OVER the coming months The Sunday Times will track the fortunes of the Wall-to-Wall Cher Club, which meets every month in a local pub in Doncaster. The nine members are all friends who met playing squash and discovered a shared interest in investment. In addition to the £25 monthly subscription, each member invested £100 to get the enterprise off the ground earlier this year.

Alan Simpson, secretary of the club, emphasises the importance of rules. 'You can begin as the best of friends but money can do funny things to people, so it is as well to make arrangements for how to divide the profits if a member decides to leave.' The club members come from all walks of life. 'None of us are financial gurus and we are learning as we go along, but we are getting more sophisticated. We now have our holdings on a spreadsheet, so I can show everyone what is happening on the portable computer,' says Simpson.

The club has already scored some noticeable successes with Premier Oil, which yielded a £217 profit. It also bought shares in Riva Group for 70p pence - they are now worth more than 115p. It was less fortunate with an investment in Inchcape, whose shares have fallen in value. 'One thing we need to learn is when to cut our losses,' says Simpson. Overall, the group has made a profit of nearly £300 since February on a total investment of £3,025 - a return of 10%. The club currently holds six companies in its portfolio: ISA International, Paladin Resources, Atlantic Caspian, Oxford Biomedical, Riva Group and Inchcape. It uses the Yorkshare execution-only share-dealing service of the Yorkshire building society. For anyone interested in the club's name, the 'wall' comes from Wall Street, the home of the American stock market, while Cher is the name of the members' favourite singer. It can be contacted via e-mail at wtwcheraol.com