Minnesota Credit Union Political Advocacy Director Monica Weber rolled up her sleeves and got to work during the Innovate to Motivate conference in New Orleans.
Innovate to Motivate is a national conference for politically involved professionals.
Weber, along with Chris Kemm, vice president of credit union advocacy for Credit Union Association of Colorado, helped repair a home destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. The conference attendees partnered with Beacon of Hope to repair the home.
The volunteers spent four hours clearing out the house and preparing it for renovation. They removed water-damaged sheet rock, stripped wallpaper, patched cracks and cleared ruined furniture and clutter from the home.
"The service project opportunity greatly enhanced this conference by providing an additional benefit that is unique to most professional conferences," Weber said. "After three days of workshops, it was a privilege to give something back to the community I was visiting."
Weber helped coordinate the Minnesota's Homes for Our Troops service project in 2008.
Boston Dinner to Help
Fund Home for Troops
In a gesture of support for the military, the Massachusetts Credit Union League is joining its league brethren and CUNA to help build homes for injured Iraqi and Afghanistan vets.
Rather than pursue direct financing of a home, the Massachusetts League is sponsoring a gala June 13 dinner in Boston hosted by the Homes for Our Troops charity and expected to draw lawmakers, community leaders and top military brass from across New England.
HFOT, as it is known, teamed up with CUNA and leagues in Minnesota and Colorado last summer during the Presidential party conventions to break ground on two of the specially designed homes. Thanks to CU donations, two homes in Golden, Colo. and Woodbury, Minn. are now occupied by HFOT recipients.
The Missouri Credit Union Association had earlier signed contracts with HFOT, headquartered in Taunton, Mass, to build two homes in Missouri later this year.
Regarding the Massachusetts dinner sponsorship, Paul Marotta, chairman of the $640 million Hanscom FCU, said military CUs like his are committed to the HFOT cause despite the prospect of an earnings hit in 2009 from NCUA's corporate assessment.
This kind of campaign, said Marotta, "is part of our social responsibility and commitment to our military," and while budget cuts are being made elsewhere, the CU's support for HFOT remains intact.
Like other CUs, Marotta said Hanscom has already started economizing in several areas, including elimination of a year-end bonus dividends to members, cutting salaries, reducing marketing and newsletter expenses and may eliminate one member appreciation day.
But HFOT, as well as youth scholarships, are too important to the CU mission, he concluded.
HFOT officials in Taunton said they hope enough funds can be raised from the June 13 dinner to build a home for an injured vet in Massachusetts.
Calif. League Is Moving
The California and Nevada Credit Union Leagues along with its system affiliate, Credit Union Direct Corp., are moving later this month to a new headquarters building in Ontario, Calif.
Lower rent is a major factor, explained Maryann Northup, vice president and director of corporate strategies, in detailing the switch out of its existing headquarters in nearby Rancho Cucamonga to the Ontario Airport Towers. The league has occupied the Rancho Cucamonga building for 10 years.
The existing building has always "had more room than we needed," said Northup. The new Ontario site , with a March 27 move-in date, provides 23,000 square feet compared to the existing 34,000. The league will occupy the tower's sixth floor, with CUDL on the floor below.
In line with the league's own greening practices, the new building is LEED certified, said Northup. She added that the league will be following greening standards for interior design, which covers the choice of paints, carpeting, furniture plus recycling. About 60 employees will be making the mile and half move from Rancho Cucamonga to the new site. Unaffected are about 10 other employees, including those in Sacramento.
NAFCU Webcast on RESPA
Credit union employees interested in learning how to comply with the changes in the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) can sign up for NAFCU's March 4 Webcast on the subject.
R. Colgate Selden, an attorney with Buckley Kolar, will be the Webcast's featured speaker. He will discuss upcoming changes to the RESPA regulation and the new standardized good faith estimate and HUD-1 forms and attendant rules.
"With industry experts calling the RESPA changes the most significant reform by HUD in decades, now is the time for credit unions to learn how their lending operations will be affected and what steps are necessary to ensure compliance," said NAFCU President Fred Becker.
The Webcast will broadcast live from NAFCU's headquarters from 2 p.m.-3:30 p.m.
To register, visit www.nafcu.org/marchwebcast or call 800-344-5580.
FCUs Not Subject to FOIA
While federal credit unions are subject to NCUA supervision, they are not government corporations or government-controlled corporations or a government agency for purposes of the Freedom of Information Act, according to a legal opinion by NCUA Associate General Counsel Sheila Albin.
"While federal credit unions may be considered federal instrumentalities under certain federal laws, for example tax and bankruptcy laws, federal credit unions are not agencies for purposes of FOIA," she wrote.
Albin, in response to an inquiry from Kwami
Abdul-Bey of Brooklyn, NY, cited two court cases in which judges ruled that a federal credit union is a private entity.
Leagues Partner
With Digital Compliance
The California and Nevada Credit Union Leagues have partnered with Montana-based Digital Compliance to assist credit unions in better mitigating risk and substantially reducing cost when dealing with their third-party relationships or vendors.
The leagues and Digital Compliance will kick off the partnership with a Webinar in March followed by compliance education workshops in April, June and September. The March Webinar will spotlight the documentation that should be acquired and reviewed before a contract is signed, and what vendor documentation should be continually monitored throughout the life of the contract. The workshops will take a hands-on approach to determine the risk of a credit union's vendors, breaking down outsourced categories and demonstrating how and why they are classified.
"We chose Digital Compliance as a business partner partly because its services help meet one of the greatest needs of our member credit unions-information security," said Sylvia Faith, leagues' senior vice president of business services.
"We partner with credit unions to provide education and tangible relief for this critical piece of their of risk management," said Lisa Huertas, vice president at Digital Compliance. "We have successfully eased the exchange and monitoring of due diligence information for more than 800 service providers to more than 2,000 financial institutions across the nation."
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.