Hello Weekenders,

As Berkshire Weekend approaches, it seems as if the whole world is looking for a little bit of Warren Buffett’s wisdom. Everyone seems to have questions for the “Oracle of Omaha.” Well shareholders, this weekend is your chance to get your questions answered! The Q & A period with Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger will begin at 9:30 a.m. this Saturday. It will last until around 3:30 p.m. with an hour lunch break at noon.

The format for asking questions is a little different this year than it has been in the past, so I thought that I would share the format style with all of our readers. The following description comes from the 2010 Visitor’s Guide:

Financial journalists from organizations representing newspapers, magazines and television will participate in the question-and-answer period, asking Charlie and me questions that shareholders have submitted by e-mail. The journalists and their e-mail addresses are: Carol Loomis, of Fortune, who may be emailed at cloomis@fortunemail.com; Becky Quick, of CNBC, at BerkshireQuestions@cnbc.com, and Andrew Ross Sorkin, of The New York Times, at arsorkin@nytimes.com. From the questions submitted, each journalist will choose the dozen or so he or she decides are the most interesting and important. (In your e-mail, let the journalist know if you would like your name mentioned if your question is selected.)

Neither Charlie nor I will get so much as a clue about the questions to be asked. We know the journalists will pick some tough ones and that’s the way we like it. We will have a drawing at 8:15 at each of the 13 microphones for those shareholders wishing to ask questions themselves. At the meeting, I will alternate the questions asked by the journalists with those from the winning shareholders. We’ve added 30 minutes to the question time and will probably have time for about 30 questions from each group.

Microphone Manners
When asking a question from a microphone zone, please:

• State your name and hometown.
• Ask your question promptly – speak loud & clear.
• Do not ask more than one question or attempt to “bundle” several questions together.
• Do not ask what we are buying or selling. Even if the information is public, we do not discuss how we arrive at our decisions. Any other subjects are fair game.

So, make sure to get your questions mailed in ahead of time.

See you Saturday morning,

Bill, the blogger