We are only into February but there’s lots going on at HEYCU to
tell you about already:
RENEWABLE
ENERGY POWERS NEW PARTNERSHIP
We are celebrating
our new energy efficient status after installing solar panels, LED lighting and internal insulation as part of a new
partnership with Co-op Energy.
Our Brook Street
headquarters in Hull city centre now boasts 22 solar panels on the roof, along
with new LED office lighting and internal insulation, provided by Co-operative Energy Saving.
Each solar twin peak
panel has the capacity to produce up to 265w, meaning the new installation
could create nearly 5,000kWh a year, saving up to £800 per annum.
Co-operative Energy
Saving aims to help combat climate change by helping individuals, community
groups and small businesses to reduce their energy consumption and bills. This fantastic initiative has made us realise
that, even as a relatively small organisation, we can play an important part in
tackling climate change. It is an issue that we know our member-owners are very
passionate about.
Martin Cook,
Affiliates Manager at Co-op Energy, said: “One
of our main goals as a co-operative is to help create a more
environmentally-friendly and sustainable world, and working closely with
like-minded individuals, communities and organisations is an essential part of
this.
“Our project with
Hull & East Yorkshire Credit Union shows what can be achieved when we work
collaboratively to help shape the future of energy generation.”
NOW OUR CHRISTMAS SAVER PRIZE DRAWS ARE MONTHLY!
We’re so thrilled with the big increase in Christmas Saver
accounts this year that we’ve decided to have a special Prize Draw once a month to encourage members to keep on
saving!
At each month end we’ll draw a winner at random from all who have
paid into their Christmas Saver account during that month. So, remember to make at least one deposit per
month and then you’ll qualify to be entered in every draw. You’ll also be very glad when Christmas
comes along and you have lots of money to draw upon, for a stress-free festive
season.
Our first prize winner – in January – was Gemma Smirk of Kingswood,
who is the proud owner of a new food
blender, to get her new year off to a healthy start.
February’s prize will have a Valentines’
theme –maybe the winner could be YOU?
WELCOME TO NEW MEMBERS AT LEBUS
We were delighted to welcome eight new members at Lebus Upholstery, the furniture makers
in Scunthorpe where we have a payroll partnership. Lebus workers can save and
borrow with us direct from their pay, thanks to their enlightened management
who offer them this fantastic staff benefit.
Workers who use this service say they don’t miss the money, as it comes
out before they get paid and goes into a savings account with us. It’s a great way of “secret saving” for a
special holiday or treat for a family member.
It’s also easy to change the amount – up or down – but many members just
keep it the same year after year, building up a nice nest-egg for later in
life.
Does your employer offer payroll deduction to our credit
union? If not, why not ask them to? Employers simply contact us to find out how
to operate it – and it’s really easy to administer. If you can convince your employer to offer
this benefit, we’ll reward you with £50.
CENTRE4
LAUNCH NEW SAVINGS CLUB TO HELP RESIDENTS PLAN AHEAD
Grimsby’s MP, Melanie Onn, helped us launch a new partnership
for the people of North East Lincolnshire on Friday 23 February. The Christmas Savings
Club has now started at Centre4,
the well-used community hub at Wootton Road, Grimsby.
Local residents will
be able to pop into Centre4 to deposit small amounts of cash at a convenient
time, giving them access to our credit union as a welcome alternative to payday
loans, doorstep lenders and even illegal money lenders operating across North
East Lincolnshire.
Linda Dellow, Chief
Officer at Centre4 said, “We are delighted
to offer a Christmas Savings Club from Centre4. We fully understand the
financial pressures facing some people and how difficult it can be to budget
from week to week, never mind keeping money back for Christmas. A Christmas
Savings Club can help people put small amounts of money away on a regular basis
and give them access to a savings fund at what is always an expensive time of
year”.
For a limited time,
a £10 bonus is available to anyone
opening an account. The Christmas Savings bonus is provided by the Stop Loan Sharks project as a further
incentive for people to develop a savings habit and keep away from high cost,
high risk lending. It is funded using
proceeds of crime money; cash that has been seized from loan sharks under money
laundering laws.
Tony Quigley, Head
of the Illegal Money Lending Team, said:
“We’re pleased to be working with Centre4
and Northern Lincolnshire Credit Union to launch this new incentive, which will
see loan sharks’ cash being put to good use, to sponsor new Christmas savings
accounts. Loan sharks prey on the most
vulnerable members of our communities and extort them out of hard earned cash.
If you have fallen victim to an illegal money lender, we urge you to contact us
on 0300 555 2222 or www.stoploansharks.uk. We will take information anonymously
and in confidence.”
HORNSEA WANTS A CREDIT UNION
I took a call from Councillor John Whittle of Hornsea in East Yorkshire the other day. His enquiry was an all too familiar one these
days, sadly. The town of Hornsea
(population 8.000+) is losing its last High Street bank in May. After that, residents won’t have a local
bank to pop into. He asked whether the
Credit Union could consider providing a service in the town.
