Looking ahead: Holding meetings in 2021

Happy November! The year 2020 is drawing to a close. That does, however, leave some burning questions for 2021. No, I’m not talking about the results of tomorrow’s Presidential election. I’m talking about virtual meetings.

As we get closer to 2021, many Federal Credit Unions (FCUs) are starting to think about their 2021 annual meetings. This is especially true for FCUs that tend to hold their annual meeting during the first few months of the calendar year. NCUA’s model bylaws require an FCU to give 30-75 days’ notice of the annual meeting to its members, which means some FCUs may be planning to send their 2021 notices in the coming weeks. Given that the COVID-19 pandemic is still with us, several FCUs have written to the NAFCU Compliance Team in recent weeks to ask about whether they can hold their 2021 Annual Meetings virtually. So, let’s review the current state of virtual meetings:

As described in this previous post, NCUA issued Letter 20-FCU-02 in March 2020. The letter provided a new bylaw amendment which FCUs could adopt by a 2/3 majority vote of their board. Once adopted, the amendment would allow FCUs to hold their annual meetings in an entirely virtual format. However, to utilize this virtual meeting amendment, the FCU’s board must adopt a resolution certifying the following:

 

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