2023 Annual Meeting

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00;00;07;23 - 00;00;36;21
J.R. Brown
Hello. Hello. If you would, please, get to your seats. I know I look a little different, but it's still me. At this time, we’d like to welcome everyone to the LGFCU Annual Meeting. And as you can see, we got a crew of my backup getting seated and in place and then I’ll hand it over to our chair, Ken Noland, to address you.

00;00;37;28 - 00;00;51;14
J.R. Brown
How is the food? Yeah, how is that barbecue from the east side? Yeah, that's still an argument. I know, I know, I know. But I'll go ahead and turn this over to Ken and enjoy yourselves. Thank you.

00;00;52;20 - 00;01;24;10
Ken Noland
I appreciate that. And I will say we're going to try to keep this meeting civil. So in doing so, we will not have any more discussion about the best barbecue. Calling it a day. So otherwise, good afternoon. Welcome. I am calling the 40th Annual Meeting of the Local Government Federal Credit Union to order. This meeting is for the members of the Credit Union who are entitled by their membership to participate in this meeting.

00;01;24;10 - 00;01;47;10
Ken Noland
For a point of clarity, this meeting will follow the Robert's Rules of Order. Today, we have Mr. Ken Soo of Tharrington Smith behind me. Yes, there we go. Who will serve as our parliamentarian. So a quorum of at least 15 members is required for the annual meeting. Seeing that we have well over 15, the chair recognizes and declares a quorum for this meeting.

00;01;48;07 - 00;02;06;03
Ken Noland
The assistant to the Secretary shall record in the minutes of this meeting. So we now ask one of our fellow Board members, Paul Miller, if you would mind giving the invocation.

00;02;06;03 - 00;02;18;08
Paul Miller
And it's a pleasure to be here with you this afternoon. Good to see all of you. And it's an honor to be able to deliver this invocation. So if you would, please bow with me and let's go to our Heavenly Father.

00;02;19;11 - 00;02;50;11
Paul Miller
Dear Heavenly Father, today we come before you and give thanks for all you provide for us. And ask for your continued blessings upon each of us. We thank you for our Local Government Federal Credit Union. This is a special day in the life of LGFCU as we celebrate 40 years of service to our members and their families and to all local government employees and organizations. We must ask blessings today as we reflect back on these 40 years, on Maurice Smith.

00;02;50;27 - 00;03;11;14
Paul Miller
As you know, Maurice retired in January, but he is with us virtually today at this meeting, and Maurice set the direction for this organization and guided the work the entire time. So we just ask that you bless him as he has touched thousands of lives and made a difference in this world. We give thanks for him and his work.

00;03;11;17 - 00;03;32;13
Paul Miller
We also thank our past Boards and our present Board, our staff and leadership who have worked hard all these years to improve the lives of our members. We have always sought your guidance, dear God, in all that we do and ask often for your wisdom and vision. We have turned to you in times of need, and you have always been there for us.

00;03;32;27 - 00;04;00;25
Paul Miller
Today, more than ever, we ask for your blessings on our members, their families, our state, our nation, and our world. We are blessed in so many ways and we want to especially thank you for a wonderful blessing. And that is a relationship we have with State Employees’ Credit Union, and we acknowledge that we would not exist today if it were not for the hard work and loving care they provided to LGFCU and our members over the years.

00;04;01;08 - 00;04;27;18
Paul Miller
This relationship is a beautiful example of the credit union philosophy of people helping people. Dear God, it is what you created cooperatives to do, and we look forward to continuing to work with SECU in the coming years. Our relationship does not end and we ask you to continue to be in that as we work together, we just begin to work together in new ways to help those we serve.

00;04;27;28 - 00;04;47;28
Paul Miller
We thank you for everyone who has worked so hard over the past 40 years to make the world a better place for our members. And as we meet today, we ask that you guide us in the way you would have us go, and that all discussion and all decisions made will be for the benefit of our members and aimed at improving their lives.