Without funding, we would struggle to provide a high street banking
presence in a town like Hornsea, but if we some enthusiastic volunteers came
forward, maybe we could set up a weekly contact point, similar to those we
operate in Driffield, Withernsea, Beverley, Howden and a few other places. At least local residents would have
somewhere to deposit savings and apply for affordable loans with a reputable
organisation that cares for the local community – because we are owned by our
members and exist solely to serve them, rather than make profits for City
shareholders and bonuses for Fat Cat managers who I don’t suppose even know
where Hornsea is.
Anyway, I’ve accepted an invitation to speak at Hornsea Town Council meeting on 5
March, so we’ll see what happens after that.
No promises, of course.
SCHOOL BANK NEWS
Recently my staff colleague Jamie-Leigh issued our Spring-term Pennies 2 Pounds Newsletter to the
schools where we have a volunteer run school bank. She reminded everyone that mums, dads,
uncles, aunties, grandparents and younger or older siblings can all save at the
school bank, not just pupils. It’s a
popular way to get the whole family into the habit of regular saving so that
money is available for Christmas, holidays, school trips, kit and uniform,
birthday treats and so on. Staff at
most of our schools can also pay into the Credit Union direct from their
salary.
The newsletter offers volunteers some useful tips for spreading the
word about a school bank:
·
Ask about mentioning
your school bank on the school’s website. Some do this already but others don’t,
probably because no one has suggested it.
It’s a good way to let the parents and wider community know when the
school bank runs.
·
Does the school
produce a parents’ Newsletter? If
so, perhaps they could include a short article about the school bank.
·
Hand out a flyer
with an application form at the school
gate (with head teacher’s permission).
·
Ask about sending
flyers out with the children’s book bags.
·
Could someone offer
to present an assembly in school,
talking about the benefits of saving and looking after money, with some fun
activities, music and rhymes?
We’re thrilled that Archie of Boothferry
Primary School is our first P2P Saver to be awarded a Super Saver
Certificate and P2P lunch bag. He has
saved with us regularly since the school bank opened in 2013 and reached an
amazing personal savings target.
GOOLE & DISTRICT LOCAL MEMBERS’ GROUP
Our second meeting was held at The
Courtyard, Goole on 31 January. It
was well-supported and we welcomed two new members. The Know
Your Credit Union Quiz was great fun and members were amazed to learn that
since we were formed in 1999, our Credit Union reckons to have saved the people
of Hull and East Yorkshire over £13
million by providing loans cheaper than doorstep lenders. Jean Taylor and Janet Sowden won prizes for
the most correct answers.
We discussed lots of ideas for improving the Pasture Road Credit
Union branch, at modest cost. We already
have a play table to keep the little ones amused while parents make their
transactions, and there are exciting plans to freshen up the décor, make better
use of the back room and install a new sign.
We’re grateful to members of the Group for their suggestions and offers
of help.
Since the meeting Councillor Pat O’Neil came to spend a day in
branch with Jo and it was a great pleasure to have her company. Pat was amazed at the variety of ways in
which we try to help the people of Goole to make the best use of their
money. We have recently started to
promote our partnership with Co-op
Electrical, which lets members obtain domestic appliances much cheaper than
certain weekly payment stores. And they
give a choice of delivery times!
VISITS TO DWP OFFICES
I’ve planned some visits to DWP sites over the next two months, to
recruit more members, meet our Workplace Champions and say hello to existing
members across the wide area we serve. On
13-14 March I’ll be at Glasgow, Paisley and Motherwell. April sees visits to Stockton-on-Tees, and
possibly Seaham in the North-East, and also some offices in West
Yorkshire.
It was fascinating to learn that we were featured in a question in
Parliament, when it was revealed that the three credit unions serving DWP staff
(CommSave, Voyager Alliance and HEYCU) had enrolled 3,800 DWP members and
provided them with loans of £4 million since July 2016.
A busy few weeks lies ahead, as we will also be launching a new
payroll partnership to provide our popular savings and loans service to the
staff of North East Lincolnshire Council.
HULL’S HEADSCARF REVOLUTIONARIES
Did you see the BBC4
documentary about the group of Hull women who, 50 years ago, fought for
decent health and safety at sea after 58 men lost their lives in the Triple Trawler Tragedy of 1968?
Deep sea fishing was the city’s most dangerous industry, with
frequent loss of life, and many thought that nothing could be done about it. Not so, “Big Lil” Bilocca and her friends,
whose determined and ultimately successful campaign to stop unsafe trawlers
from going to sea, in the face of stiff opposition from owners and sometimes
the menfolk themselves, earned them the title “Headscarf Revolutionaries”. It’s another example of the “power of the
people” that makes us so proud of our home city.
CHILD BENEFIT LOAN & SAVINGS PLAN
This is rapidly becoming one of our most popular products, with
several hundred families now regularly having their Child Benefit paid into the
Credit Union. It’s a really simple and
sensible way of combining saving and borrowing to make the most of your
money. A loan of
£500 over a year costs just £12 a week, which means that someone receiving Child Benefit of £21, could save up to £470 a
year just by leaving it
in to mount up, say for use at Christmas.
Find out more.
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. 
