We set aside the funds (reserves) necessary for down economies to guarantee that we will be able to hold our own through any unexpected hard times. (The past two years have tested the strength of our reserve.) We refer to our required reserves as our “safety net”.
We pay dividends to our depositors.
What could we do with more income?
Build our reserves quicker.
Open new branches.
Increase our associates’ earnings.
Pay our members an annual rebate bonus based on the products used.
The maintenance cost for each inactive member is at least $55 per year. We have approximately 12,000 inactive members, which cost us $660 thousand dollars per year.
We must learn what it would take to make these inactive members want to do their business with us. If we aren’t the right fit for their needs and they don’t use our products or services, we are forced to close their accounts with inactivity fees. This happens after one year of inactivity.
All good relationships have open communication and utilize great listening skills. Judgments aren’t made and understanding is key. There are no secrets!
ELGA Credit Union wants to have this kind of relationship with you, our member. We will provide you with information about the financials and explain how you benefit from the income we earn.
You must think of ELGA for all your borrowing and deposit needs. We will listen until we understand how you have determined that you will be able to pay back your loans. We will pay you the best return possible on your deposit accounts based on our earnings.
Bottom line is mutual trust will build a beautiful relationship that you and your credit union will thrive on.
We all want meaningful relationships. We want that deeper connection with friends, spouses, children, and yes, even with our banking. Relationships require two or more people willing to build trust and loyalty.
Here at ELGA, we want to build lifelong relationships with you, our members. We want to be able to earn your deposit and loan business, to the point that you don’t think of any other financial institution when you need something. We want to provide you with WOW service every time we help you. We want you to let us know when we come up short on products or service. You know, all the things that happen in a good relationship.
We want you to use ELGA Credit Union for loans, VISA, checking, savings, direct deposit, investments, and anything else that has to do with banking. That’s the kind of relationship we want to build with you.
ELGA Credit Union and the Burton Eagles will host a community dinner on October 21, 2011 to raise $10,000 to fund a K-9 officer.
Dinner will start at 5:00pm and will be served until 8:00pm.The $5.00 meal will include a sloppy joe, chips, coleslaw, dessert & cash bar. The evening will include a live band, 50/50 drawings and chances to enter the “CASH CUBE”. There will be a K-9 demonstration and local radio station B-95 will be doing a live remote.
This event will bring out local police forces, firefighters, elected officials, business owners, community leaders and residents for two reasons:
The evening will honor one member of the Burton police force, K-9 Cade who died after he was accidentally struck by a vehicle during a training exercise
We all want meaningful relationships (friends, spouses, children, and yes, banking). Relationships require two or more people willing to build trust and loyalty. We want to build lifelong relationships with you, our members. We want to be able to earn your deposit and loan business, to the point that you don’t think of any other financial institution when you need something. We want to provide you with WOW service every time we help you. We want you to let us know when we come up short on products or service. We want you to use ELGA Credit Union for loans, VISA, checking, savings, direct deposit, investments, and anything else that has to do with banking.
Are you a bargain shopper? Shopping on a tight budget? Would you like to make a charity donation and take home some great loot in the process?
ELGA will be having our 2nd Annual Charity Rummage Tent Sale on June 9th-11th. The sale will be held at our Burton Office in the lot between our Administration building and Meijer. It will be open from 9:00am-6:00pm each day.
ELGA associates and their families have been donating gently used items of all sorts to make sure our sale is a success. We have clothes, purses, furniture, children’s items, housewares, and much, much, more. The items are in great condition, and some even still have the store tags on them! Believe me; I’ve seen our stash of goodies. We have some fantastic items already and we are getting more donations every day. I’ve already got my eye on some things.
Have too much stuff at home? Now is a great time to clean out that closet! We will accept donations of items that are in good condition to contribute to the sale.
Last year was our first sale. We had a lot of fun, sold a lot of stuff, and raised almost $7,000! Come out and see us this year and help us crush last year’s total. There’s something for everyone, and the prices are so good if you think you want to donate a little more we will be accepting direct donations as well.
