not surprising that folks with enormous capabilities and resources have allowed themselves to settle for the bare minimum. What I call the KIOSK mentality.

Make a conscious decision to think out of the familiar box!

Bernard Were is an Associate Financial Advisor at Waumini Investments. You can read his blog here and follow him on Twitter