Kahley, president/CEO of the Arkansas Credit Union League, said her state's affiliation ratio has remained steady for years. Pointing to the current 90% level, league officials said of the 69 CUs in the state only 10 are small "mom and pop nonmembers" choosing to skip league dues.

But in Mid-Atlantic states like New York and New Jersey, because of mergers, economic factors and internal issues leagues have witnessed a falloff in membership prompting the head of the New York league in May to fire off an e-mail message in the league's newsletter warning that further resignations could seriously impact industry unity "if we cannot speak with one voice."

New York, it was noted, has a 72% affiliation ratio down from 90% a decade ago.

Moreover, William S. Mellin, the New York League president/CEO, warned of ad cutbacks while also appealing to existing members to put aside long forgotten grievances or personality feuds and start calling on wayward members to rejoin.

He also said disaffiliations would be a major topic at a series of town hall meetings the league is planning over the summer and fall to seek answers to halt the member slide.

Meanwhile, apart from AACUL, the California Credit Union League has set up its own separate member committee to also start contacting disaffiliated CUs to remind them they are needed and to stress economic and cost value of membership.

Such areas as lobbying expertise, education programming compliance, legal and processing services are being highlighted in letters that went out last week, noted the league.

As with CUNA, both California and New York league staffers expect to stress the unity theme citing threats of renewed bank attacks, dangers from mutual conversions and hostile takeovers among other topics.

Mercer of AACUL maintains the panel is already hard at work developing "best practices" among the leagues to guide existing leadership to show for example, CUNA/league muscle on Capitol Hill or in state capitols on issues most paramount to individual CUs.

Besides Mercer and Mellin, the other three league managers on the AACUL Task Force include William Cheney, California; James McCormack, Pennsylvania; and Guy Hood, Florida.

Both Mercer and Susan Newton, the AACUL's executive director, downplay any notion that the AACUL Task Force will draw up any kind of "final summary report" with lists of rules to follow. Still, there will be suggestions and customized approaches that will be passed on to league table officers and managers who request them.

But what is likely to occur are examples of how and why individual CUs have restored membership. Sometimes, said Mercer, a CU rejoins after being encouraged by peers to join Hill or State Capitol visits on specific bills based on their own pressing interests.

"For a credit union whose prime interest in league membership is education, we may even offer a field trip to Madison to show what sort of services are available," said Mercer.

In addition, there may be an array of specific services that new management may not even be aware of, said Mercer stressing that one outcome of the Task Force is certain to be closer collaboration between leagues and CUNA.

The panel, he said, expects most of its work to be done through conference calls and e-mails making contact with individual leagues and CUs. The group held its formal working session early last month during AACUL's summer conference in Boston.

Progress reports are planned for the AACUL during the remainder of 2007 with the next update to occur at AACUL's January meeting in Washington.

CUNA and state league officials stress that mergers are a major factor in the ratio of CUs' declining membership even though the actual rate of disaffiliated CUs has remained fairly constant.

And looking at other industries both Mercer and Newton are particularly proud of CUNA's overall affiliation ratio at 90% of members and assets.

Nonetheless, in recent years the headlines on those large CUs leaving the system have been striking. The most recent examples have been in Texas, California and Minnesota, where very large CUs have converted to banks.

In Texas, it was to become banks and in California because of objections to mandatory dues on advocacy advertising.

And in Minnesota, the largest CU, the $1.6 billion Wings Financial of Apple Valley, resigned a year ago in a legislative rift, later to pursue its much-vaunted and unsuccessful "hostile takeover" of Continental Federal Credit Union of El Segundo, Calif.

Some of the largest CUs in Utah have been nonmembers in an apparent fallout from the bitter clashes five years ago with the banking lobby in that state.

Whenever disaffiliations do occur, league managers say they find themselves having to readjust financing, staffing and/or dues structures to accommodate the loss of revenue.

As for the departure of Wings, the Minnesota Credit Union Network, said last spring it was prepared to cope with that loss even though the new president/CEO of the Network, Mark Cummins, lamented the Minnesota industry would be operating with two giant voids.

First would be Wings and the second would be a nonmember, the exit of the state's second largest CU, the $1.2 billion Think Federal Credit Union of Rochester, now called Think Mutual Bank which this summer adopted the brand, "Think Better Banking."

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