A Direct Line Blog

By Donya Parrish, MCU VP Risk Management

Yes, I am sure you’ve heard — “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas!” Except that doesn’t apply when great ideas are discussed during our annual roundtable meeting for credit union CEOs and board members. This year’s Roundtable was no exception to past excellence, so I thought I would share a few of the things overheard that might warrant future blogs:

• The onboarding process is critical to helping new board members learn and understand their role, and most credit unions are struggling with it. One attendee shared that a civic board she sits on has a “Board Buddy” program for new board members. It is an idea we may explore here in Montana to help with the knowledge and experience transition from one generation of directors to another.
• Don’t forget succession planning for your board. Some ideas shared included a website ad, an associate board member program, completing a competency gap analysis, a year-round nominating committee, and being deliberate with broader geographic representation as your credit union grows.
• Keeping up with education and training is a constant need in this environment. A few thoughts worth passing along included subscribing to online training and certification programs, having the CEO pick a topic for each board meeting, bringing back information from pieces of training that directors attend to share with others, engaging partners (like our team at MCU!) to help with topics like credit union philosophy or basic governance, setting aside training time at each board meeting, moving to a consent agenda to free up training time and discussion, and even joining with other local credit unions for training on relevant topics. You can always go to our Director Training Tools page for additional topics.

I’m also pleased that this blog was one of the items mentioned to help get new board members up to speed and keep current directors informed. That is humbling, and yet, it is only as good as its reach. If you have directors who are not receiving it weekly via email, feel free to let me know so they can be added. Your ideas for topics you would like to see discussed here are also more than welcome.

Make sure you mark your calendars for next year’s roundtable meeting in Vegas. It is scheduled for February 3-4, and our peers from the Dakotas and Minnesota will be there.