00;04;48;07 - 00;05;08;06
Paul Miller
Give us open hearts and minds as we discuss bold new initiatives and remind us to be kind in all we think, say and do and respect the opinions of everyone. Lord, we thank you for your loving care. We offer this prayer to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

00;05;08;06 - 00;05;18;13
Ken Noland
Thank you, Paul. So the first order of business is the approval of the 2022 Annual Meeting minutes.

00;05;19;02 - 00;05;42;00
Ken Noland
These minutes are available for inspection by members of the Credit Union upon proper request. So at this point, the chair would entertain a motion for the approval of these minutes. We have a motion. A second? Hearing a majority ... actually all in favor say “aye.” Sounds like majority of the room. We’ll go ahead and declare that approved and move forward.

00;05;43;12 - 00;06;16;28
Ken Noland
So at this time, I'd like to introduce your Local Government Board members and ask that they remain standing, as I call their name. First, our Vice Chair David Dear from Shelby. Our Secretary Ruth Barnes from Atlantic Beach. Our Treasurer Jeanne Erwin from Cary. Our Board, our Director Tony Brown from Halifax County. Lin Jones from Durham. And Dr. Aaron Noble from Burlington.

00;06;18;19 - 00;06;50;16
Ken Noland
And in his absence, I would like to also recognize our emeritus member, Al Richardson of Black Mountain. So also in attendance, I would like to call out we have two independent directors of the Civic Federal Credit Union who are special guests here today. They being Kellie Blue of Robeson County and Paul Miller of Snow Hill. So if I could get a round of applause for all these volunteers.

00;06;50;16 - 00;07;10;09
Ken Noland
So on behalf of the Board members, I'd like to take a moment to also to remember a good friend and colleague who was lost, who we lost this past year, and that's Mr. Willie Best. Willie's career was in city and county management. He was well respected, engaged, and a passionate longtime member of both LGFCU and Civic Board of Directors.

00;07;10;24 - 00;07;28;26
Ken Noland
In fact, Willie was the very first member of Civic. He was a devoted advocate for the Credit Union members, and especially for those who needed, who needs affordable and accessible financial services the most. He impacted many lives with his service, and we do miss him dearly.

00;07;33;04 - 00;07;57;06
Ken Noland
So the Chairman's report is available in the 2022 Annual Report to membership. A link to that annual report has been provided on our website. LGFCU couldn't operate the way it does without contribution of our many volunteers. Routinely, the Board appoints new volunteers to serve in a number of different roles. We appreciate the work of these different bodies of volunteers and what they provide to our Credit Union.

00;07;57;29 - 00;08;25;01
Ken Noland
LGFCU has over 600 volunteers working on behalf of our members. We currently have seven Board members, 595 Advisory Council members, five Supervisory Committee members, and 12 Loan Review Committee members. At this time, I’d to give a special thank you to all the new volunteers as well who have been appointed in the last 12 months, as well as if you have any.

00;08;25;12 - 00;08;50;08
Ken Noland
If we have any of our Advisory Council members or volunteers who are attending their very first meeting, would you please stand for us? Oh, we knew we had somebody in the room. Great. So thank you to all of our volunteers for your commitment to this organization. It is greatly appreciated. We cannot do the work ourselves. It takes the village, right, to make this happen.

00;08;50;17 - 00;09;13;29
Ken Noland
So to all of our volunteer, volunteers, please remember LGFCU is only as effective and efficient as your efforts, particularly as we move forward on this journey. So at this time, I would like to call forward Emily Lucas from our Supervisory, for our Supervisory Committee report. Emily.

