WASHINGTON – In a first, leaders from all six of CUNA's councils trekked to the nation's capital for a few days to meet with CUNA President/CEO Dan Mica and other CUNA leaders on a variety of topics. The group was made up of the CUNA Council Forum, which is comprised of the chairs and vice chairs of each of the six councils – CFO, Lending, COO and Operations, Marketing and Business Development, Technology, and H.R./Training and Development. "We as councils represent some 2,500 executive level professionals in the six key disciplines. We have a great deal we can continue to contribute to CUNA, the industry and ourselves," said Gayle Rust Gustafson, CUNA Council Forum Chairperson. On one day, the Forum reps had lunch with CUNA President Dan Mica in the Capitol. Mica called the group a "ready-made source" of knowledge and resources that CUNA should take advantage of more often. The councils can play key roles in areas such as regulation, giving feedback on operational impacts in their disciplines of various regs. The Forum also met with NCUA Chairman Dennis Dollar who stressed to them the importance of credit unions sending in comment letters on NCUA rules. Gustafson said that's one area the councils can definitely help. Gustafson said the councils experienced 17% membership growth over the last year, and that there could be more councils coming. Stressing that nothing has been hammered down as of yet, she said there has been interest in having a CEO council and a volunteer council. She said there's still a lot of work to be done to grow and improve the councils. [email protected]