As an ARRL Director I feel a responsibility to understand how well the League's funds are managed. Our investment portfolio contains a good share of our assets, and management of the portfolio plays an important role in our financial well being. There is no metric that rates portfolio performance more important than the annual rate-of-return. In fact, other than the year-end value of the portfolio, it is essentially the only number needed to evaluate the portfolio and its management. As a number of you have observed over the last four years that I've been on the Board, I have requested the annual rate-of-return from our portfolio manager, Treasurer Jim Mc Cobb, W1LU. In each case, he has indicated that it was too difficult to calculate without use of a costly system. Not being comfortable with this explanation, I requested and obtained the dollar amounts of additions to and withdrawals from the investment portfolio for each of the last seven years and the months in which those transfers occurred. With the year-end investment portfolio values provided in the annual reports, I calculated the net annual return, year-by-year from 2001 to 2007. The ARRL yearly rates shown assume daily compounding through the year, and therefore can be directly compared to bank savings rates. The returns are included in the attached spreadsheet, together with passive index comparison numbers. The comparisons include 1) all bonds, 2) all stocks and 3) a simple 50% stock and 50% bond portfolio. The comparisons use two commonly used benchmarks, the Lehman Bond Index and the S&P 500. The purpose of this memo is not to evaluate fund or management performance but to provide the data for those who may wish to do so. Keep in mind that hindsight is often 20/20. Note that year-end 2008 ARRL data is not yet available. I hope that some of you find this information useful in exercising your oversight responsibilities as Directors. 73, Dick Norton, N6AA