A Great Idea to Learn About the Movement

Last week CUSO Magazine announced  an imaginative collaborative initiative.  The editorial team pronounced July as credit union history month.

They issued a call for all  to submit aticles, photos and other examples of signficant events in their  history with the movement.

Here is the invitation:

Calling all credit unions! We at CUSO Magazine are officially declaring July to be Credit Union History Month, where we’ll be sharing articles on our industry’s history all month long! To showcase the credit unions and individuals that contribute to our history and make our industry so unique, we’ll be spotlighting credit unions and credit union champions throughout the event. Does your credit union have an interesting history? Do you have a teller who never fails to make a member’s day? Do you know of someone or a credit union in the industry doing something great? Let us know! Email us at editors@cusomag.com, or go to cusomag.com/submit-a-story. Share what credit union or individual you believe deserves some recognition! Let’s make July a celebration of all credit unions do!

A Geat Idea

I love this imaginative effort.  In every garage, storage closet, and crammed bookshelf, credit union believers have left some keepsake of a special occasion.  It may be a cassette tape of a speech from a conference, a special edition of a cu publication that mentioned them, or perhaps the handout from a speical event.  For example, the plastic encased credit union stamp honoring the 50th anniversary of the FCU Act in 1984.

As we remember our history and how we got to today, it can only make us proud and more inspired  learning about people’s special moments with the Movement.

I would hope the participation is so voluminous that CUSO Magazine will need to increase their publication schedule from once per week to perhaps a daily to share all the examples from personal archives.

I’ll be making contributions.  For example a copy of Harold Black’s last interview as an NCUA board member in 1981 and his future ambitions. Or a brief history of the first credit union share insurance fund started in 1956 in Illinois.

We all hve special moments and people whose efforts we recall years or decades later. I’m all in.  Are you?