00;09;17;06 - 00;10;13;03
Emily Lucas
Thank you and good afternoon. On behalf of the Supervisory Committee, it is a pleasure to present this report for the annual meeting of the Local Government Federal Credit Union. It is the duty of the Supervisory Committee to ensure that all financial records present fairly the operations of the Credit Union and that procedures and practices are sound, thereby protecting members’ deposits and rights. In accordance with the National Credit Union Administration requirements, we engaged the CPA firm of Clifton Larsen Allen to perform a financial statement audit of the Credit Union as of June 30, 2022. The audit found the financial statements proved to be a fair presentation in all material respects of the Credit Union’s financial position and that the results of operations and cash flows were in conformity with generally accepted accounting principles.

00;10;13;28 - 00;10;42;18
Emily Lucas
On behalf of the members of the committee, the audit, auditing firm helps to ensure that accounting records are free of material misstatement and represent the true financial picture of the Credit Union, and that the Credit Union follows sound accounting principles and guidelines. The committee also monitors policies for fairness, soundness and efficiency. Also, the Credit Union employs an internal audit department that tests the internal systems and processes.

00;10;42;29 - 00;11;04;28
Emily Lucas
The internal audit team conducts periodic consultative, operational and compliance reviews of the various functions within the Credit Union. I wish to thank the Board members for their confidence in the work that we do for the Credit Union. Thank you.

00;11;07;15 - 00;11;27;20
Ken Noland
Thank you, Emily. Our Supervisory Committee provides an important service to the membership, ensuring the safety and soundness of the Credit Union. And we do appreciate the report you provided today. Please relay our appreciation to the rest of the committee for their work. So now I would like to call on Wilbert McAdoo for our Loan Committee report. Wilbert.

00;11;28;26 - 00;11;59;25
Wilbert McAdoo
Good afternoon. I am pleased to present the Loan Review Committee report for the 40th Annual Meeting of the Local Government Federal Credit Union. The Loan Review Committee fulfills two significant roles for the Credit Union. First, the Loan Review Committee give members a way to appeal loan decisions they have received. These loans may have been denied through our usual delivery channels.

00;12;00;16 - 00;12;28;10
Wilbert McAdoo
The second look by volunteers assures the members they are not just another number. Secondly, the Loan Review Committee offers members a direct voice into the loan decision process. Loan Review Committee members are not staff. Loan Review Committee members are volunteers. These are your fellow members who serve without compensation. This right to appear before the Loan Review Committee appears as an unique benefit for Local Government Federal Credit Union members.

00;12;28;25 - 00;13;33;11
Wilbert McAdoo
Just surely one of the differences that make Local Government Federal Credit Union membership exceptional. Members are given the option to have their application presented to the Committee via mail, email, telephone or in person. In each instance, these applications are treated equally, confidentially and respectfully. Last year, the Loan Review Committee met as often as needed, usually weekly, to consider needs and requests of members. During 2022, the Loan Review Committee reviewed 26 loan requests, and after careful review, the committee was able to approve 31% of these requests. This is a very dedicated group of volunteers. In fact, some of them serve more than 20 years. I thank the Committee and Board of Directors for their hard work in this effort. We are truly making a difference in the lives of our members and their families. Respectfully submitted, Wilbert McAdoo, Chairman, Loan Review Committee.

00;13;33;11 - 00;13;58;09
Ken Noland
So Loan Review Committee demonstrates the Credit Union spirit of members helping members. You know, I would say I'm not aware of any other financial institution that has a loan committee made up of its membership that reviews the decisions of the, of our staff and based on that review and their interview with the applicant, may make a change in the decision.

00;13;59;00 - 00;14;26;12
Ken Noland
It allows for that committee to look at personal circumstances. Right? Things that may have gone on in that member's life that's created potentially a low credit score or some other issue that's keeping them from getting that loan. So I do really appreciate this one fact that we have with our Credit Union, that we have a Loan Review Committee that anybody can always ask for a, the members to look at it and, and make a decision.

00;14;26;12 - 00;14;48;12
Ken Noland
And as Wilbert said, so about a third of those who, who came in front of the Loan Committee were able to get their loan approved for whatever that need was. And that's exciting. So thanks, Wilbert. Please let the rest of the Loan Committee know how much we appreciate their hard work. So now next, I'd like to call on Dr. Aaron Noble to give the Nominating Committee report.

