By Frank J. Diekmann
It’s a day that songs, clichés and poets all say isn’t supposed to arrive, yet for one group of innovative credit unions, “Tomorrow” more than arrived, it lasted for two-and-a-half terrific, idea-sharing, best-practice-learning, growth-oriented, exciting days.
In this case the tomorrow that arrived was CUToday.info’s inaugural CUTomorrow Conference, which just concluded in Austin, Texas. The meeting was designed for credit unions that want to see tomorrow—indeed, lots of tomorrows—instead of merging or just remaining stagnant. It was a long-time-in-coming meeting for which both the concept and the agenda were based on the feedback and suggestions of CUToday.info readers.
To be honest, launching any meeting or event in a very crowded credit union conference calendar is a (big) risk, which is why I have to admit to being so happy over the turnout and support the meeting received from the CU community.
Blazing a Trail
Beginning with an evening opening session by Filene’s Joel Hartzler on how to make new ideas really work, and then a next morning session by Jim McCarthy of Portland’s Trailhead Credit Union (an appropriately named CU to start any meeting if ever there was one) on how it onboards new employees, the meeting was intended to be an old-fashioned collaborative event in which CUs—which are unparalleled when it comes to talking about collaboration and not so great on the actual collaboration part—leveraged that underutilized advantage to make sure they are doing all they can to be around tomorrow to serve their members.
Over those two days I joked to attendees that we were working to give them the lowest cost-per-hour of conference attendance of any CU meeting by jamming in more than a dozen speakers from credit unions, all sharing specific programs that had worked for them. Yes, it could make for a long day, but it’s always a good thing if you’re tired from learning too much!
And that was the key to CUTomorrow: keep costs low and value high, and I think those in attendance will tell you we were able to do just that and so much more.
I want to make sure to thank once more the sponsors that made not just CUTomorrow possible, but also its very low cost of $499: RateGenius Volcorp, Emery Financial Group, Catalyst Corporate, CU*Answers, Harland-Clarke, and CUNA Mutual AdvantEdge Analytics.
Without Them, No Meeting
The meeting also wouldn’t have happened without the assistance and leadership of Jim This and Sue Girsch of James L. This & Associates, who handled so much of the meeting’s logistics. And Jim This also led a very productive closing session that was just an hour of give and take during which attendees shared problems and challenges they were facing at their own credit unions, and then other attendees weighed in with proposed solutions drawn from some of the things that have worked for them. Some wonderful solutions were exchanged.
An especially big thanks goes to all of our speakers, who gave of their time and accepted no speaking fees in order to make the meeting possible and share their successes: Besides Mr. Hartzler and Mr. McCarthy, there was Bobby Michael, Shari Storm, Phillip Buell, Sandy Cloutier, Jeff Owen, Bill Burke, Stacy Collins, Jane Dobbs, Dave Klavitter, Brad Smith, Anne Legg and John Sahagian.
A Special Thanks
Finally, a great big thanks to the attendees at the inaugural CUTomorrow Conference who came from credit unions of all asset sizes (as small as $17 million) and from Hawaii to Maine and who took a chance on this first-time event. There was great enthusiasm for the simple idea of getting back to cooperation among cooperatives. There is far too much worry over “competition” among CUs even though overall credit unions hold less than a dime of every consumer dollar in the country.
Any conference, I have so often been told, is all about the takeaways. And while attendees left with notebooks stuffed with ideas and information as they head into 2019 and their own tomorrows, on behalf of myself and CUToday.info I want to share our own takeaway. It was very rewarding to give back just a little bit to a credit union community that has given so much to me and to this publication.
Thank you. I look forward to be able to see you tomorrow.
Frank J. Diekmann is Cooperator in Chief at CUToday.info and can be reached at Frank@CUToday.info.