A very Happy New Year to all readers!
HOW ARE WE DOING?
The first quarter of our new Credit Union year (to 31
December) was certainly a hectic one, with all HEYCU branches experiencing an
increase in activity compared with the same period a year ago.
By the end of the Christmas
Loan season the value of loans issued was 44% higher than in the same
season of 2016, and the income earned from loan interest was 26% higher.
We are now serving 12,500 adult members and 1,400 junior
savers, including 1,122 members employed by the DWP.
I’d like to thank our marvellous team of staff and
volunteers for their hard work in growing the Credit Union and looking after
our members so professionally. If we can
keep this momentum going, we will transform our results by next year end.
CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR WINNERS!
Well done and congratulations to our winning members
and junior savers:
Grace (Acre Heads), Ella (Driffield Infants) and
Christopher (Nafferton) were judged winners of our autumn School Savers’ poster colouring competition. We had some stunning entries so that it was
very difficult for our Member Services Team to pick the winners! All entrants received a chocolate treat as a
thank you.
Our 2017 Refer
a Friend Prize Draw was won by Gail Turner of Bridlington. Gail was delighted when she learnt that she
had won a Food and Drink Hamper value £50 and said the coffee and walnut cake
was her favourite! The prize was handed
over by staff colleague Sarah at our Prospect Street branch. We’d like to thank all our members who
referred a friend to join us recently – don’t forget to collect your free CU jute shopping bag next time you pop
in, if you haven’t done already.
We invited members to post a review on our Facebook
page. Several of you
did (many thanks) and Sarah Richardson was the name pulled out of the hat to
win a visit for two to Father Christmas at Princes Quay, Hull! So pleased you enjoyed it, Sarah.
OUR GOOLE CHRISTMAS TOY APPEAL
We felt very privileged to be invited to help Our
Goole magazine’s first ever Christmas
Toy Appeal. So many people and local
businesses collected presents for the appeal that there wasn’t an inch of spare
space at our Goole branch on the day when they were distributed to local
families!
Jo Evans (Goole Branch) said: “We have a number of families we work with who have massively benefited
from this toy appeal. It was so great to be involved and I found it quite
emotional when the parents saw the presents and realised they were able to
choose something for their children.
“This has made
such a big difference to so many families in our area. Without the toy appeal, some of these
children would have had very little to look forward to. The look on the parents’ faces was just
priceless and that will stay with me for a long time. I feel so proud to have
been involved”.
Lisa Warrener, director of Our Goole, said: “We were
absolutely blown away by the amount of presents we received for the appeal but
not entirely surprised. The people of Goole
are well known for pulling together to help others in times of need and this
toy appeal once again proved that to be true.”
OUR FANTASTIC AGM 2017
As always, it was a great thrill to welcome our
members to their Annual General Meeting
(AGM) in Hull’s prestigious Guildhall on 12th December.
Members asked a variety of thoughtful questions on the
annual report, which the President and I did our best to answer. Our guest speaker, Aidene Walsh, chief
executive of the Fairbanking Foundation, gave an interesting presentation,
explaining how we qualified for the 5-star
Fairbanking Mark for our CU Loans.
After voting on the annual dividend, the director
elections took place. Congratulations to
John Lawrence, Sue Nicholson and Alan
Hignett on being re-elected to the Board, and to our two new directors, Joanne Foster and Altynay Guney.
Altynay is part of the Customer Experience Team at
Hull City Council and speaks several languages.
She has set up a community organisation to support Eastern Europeans
living in the region with employment, welfare and financial issues, and is also
a director of the Goodwin Development Trust.
Joanne, previously a HEYCU director from 2011 to 2013,
has many years’ experience in financial services and banking, as well as working
for leading social housing providers.
She served as a DWP Financial Inclusion Champion and is currently a
social housing and welfare reform consultant.
AIM HIGHER – OUR CHARITY OF THE YEAR
At the AGM we held a “spare change” collection for a
local charity, Aim Higher, raising
£81.60. We’re also adding in some other
funds collected over the festive period and will arrange a presentation very
soon.
Aim Higher is a
new charity launched in September 2016 to empower local families who face
challenges with autism, mental health and educational barriers. They organise regular support group meetings
and offer one-to-one support for families as required. They do some great work and you can read more
on their website.
We’ve decided to make Aim Higher our HEYCU charity of the year and the
Employees’ Council will be planning some fund raising events that we can all
support.
WEST HULL COMMUNITY RADIO
I was pleased to be invited on to West Hull FM recently to talk about our Credit Union. This energetic local radio station broadcasts
to a target community of 100,000 people in West Hull, Hessle, Cottingham,
Anlaby and Willerby, who listen in on 106.9 FM or online. It operates on a not-for-profit basis (like
us) and is funded by sponsors, advertisers, grants and donations.
The aim of West Hull FM is to produce truly local
radio, working with volunteers, local groups and organisations to give a voice
to the community. The station is staffed
mostly by a team of dedicated, committed volunteers who excel in producing and
presenting unique and innovative programmes.
From what I saw, there should be more ventures like
West Hull FM and I look forward to visiting them again at some point. If you’re in their area, why not listen in
for yourself or find out more here.
HEYCU PEOPLE
At the December Board meeting, our new President was
welcomed into office! Alan Hignett, who
has been our President for the past four years, completed his term of office
and handed over to Andy Stankard,
who will now serve until at least December 2019.