00;14;52;25 - 00;15;15;24
Dr. Aaron Noble
Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you, Chairman Noland, for this opportunity to present the report from the Nominating Committee. I'd also like to thank, to take this opportunity to thank my fellow committee members, Mr. David Dear and Paul Miller, with whom I had the opportunity to serve in this capacity. In accordance with the Credit Union bylaws, the Chairman of the Board appoints the Nominating Committee.

00;15;16;21 - 00;15;54;21
Dr. Aaron Noble
It is the charge of this Committee to review the qualifications of prospective candidates for the Board and to make nominations to the membership. The Nomination Committee has completed its work and submits the following nominations. Ruth Barnes, Atlantic Beach, for a three-year term. Tony Brown, Halifax County, for a two-year term. Jeanne Erwin, Cary, for a three-year term. And Ken Noland, Wilkesboro, for a three-year term. The Nominating Committee submits these nominations and recommendations to the membership.

00;16;00;16 - 00;16;35;00
Ken Noland
Thank you very much, Dr. Noble, for your report and our appreciation to the Nominating Committee for their work. There's only one person been nominated for each open seat, and the time for nominations allowed under our bylaws is closed. Our bylaws do not require an election when there are no contested seats. I therefore declare the nominees elected. Congratulations to our newly elected Board members. And somewhat self-serving, and I'm excited to have another three years on this journey for our Credit Union.

00;16;35;00 - 00;16;55;22
Ken Noland
So I will do my best to help lead us along that way. So next, I'm going to turn over to our CEO, Dwayne Naylor, for his CEO's report. Dwayne.

00;16;55;22 - 00;17;31;06
Dwayne Naylor
Thank you for everyone coming to Raleigh. If you were out of town and coming down, we had a volunteer celebration this morning and a session that was energizing at every level. I want to make a couple personal remarks about Willie Best, our Board member that we lost last year. He's still with us. And his voice not only for our members and members that may not be served by anybody else better than us, but also our employees and how important it was for us to take care of our employees.

00;17;31;06 - 00;17;56;29
Dwayne Naylor
So he was a mentor to me and his loss was difficult for the Board. And a lot of times we just keep moving through business but our Board went through a big loss as well. And so his spirit is still with us and everything that we're doing. And his vision was very clear what we needed to do. So I know Willie Best is with us and he is in my heart.

00;17;58;02 - 00;18;11;07
Dwayne Naylor
So today, the exact day, the 24th, this is the 20th, this is the 40th anniversary that the charter was issued 40 years ago.

00;18;16;07 - 00;18;37;23
Dwayne Naylor
We keep talking about how our work is defined and how the calendar, with all the leap years, landed right on that date today. So it, you know, it's important to talk about where we're coming from before we talk about where we're going. And I have us, many on the leadership team, Mark Caverly, the Executive Vice President and our Chief Impact Officer, that's going to share some of this report.

00;18;37;23 - 00;19;15;24
Dwayne Naylor
But 40 years ago, it was about three months before I was hired at State Employees’ Credit Union, spent about 17 years there and learned how to serve our members. And during that period, there was, a lot of people don't know, there was a banking lawsuit that said that State Employees’ Credit Union had to expel and that was the word, expel, the local government members from State Employees’ Credit Union and the CEO at that time, Jim Blaine, and local government came together and created this wonderful organization.

00;19;16;18 - 00;19;46;29
Dwayne Naylor
It was a historic day and it was an innovation of seeing a challenge and creating an opportunity. And those 3,000 members that did not have to be expelled have grown to over 400,000 members just in the last month or so. So it is a huge, huge success at every measurable level. And the partnership of cooperatives helping cooperatives. This is the shining light in the industry.

