Vermont Occupy activists, who for months have been both a thornfor and a backer of the $345 million Vermont Federal Credit Unionin Burlington, said Thursday they have come up with a novel planwhich could be adapted nationally.

Matt Cropp, an Occupy representative who in June lost a bid tobecome a director of Vermont Federal but saw a fellow activist get elected, said the latest concept beingfloated is formation of “Members for Credit Union Democracy”with chapters of members bearing the name of individual creditunions.

The creation of such an ad hoc organization, said Cropp, will bedebated Thursday night at a meeting in Burlington of the fledgling35-member “Vermont Federal Credit Union Members Assembly.”

A decision to come up with a new name for the Occupy members whobelong to Vermont Federal came after the president/CEO of thecredit union, Bernie Isabelle, objected to the use of “VermontFederal Members” in Occupy Facebook postings.

In particular Isabelle expressed concern over any linkage ormention of Vermont Federal's name tied to Occupy's picketingat a Burlington bank.

“We were recently informed that VFCU has registered 'VFCUMA' andthe 'Vermont Federal Credit Union Members Association' astrademarks with the secretary of state, and told us that we cannot use any name with Vermont Federal CreditUnion or VFCU in it,” said Cropp.

As a result, faced with this dilemma, Cropp said theorganization sees “an opportunity to spread the movement to othercredit unions by adopting the lines of 'Members for Credit UnionDemocracy' and then having chapters that bear the name of anindividual credit union of which common membership is the commonbond.”