Virtual Membership Meeting

Earlier this year, the Washington-state Division of Credit Unions issued an interpretive letter on virtual membership meeting.

The state credit union regulator stated that a Washington credit union may not conduct an annual membership meeting or special membership meeting as a virtual meeting without simultaneously conducting an in-person meeting.

However, the credit union regulator wrote that a virtual meeting can be conducted at the same time as an in-person meeting.

The letter noted that there are benefits associated with a virtual meeting, such as cost savings and greater membership participation; but virtual meetings also come with detrimental effects.

The state regulator pointed out that the Washington Credit Union Act requires a credit union's by-law to address the time and place of an annual meeting. In addition, a special meeting must be held in a reasonable location in the county that is the principal place of business for a credit union.

Read the interpretive letter.

State Regulator Suppresses Member Insurrection

Iowa's superintendent of credit unions, JoAnn Johnson (the former Chairman of NCUA), has invalidated a board and management shake-up at Family Community Credit Union in Charles City.

At an annual meeting of the Family Community Credit Union, members voted to dismiss the board of directors, to suspend CEO Dawn Swaningson, to reinstate staff members who had quit in protest of their treatment by Swaningson, and to appoint a new board and CEO.

But JoAnn Johnson wrote the members that their actions "were not in compliance with the bylaws of the credit union, or with the Iowa Credit Union Act."

I suspect that this is not the end of the story.

Read the story.