00;19;47;28 - 00;20;13;08
Dwayne Naylor
The second time State Employees had to step up as State Employees decided around 2013, at that time, with leadership, they were not going to serve nonprofits, organizations and business accounts. That's perfectly fine. Another organization was changing their strategy, but our Board at that time came and said, no, we serve the fire service. We have $100 million in fire lending.

00;20;13;08 - 00;20;41;19
Dwayne Naylor
We have nonprofit organizations, local government organizations. And so once again, instead of taking the challenge and our members going to a bank for services, our Board thought and they said we're going to create a credit union, not just any credit union, but an extraordinary credit union. And so I think I went to State Employees at the time and I said, Can you give us 12 months?

00;20;43;05 - 00;21;00;29
Dwayne Naylor
They laughed at me. It took three years to get the charter. The reason we got a separate charter is because we didn't want our members confused by doing business as, and going in and out of the branches. OK, that would be very confusing to the channels and unfair to State Employees’ Credit Union. So that's why we chartered another credit union.

00;21;02;13 - 00;21;33;26
Dwayne Naylor
But we didn't build just any credit union. Our Board's vision was we were going to build a credit union positioned for the future that is far advanced of any other organization. So we built Civic and built the infrastructure and brought in a team that is the most talented and our team is the most talented in the industry, I keep saying that. But State Employees gave us four years, four years that they weren't offering a service.

00;21;34;26 - 00;22;00;29
Dwayne Naylor
They were still opening accounts. There were some hiccups, but they were still opening accounts. So think about how hard that was for all the frontline at State employees’ Credit Union. So it's incredible that they gave us that four years. We got the charter. We launched like ten, 11 months after the charter was issued, and we had all this work done and we created a, one of the fastest growing, most innovative organizations in the industry.

00;22;02;00 - 00;22;25;20
Dwayne Naylor
So that was the second time State Employees stepped up or most any other business wouldn’t think about it. So now, we're now we're in 40-year anniversary. We had a celebration last night, Party with a Purpose. That was a wonderful celebration. And Leigh, thank you for coming to that. Leigh Brady is the Executive Vice President of State Employees.

00;22;25;20 - 00;23;02;06
Dwayne Naylor
And I see her here. Is there any other State Employees’ employees here? Now, if you would, could you stand up because I want to give you a round of applause for what you've done the last 40 years, on our birthday. We had a meeting with the retirement association the other day, and I thanked State Employees for raising the bar so high on member service and caring that what we're creating has to be better, using the word better here.

00;23;03;22 - 00;23;37;23
Dwayne Naylor
So the only reason we would come out is we would create an experience that we can take care of and focus on our members better than anyone, anywhere. OK, so here we are again. And State Employees for the third time have ... I’ll back up. First conversation with Jim Hayes at State Employees, when we went over and told, the told, or shared with State Employees’ Credit Union that we were going to become independent.

00;23;38;08 - 00;24;03;03
Dwayne Naylor
It was like, how can we help? So right now, I mean, today I think we have a couple hundred people on both sides of the organization that are working very hard to get the organization ready for 400,000 members to come on to a new innovative infrastructure platform. And every single due date has been hit by State Employees’ Credit Union.

00;24;03;12 - 00;24;29;21
Dwayne Naylor
And the amount of work that took is actually incredible. So thank you so much for that. Our hope is that they learn something from all this hard work they are giving this this year. I mean, hundreds and hundreds of people, thousands of hours making sure that we're going to create the best organization on the planet. And when they go through their transition, hopefully a lot of the stuff we're doing, they can learn from and serve their members, members better.

00;24;29;22 - 00;24;53;12
Dwayne Naylor
So on our 40th anniversary, we are in the middle of the third time State Employees stood in and took care of our members and allowed us to grow and prepare for a new future. Right? So we're going to be talking about our Summits. If you don't know, we've had Local Government Summits around the state and Ashley Ruffin will end up covering that.

