Be Your Own Journalist
by Sarah Snell Cooke In elementary school, everyone learns the five biggies when it comes to asking and answering questions: who, what when, where and why. As a journalist, they're reinforced again and again. To [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Sarah Snell Cooke’
Demographic Turnover Presents Opportunities
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE As the baby boomer generation begins to retire, women necessarily will play a crucial role in filling the open spaces. Our latest Women to Watch honoree, Wanda Chambers (see article), stated [...]
Avoid Solutions Looking for Problems
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE During the Governmental Affairs Conference, Chip Filson announced his intention to seek an NCUA Board seat, which was the culmination of speeches and online postings criticizing the NCUA’s activities throughout [...]
Succession Planning Means More Than Just Replacing People
BY DAVID MORRISON Succession planning means more than just having a set of instructions in place for your board to follow in case you unexpectedly die, according to a panel of CEOs that participated in [...]
Do the Right Thing to Avoid Regrets
By Sarah Snell Cooke At the time I received the job offer from Credit Union Times in 2000 I had also gotten an offer from a credit union marketing department. This popped in my head [...]
Build Solid Boards to Avoid Heartache
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE “Directors are at once our greatest strength and at once our greatest weakness,” now-retired CUES CEO Fred Johnson told me in his exit interview. Unfortunately, it is uttered far too often [...]
Fighting in the Sandbox Just Gets Sand in Your Eyes
By Sarah Snell Cooke, Credit Union Times This week CUNA announced on its website that Chartway FCU and Belvoir FCU were leaving NAFCU while maintaining their membership in CUNA. And so the latest battle of [...]
Adjusting to the Realities of a New Year
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE Forget that jobless claims were revised upward, even higher than initial projections. The New Year is a time for optimism. As California CU League Economist Dwight Johnston wrote in his commentary [...]
Capital and Capitol Conundrums
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE Sometimes things you didn’t think would affect you sneak up on you by surprise, whether out of nowhere or through ignorance or you’re merely preoccupied with other things. Dodd-Frank [...]
Stop Honking and Cook Bankers’ Christmas Goose
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE Third-quarter figures for federally insured credit unions this week were welcome news and the result of a lot of hard work by credit union professionals around the country. Certainly not a [...]
Credit Unions Caught in Political Dodge Ball
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE For a day, credit unions’ federal tax exemption appeared to be in jeopardy. H.R. 6474 would have gradually repealed credit unions’ tax-exempt status over five years. Fortunately for credit unions, [...]
The Absence of Light Causes Darkness: Editor/Publisher’s Column
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE Not voting is a vote. Not speaking up is condoning the status quo. Doing nothing is the same as doing something. The absence of light causes darkness. We all know these [...]
Highway to Hell Paved With Good Intentions
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE Credit union volunteers and professionals do what they do because they enjoy it–even get a sense of inner fulfillment from it–and are good at it. Otherwise, you’d be [...]
Sexy Is Only Skin Deep
by Sarah Snell Cooke, Publisher/Editor-in-Chief, Credit Union Times A minister, a conference organizer and an editor walked into a bar… OK, it wasn’t a bar but the gist of the story is true, [...]
Stop the Consolidation Hand-Wringing
BY SARAH SNELL COOKE Various segments of credit unions are in great denial regarding the world around them. Considerable hand-wringing takes place over the issues of industry consolidation and why more credit unions aren’t [...]