Despite press brickbats attendees loved debate

<p>Allow me to give a last word on our “Great Debate.” At its last conference, the California Credit Union League presented what publisher Mike Welch in his weekly column, and many others, have referred to as a “Great Debate” between CUNA’s intelligent, well-spoken and loyal Bill Hampel and the ABA’s intelligent, well-spoken but perhaps “evil” Keith Leggett. I have personally never received as many compliments for a public appearance (except for maybe when my daughter sang the national anthem at our convention a few years ago), and very few times have we received more compliments from attendees on a league session that we have held (including those featuring Barbara Bush, Colin Powell, and even Mike Welch). I do admit, however, that I read Welch’s column and the Credit Union Times news articles afterwards on the debate and had a little bit of indigestion over them (I guess there wasn’t enough blood during the debate). But what the heck, I thought I’d wait to write until we got our evaluations back from the conference attendees because maybe the session did not go as well as I had thought. I got them back today. Guess what? We received a very large number of evaluations-many more than usual-from directors, CEOs and staff. A great majority not only rated the debate very high, but they took the time to say so in written comments. They were complimentary in every way, using words like “useful,” “exciting,” “intelligent,” “educational,” “surprisingly good,” “fantastic,” “inspiring,” and “entertaining.” There was not one single negative comment. These are from the people that I, and our League, really listen to…our members. D. Matthew Davidson Executive Vice President California Credit Union League Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.</p>