00;24;54;05 - 00;25;14;00
Dwayne Naylor
That was so remarkable. We had over a thousand members and we had a lot of State Employees’ Credit Union employees there too. And what was so special about it was because they told us, we're talking to them. We're not telling them what we're doing. They're telling us what we need to do. And so they told us cash deposits are important.

00;25;14;28 - 00;25;48;13
Dwayne Naylor
They told us some type of physical presence is important. They said there's people and we talked about this morning, there are people that are less digital savvy and they need help. They need training, they need financial counseling, they need patience and different ways to be able to understand how to do that business. So we are working and the Board has said we are going to have solutions for those because that's what the membership told us.

00;25;48;23 - 00;26;15;15
Dwayne Naylor
I wish I was smart enough to sit in the corner office and have all these answers. I don't. But we're listening to our members and they're telling us the way to do this. So we will innovate just like we have the last three times when there were challenges. We're going to turn a challenge into an opportunity. And the most amazing thing about this is there's so much, there's so much change in the world right now and there's so much anxiety about what's next and things.

00;26;17;01 - 00;26;44;14
Dwayne Naylor
But we choose for positive organization development. We choose that we are going to be bringing our families together in all of our events and things that we do. We choose that. We believe in people and we believe in their strengths. And we're going to be leaning heavily into our Advisory Council members where they're actively going to be working on our projects to make sure that we serve our members better than anybody else.

00;26;44;27 - 00;27;09;09
Dwayne Naylor
OK. That's the exciting part. But we choose to be extraordinary. We choose to create something that does not exist anywhere in financial services and a physical presence could be many things. One is a relationship training center, but it also could be, we have member development officers that go, that are all around the state. We're tripling the number of member development officers.

00;27;09;19 - 00;27;32;04
Dwayne Naylor
So if you can imagine the picture of the state in your mind and just one day, maybe 100 member development officers being in those counties that are going to our local government units where we can do business, we can do a mortgage, we can do anything. So we're coming to our members. It's a remarkable journey and a remarkable vision that our Board has.

00;27;32;19 - 00;28;02;18
Dwayne Naylor
And we know that we're asking a lot of our members this year. And when we say we're working on something, as soon as we have the solution, and we will have a solution, we will report it right back to our membership. But on our 40th anniversary, I really want to thank State Employees for not only creating our organization, but allowing time for Local Government to bring in the talent and the employees and the passion and everything.

00;28;02;18 - 00;28;31;02
Dwayne Naylor
So we're, we didn't start from scratch. We have almost 600 volunteers, Advisory Council members around the state. That took 22 years to build. We've got the infrastructure that is scaling up. We're adding mortgages. There will not be any services that you have at Local Government right now that will not also exist in the, in the, in the end state organization.

00;28;32;27 - 00;28;59;00
Dwayne Naylor
But the Board has challenged us for it to be better than what we're offering now. OK. So, so the infrastructure, the leadership, the talent, our, our staff is so dedicated to our members. They're are so dedicated to what we're doing and our, and our purpose and our passion and, and our values and caring for each other and being strength based.

00;28;59;00 - 00;29;22;08
Dwayne Naylor
So all of that has come together for this moment in time. Almost 40 years, little less than 40 years than when I started and I was in the State Employees branches serving Local Government members. I had no idea that we would come to this moment. But the Board has looked at many, many channels. We have the talent, we have the infrastructure.

00;29;22;08 - 00;29;52;20
Dwayne Naylor
The decision is now is the time that local government, the extraordinary local government in North Carolina, now's the time that it has an extraordinary Credit Union, 100% dedicated and working with them to change the state of North Carolina. OK. So it's a very exciting time and I'm honored to be in this role. But I have a very talented team, a very talented team down to the person, that loves this organization and loves our members.

00;29;52;20 - 00;30;14;25
Dwayne Naylor
And with that, lean into us, lean into our Board's vision, lean into the courage of the future, and we are going to create a remarkable organization that you're even more proud of. And with that, I'll turn it over to Mark Caverly. He's going to talk about values a little bit. Thank you, Mark.

