Dear fellow members, friends, and colleagues:

We hope that each of you is doing well and staying in touch with your credit union! We are developing new products and services and are busy working on future projects for you! Your Board of Directors meets monthly, and its members are also active with our Volunteer Program committees where each director has the responsibility to chair a committee or be an active member of one. We are here for all of you – your Board of Directors and volunteers support all members regardless of your workplace or location. Reinforcing the importance of this duty that each Board director has, NCUA[1] indicates that directors have several general duties and, amongst them, is that “A director must administer the affairs of the credit union fairly and impartially and without discrimination in favor of or against any particular member.”[2]

OAS FCU has, for years, been investing in sustainable processes, procedures, and actions that contribute to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Among our more recent actions was the creation, last year, of a Green Committee composed of staff and volunteers, and co-chaired by a staff member and a volunteer. We have previously reported to our members about the purpose and work of this Committee. During 2023 we collaborated with others and achieved the following, for example:

– OAS FCU hosted the annual United in Sustainability Summit in November 2023 in the Hall of the Americas of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Washington, D.C. There were over 300 participants at this annual hybrid event, one that is co-hosted with UNFCU. The theme was “Building Resiliency Through Sustainable Actions” and there were many interesting presentations, panels, and discussions on topics relating to the Summit theme.

– Additionally, the Green Committee reports that OAS FCU had 3,000 trees planted in the Rainforest in 2023. They were planted because of our program that encourages members to request electronic statements (eStatements) rather than printed ones. Every member that signs up or has signed up for online banking with eStatements has or will have a tree planted in their honor. We anticipate planting an additional 1,386 trees in 2024!

– Earth Day this year reflected our collaboration with the Organization of American States team that supports sustainable actions within the OAS. A group of volunteers participated in the Anacostia Society’s neighborhood clean-up day. The objective was to collect trash, weigh it, and prevent it from entering the Anacostia River in southwest Washington, D.C.

This year, I am proud to announce that the third cohort of the Volunteer Leadership Program is graduating! They have been actively engaged in this multidisciplinary two-year program created to train the volunteer leaders of tomorrow. The program is structured on four learning pillars: individual, interpersonal, OAS FCU, and the Credit Union industry and beyond. This third Cohort conducted a World Café in its first year – holding conversations related to creating our credit union’s global presence and ways to strengthen and expand our Volunteer Program. This graduating group, additionally, conducted research for the credit union in their second year. The research focused on credit union membership – current and future – and included considerations about labor trends, various demographics -especially “generational,” from Generation Alpha to Baby Boomers-, and other events that impact the marketplace. There were two groups researching these issues – one focusing on membership in the US. and the second group focusing on our international membership. Their presentations of the research findings and recommendations were very interesting and insightful, and much appreciated by the Credit Union.

There are several developments regarding our internal and organization systems and practices that impact on you, our members. We have reported previously about plans for our Global Access Branch (GAB). This concept has several goals: it allows single staff members to respond to most of a members needs and questions in a single interaction; it will also allow them to provide this complete service not just in person, but also online, be it with a chat, a voice call, or a video call that require installing no added software. This approach also allows the team a large degree of flexibility and varied work throughout their week, enhancing their work-life balances. The idea is to bring an enhanced and consistent level of service to every single member equally. Additionally, it will lower our operation costs and provide us with a competitive advantage. When launched, the digital communication with GAB will be accessible to you through our webpage.

We are currently piloting the “chat box” aspect of GAB on the webpage and focusing on questions and answers with clean communication messages that provide relevant, valuable information to hundreds of your most frequent questions. Eventually this chat function will be available, not just from the Credit Union’s webpage, but also from inside your Online and Mobile Banking so that, if you have a question, you can talk with someone on the spot. This is a large and important initiative for our credit union, one that will allow us to be more responsive, more quickly, to our members’ inquiries and requests. The changes that introduce us all to the GAB started rolling out in 2023 and will continue through 2024-25.

We suggest that you periodically look at our website (www.oasfcu.org) to see what is available for members, our services, rates for various types of transactions, loans, and other news. For example, we have rate discounts for hybrid and electric vehicles and green loans – both are a result of our efforts to increase sustainability in our processes and procedures and in the products and services for members.

Are you moving, or traveling? Changing work location for a while? For those members in the US, we have information on our website that could help you. For example, you can find the nearest free ATM or shared branch with our locator, as well as ATMs that accept deposits. You can be up to date about the latest trends in cybercrime and fraud with our blog. Take a few minutes to explore now and then, as we are sure that you will find plenty of useful information.

Finally, follow us on social media, especially Facebook. We always provide information of interest to the membership, including invitations to events and webinars on a variety of topics that will be of use to everyone at one stage or another in their lives.

We wish you a good year. It continues to be our honor to serve you.

[1] NCUA – The National Credit Union Administration. This is the federal regulator of credit unions.

[2] From NCUA LFCU 11-FCU-02, “Duties of Federal Credit Unions Boards of Directors.” https://ncua.gov/regulation-supervision/letters-credit-unions-other-guidance/duties-federal-credit-union-boards-directors