The role of a Credit
Union President is a key one, as it involves chairing all Members’
Meetings, chairing and leading the Board of Directors to ensure that its
meetings are run effectively, supporting the individual directors and liaising
well with the Chief Executive, as well as being the public face of the CU in
many ways.
In my next blog there’ll be a pen portrait and some
words from Andy on his hopes and plans for his time in office.
Meanwhile, there’s been some changes in the
office. Zoe (Hull Member Services) left to take up a management role
elsewhere and we wish her all the best.
Lauren has
taken on the new role of Branch
Development Co-ordinator and will become a familiar face at our branches
over the coming months as we develop our exciting plans. In 2017 Lauren was one of the first graduates
from the CU Futures Leadership programme.
LOCAL MEMBERS’ GROUPS
Here’s a quick reminder that in parts of our region,
we have Local Members’ Groups meeting regularly to engage our members in
learning more about their Credit Union and helping to promote it in their area.
Driffield
Local Members’ Group meets on the fourth Wednesday of every month from 10
am to 11 am at the branch office, Market Walk, Driffield. Recently they ran a very popular stall at the
Christmas Market with the help of our Penny the pennywise penguin, and they
often raise funds for local charities.
Goole
& District Local Members’ Group next meets on Wednesday 31 January from 6.00 pm at
the Courtyard, Boothferry Road, Goole.
There’ll be light refreshments, a quiz and a prize draw.
If you are a member living in those areas, why not pop
along and join in? The meetings are very
informal and you’ll be made most welcome.
TIME FOR A NEW YEAR MONEY MAKEOVER
This month we’re really keen to help people across the
Humber Region to give their money a New
Year Makeover. We’d love members and
non-members alike to pop into one of our branches for a chat to see if we can
save them some money.
At this time of year, those credit card bills drop
through the letter box and many people find themselves embarrassed by the
balances they ran up on the festive spends.
Some will certainly be paying more in monthly payments than they need
to. This is where we may be able to help.
Why not see if you could Swap
& Drop by switching to a Credit Union Loan with lower
interest and lower repayments?
With a CU Loan, you not only simplify your finances by
making one simple, smaller payment, but you can choose to “save as you borrow”,
with repayments split between your loan and savings. So, when you’ve repaid your loan, you’ll have
built up some handy savings too.
As part of the Money Makeover, we’d also encourage you
to open a Christmas
Saver account. With over
£700,000 saved in 2017, ours is probably the Humber Region’s biggest Christmas
Club, with all the funds safely protected by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (many clubs aren’t), and
locked away from temptation until 1st November each year.
The Money
Advice Trust, a debt charity, is advising consumers to plan ahead, set a
household budget for 2018 and look at joining a Credit Union to save up for a
stress-free Christmas. We’d agree – and
to make it even more appealing, for a limited period we’re offering a £10 Bonus to anyone who opens a
Christmas Saver account with us, makes at least two deposits, and keeps the
savings in until November. The £10
bonuses are kindly funded by the Illegal
Money Lending Team, a public agency that helps to combat loan sharks.
So there’s just two ideas for your New Year Money Makeover – let’s see if
we can help, pop into a branch today for a chat with our friendly team, or call
us on 01482 778753.
This year’s Christmas will be very different for many
of us, but one thing won’t have changed.
Ever since 2007, we’ve been helping our members to lock funds away
safely for the festive season in our popular Christmas Saver account.
Despite temporarily unlocking the accounts this spring and summer to
help those who were impacted by the pandemic, over 1,300 of our members managed
to save up £869,644 this time round, and we started paying them out on 2
November. If you haven’t had a Christmas
Saver before, now is the ideal time to start one for 2021. It’s worth noting that no major bank offers
anything like it.
The Shores Centre in Withernsea has become the latest in a growing band of employers
in our region to offer its workforce our unique Payroll Save & Borrow staff benefit. Shores employees can now save as they earn,
with deposits taken care of effortlessly straight from their pay packet. It’s a safe and flexible way to put money
aside knowing it’s there for sunny holidays or rainy days. The Shores Centre Chief Executive Jayne
Nendick, said: “It’s been a tough year
with the pandemic and we’ve all had to be more mindful of our finances, so we
are delighted to be working with the Credit Union to help support our teams in
making their money go further”. If
you are an employer and would like to find out more about this simple, free
wellbeing benefit, please click here or email info@hullandeycu.co.uk.
We have recently launched our first ever Social Impact Report. We’ve always been clear that credit unions
have a different purpose from banks and other financial service companies, as
they are not run simply to make monetary profits but to make a difference to
the lives of their member-customers, and the communities they serve. In short, they are about financial wellbeing,
helping members to afford their lives and be better off as a result. HEY Credit Union has been around for 21
years, but how much difference has it actually made? That was what our member-elected directors
wanted to find out, when they challenged me to produce this report. 
That’s all for now and for 2020, but I’ll be back with
more news next year. Before I close,
though, I’d like to say a big personal “thank you” to our HEY Credit Union
staff, volunteers and partners for all their hard work. They have truly gone the extra mile to help
and support our members this year in very difficult circumstances and I am so
proud of them. The kind messages we
often receive from members shows that they share my view. 