00;30;20;02 - 00;30;42;23
Mark Caverly
All right. Thank you, Dwayne. Good afternoon, everyone. Unfortunately, I'm not going to talk about values. I'm going to talk about the numbers. So I'm a bit of a numbers guy. I don't like to admit it, but I'm an accounting undergraduate, somewhat of a reformed accountant. But it wouldn't be an annual meeting without some discussion about the numbers and the financial condition and the financial health of your Credit Union.

00;30;43;13 - 00;31;05;04
Mark Caverly
So next slide, Tim. So the first thing we're going to do is we're going to look at our growth metrics. I think any, any gauge of an organization you can look at growth. Is the organization growing? That is a, that's a key metric in terms of the health of an organization. So as you can see, as you look at these bars, we are growing in almost every metric.

00;31;06;07 - 00;31;29;07
Mark Caverly
One comment to make, when you see peers, that bar in gray that is the peers, that those are credit unions in the United States that are more than $500 million in assets and that's roughly 700 credit unions. So as you can see, we actually compare very favorable to peer credit unions. So look at asset growth. We're nearly more, are actually more than double our peer credit unions.

00;31;30;10 - 00;32;06;02
Mark Caverly
Fun fact, when I arrived in 1997, almost 26 years ago, we had $125 million in assets. And we are very, very close to eclipsing $4 billion assets. So $4 billion in assets. And that is a testament to many of you in this room as our members and our volunteers. Deposit growth is also strong, as you can see. In an industry note about our deposit growth, our average deposit, uh, for each member is roughly $8,000, but the peer average is $15,000.

00;32;06;02 - 00;32;24;15
Mark Caverly
And I think that's just indicative of who we serve, what our membership base is doing. Dwayne had mentioned the extraordinary local government public servants, and I think that number, um, you know, is indicative of that. And again, it's we've always said this, but it's such a, such an honor for us to serve the public servants of North Carolina. So now let's take a look at loan growth.

00;32;24;15 - 00;32;52;04
Mark Caverly
Almost 30% growth in loans last year. And we granted $1.7 billion in new loans in 2022 alone, $1.7 billion in new loans. That's amazing. Now, the one bar that's a little negative here, that's investments, but that's really a function of our loan growth. So in the Credit Union, when we take in our members’ deposits, we really have two uses of those deposits.

00;32;52;04 - 00;33;19;10
Mark Caverly
We can invest them in marketable securities or overnight funds or what we'd much prefer to do is to invest it in our members via loans. And so the fact that loan growth, the loans are growing so significantly, that means we're shifting the funds out of investments to support the loan growth. So that's actually a very good sign. That negative number is a very good sign for us.

00;33;19;22 - 00;33;38;26
Mark Caverly
Net worth is also growing. That is our rainy-day fund or it's our reserves for uncertain times in the future. It also helps to support the future growth of the Credit Union as well as it allows us to make investments in infrastructure to better serve the membership. So the fact that that is growing at such a strong clip is a great sign for the Credit Union as well.

00;33;39;17 - 00;34;29;20
Mark Caverly
And finally, membership is growing. It's a little bit slightly behind the peer ratio. However, earlier this year, we surpassed 400,000 members, which makes us the second largest Credit Union in the state, based on membership. So I think that's, that's truly a testament to the health of the Credit Union as well. 400,000 members across the state. But the reality is these members or these numbers, they represent our members. They represent key events in the lives of our members. So on the deposit side, could be a child's first savings account. It could be a family saving up for their summer trip, you know, a family trip this summer. On the loan side, it could be a newlywed couple financing their first home together. Or it could be someone, a college graduate, financing their very first vehicle.

00;34;30;03 - 00;35;05;18
Mark Caverly
So I think that's something that we can never forget is the impact that we're having on our members. These are the numbers, but each of these numbers represent our members and their stories. So next slide, Tim. OK. So how we compare? So we're gonna look at a couple of key ratios. Nothing really jumps off the page here or the screen here, except for the provision for loan losses and the charge-offs and unfortunately, not every member pays us back on the loan that we make.