All proceeds from the sale will benefit the American Cancer Society via the Relay for Life program and The Children’s Miracle Network. At the end of the sale, any unsold items will be donated to Goodwill.
My husband and I have been blessed with our first grandchild. He is precious and I can now understand what everyone has told me about grandbabies being so special.
I started saving for this little guy even before he was born. I want to make sure that he is able to attend college some day without the help of student loans. Just a little each pay makes a huge difference by the time a child reaches 18.
Don’t wait, save now, a little every pay will not be missed and you will be amazed at what you can accomplish. Our “Save to Win” account makes it easy and exciting!
Our lenders have been on fire with the help of our awesome members.
We broke the one month loan total in March with $7 million written in new loans.
April blew away the March total with $8 Million written in new loans.
We truly appreciate the loans you allow us the opportunity to do for you, our members. If you have a loan anywhere else, we would love to bring it over to ELGA! We still have over $50 Million to lend. Please help us reach our goal to be 100% lent out!
Calling All ELGA Members to Action: Your Debit Card Service as You Know it is in Jeopardy
Have you heard of The Durbin Amendment and the Debit Interchange debate? As the Compliance Officer for ELGA, I’m hearing about it daily, and I want to make sure all of our members understand what our legislators are trying to do.
What’s Interchange and why should you care?Interchange is the fee that’s passed between the parties of a debit transaction to pay for the service. How this works is that typically the merchant (the store, gas station, etc.) pays a fee to the card issuer (your financial institution) for the transaction. The merchant pays for guaranteed payment of the transaction, ease of payment, and not having to handle fraud on the payment. The card issuer uses the fee to handle their cost of having a card program, issuing cards, paying the card companies (VISA, Mastercard, etc), and taking the risk on the transactions which includes handling fraud on the cards. Credit Unions, being a cooperative, take any excess funds and use this to offer you services, such as free checking accounts. The fraud handling is by far the most expensive part of running a card program. In many cases, the financial institution is stuck with the cost of these transactions because the fraud claims are denied by the merchant.
What many of our legislators are trying to do is take the bulk of the interchange and give it back to the merchant by capping the interchange rate at $.12 a transaction. The current average is $.44 a transaction. The idea is that the merchants will somehow pass these savings back to you, the consumer. I say “somehow” because there is no promise from the merchants to do this, and no oversight being put into place to ensure that they do pass the savings along. They could very well pocket the money and you will never benefit. Merchants will also have no added responsibility to deal with the risk of fraud on the cards. This will still be the responsibility of the card issuer, which is your financial institution.
What the decrease in fee means on the financial institution side is that many institutions, including credit unions, would be operating their card programs at a loss. In order to keep your debit card program running, they will have to pass more fees along to their members. This legislation affects large financial institutions with assets of $10 billion and more, but there is going to be a trickle down effect. If the large institutions interchange fee is capped at $.12, but we charge a larger interchange fee to handle our costs, the merchant would have the ability to not accept our cards. We would be forced to lower our interchange in order to be competitive.
Here comes the Call to Action part. We need you, as an ELGA Credit Union member, to contact your legislators today to let them know how you feel about this. There are bills pending in The Senate and The House of Representatives to delay The Durbin Amendment and study the impact it would have for financial institutions and more importantly you, the consumer. Ask them to support these bills. Tell them you want to keep your debit services as they are, and that you want to keep your free checking account and low fees!Tell them to stop what they’re doing, re-think it, and research debit interchange to make a better decision for consumers. Tell them to keep their grubby little fingers out of your financial services! Tell them anything, but now’s your chance to be heard! Congress Members are on a two week Easter recess starting May 18th. Take advantage of their time in their home office. You can call them, write them, or email them. Just don’t sit idly by and hope for the best.
There are many resources available for you for this initiative.
You can get more information at savemyfreechecking.com. This site has information about the legislation, FAQs, and a letter builder so you can contact your legislator electronically.
You can also call the Call on Congress 877-422-3525. This service will ask you for your zip code and will tell you if your Member of Congress is for or against the Stop, Study, and Start Over for the Interchange legislation. You can then ask them to support it or thank them for their support.
February 16th, 2012 
Karen Church 
