Chair’s AGM Report 2022

Welcome to this year’s virtual online Annual General Meeting. Once again, we are live on Zoom!

We had sincerely hoped to hold this year’s AGM face to face, however, following the previous surges in Covid cases we made an early decision to once again put the safety of our members and colleagues first, we hope you understand.

With the lifting of restrictions, we now have a very positive outlook of a full return to normal.

Once again, the past 12 months have been challenging. It has been a hard time for everyone, and I want to thank you, our members for your continued support.

We understand the hardships many have suffered from illness, job losses and, worst of all, bereavements. On behalf of everyone at WCCU I offer our deepest condolences to anyone who has lost a loved one.

In the last 12 months, there have been some difficult and challenging decisions made, including the redundancies in the first quarter of 2021. Whilst this was hard to endure for all involved, we have emerged stronger.

As a credit union, we have gone from a number of years of loss making, to this year creating a small surplus given the backdrop this is a fantastic achievement by everyone.

You will hear more about this from David Adams our External Accountant shortly.

At this point, I want to also say a huge thank you to all my colleagues, this year has been challenging for them and I am grateful for the hard work and dedication that they have shown.

I would also like to take the time to thank Board members who have stood down this year after many years of service.

Chris Dymond, Paul Brumley and Heather Leary.

They have all played their part in supporting me, Board colleagues and the leadership team. Thank you.

I’m pleased to say that we have been able to re-open our doors at Worcester Street and we have begun to establish ourselves back in the community centres, Lowhill, The Big Venture Centre and now also at Stratton Street.

Each of these community hubs are vital as we support our most vulnerable members and spread the word of the Credit Union.

With the loss of other lenders in the community and the increase of loan sharks there has never been a greater need than now for an active credit union at the heart of the community.

We do appreciate though, that some of our members prefer to come into branch and also see us face to face.

The recent pandemic has also driven the use of technology and we whole-heartedly commend the fact that previous ‘technophobes’ have embraced online banking as we looked to new ways of working.

Almost 100% of all loan applications are now conducted online and can be processed much quicker, with the recent implementation of electronic agreements and same day payments.

Being able to complete a loan application in the comfort of your own home at a time that is convenient to you has hopefully never been easier.

We have seen a significant increase in applications and lending with record months in recent times.

This is a great achievement and one I hope that many of you have found exciting and of course useful.

We have also invested in a new telephone system, which I know has long been a sore point with members. This now makes it easier for members to contact the team for help, guidance and support and also makes it easier for us to monitor call volumes and ensure that we have the right resources in the right areas of the business at the right time.

We have also increased our Social Media presence, we are active on a range of channels, including Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and now Instagram.

This means members can follow us to see the latest WCCU updates and this will increase the profile of our credit union to current non-members. We expect this to grow in the months and years ahead, so please do follow us where you can.

As I outlined last year, we have been working hard to improve our governance, which as members know is so important to get right.

We are constantly striving to improve pushing the boundaries and testing ourselves through outside appraisals.

There has been a tremendous amount of activity in relation to the governance of the credit union in the past 12 months.

We hold ourselves to the very highest standards and have been supported very closely with this work by The Governance Forum. An independent organisation who specialises in this area.

As you know the Directors provide oversight and strategic direction to ensure that as a credit union operates in an efficient and effective manner and in full compliance with the PRA and FCA and also with Company Law.

There have been major changes on the Board of Directors who at one point were down to only three Board members.

You will be aware of a recruitment campaign which was carried out last year and we are delighted to confirm that we have now strengthened the Board of Directors by appointing five new Board Members; Their profiles are on the website but please let me also introduce them:

Anthony Burns, Burnell Richards, David Cartwright, Oliver Slimm and Wendy Stephens.

In addition to bringing a wealth of experience and local knowledge to the Board, these appointments have also strengthened our partnership with the Wolverhampton based Paycare and other organisations across the city.

But we want to do more, so that the Board is more inclusive and diverse.

To this end we will be undertaking a further recruitment campaign in the coming months and members are invited to put themselves forward and apply. We want to make the Board as diverse and as representative of our communities as possible and we would welcome applications from across all the communities that we serve.

One of our proudest achievements this year, was to become the first Credit Union in the Country to be awarded with the RACE Equality Code Mark. This is a code which addresses the specific challenge of ‘how to deal with race inequality in the Boardroom and amongst the Senior Leadership Team.

We have worked closely with city partners, and I’m pleased to say that we have developed new partnerships with The University of Wolverhampton and strengthened our partnership with The Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust to encourage new members through highlighting the benefits of saving as a student, and our payroll deduction scheme.

Financial wellbeing is so important, and we will be targeting this area in the months ahead.

We also worked in partnership with City Council colleagues to try and tackle youth unemployment in the area with the Wolves at Work 18-24 day.

We have been successful with apprenticeships previously and we will look to support young people from within our communities with employment opportunities when we can.

We are proud to support such initiatives and welcome the opportunity for more community projects in the future.

To conclude, I once again want to offer my thanks to all our members old and new and to once again thank all my colleagues after what has been another challenging year for everyone.

We hope to see you all very soon.

Thank you.