00;35;06;21 - 00;35;32;11
Mark Caverly
That is reflected in that charge-offs figure. Ultimately, if a member is not making their payments, we have to write that loan off. We also have to expense or record a provision expense for future loan losses. So that's the reason those two bars are higher than peers or elevated to the extent that they are. But to our way of thinking, that shows that we truly are living out our mission.

00;35;32;15 - 00;35;57;12
Mark Caverly
You know, our members are coming to us for affordable credit. In many cases, it's credit they can't obtain elsewhere. And we're working with those members. We're making loans to help them realize their dreams, if you will. But oftentimes they can't pay us back. However, I know I speak for all of us that that's OK. That just shows that we're serving our members.

00;35;57;12 - 00;36;29;11
Mark Caverly
You know, we're truly living out that mission that we have. All right. Now, one last slide. So again, keeping it short. So it's been a little bit in the news here recently about some bank failures. So I wanted to share a little bit about that. I'm not going to get into the details of how that happened or why that happened, but I will share some, some details about what's different about, let's say, Silicon Valley Bank versus Local Government Federal Credit Union.

00;36;30;04 - 00;37;00;08
Mark Caverly
So as you can imagine, Silicon Valley Bank, just by virtue of the name, they were involved in a lot of, with a lot of tech startups, venture capitalists. They had significant deposits on hand in operational accounts. And those operational accounts would fluctuate significantly in terms of the cash position. Also, as rates started to rise, those cash, that cash was moved out of Silicon Valley Bank for higher interest rates.

00;37;01;27 - 00;37;30;24
Mark Caverly
So a lot of this had to do with the makeup of their customer base. It's very, very different, obviously, than the makeup of our member base. Again, the amazing public servants in North Carolina, far different than venture capitalists and Silicon Valley startups. And to bring that point home, we have, in looking at the numbers, Silicon Valley Bank’s average deposit was over $4 million.

00;37;31;13 - 00;38;03;09
Mark Caverly
And as I mentioned earlier, LGFCU’s average deposit is just $7,000. So very, very different. We also, we are regulated by the NCUA. Obviously, Silicon Valley Bank was regulated by the FDIC. We're regulated by the NCUA. We have $250,000 in share insurance, just like Silicon Valley Bank. But again, very, very, very different circumstances with Silicon Valley Bank and LGFCU.

00;38;03;09 - 00;38;34;04
Mark Caverly
Silicon Valley Bank, one other thing to point out. So with that, having said the $250,000 in insurance, banks and credit unions, we track uninsured shares and insured deposits. Silicon Valley Bank had, its uninsured shares were 96%. Again, $4 million on average deposit. 96% of their deposits were uninsured. At LGFCU, 96% of our shares or deposits are insured. So, again, very, very different circumstances.

00;38;35;20 - 00;39;05;27
Mark Caverly
Finally, you know, Silicon Valley Bank with their investment portfolio. And so as I mentioned earlier, we take in deposits. We're either going to make loans to our members or we're going to invest those funds. With Silicon Valley Bank, they were reaching for yield. They invested longer term and so they were chasing yield. At the Credit Union, we've always employed this philosophy of sort of what they call the “sly” rule - safety, liquidity and yield - in that order when we make our investment decisions.

00;39;06;07 - 00;39;40;13
Mark Caverly
So yield is always last. So we typically manage, today we manage a much different investment portfolio than Silicon Valley Bank was at the time of their failure. So having said all that, I just want to say that your funds at the Credit Union are indeed safe and sound. So as a financial cooperative, it's really one of our, it's one of our primary responsibilities to ensure the safety and soundness of your funds. And that's something that we take very, very serious. So again, thank you for your time today.

00;39;41;08 - 00;39;55;01
Mark Caverly
All right. Our Chief Marketing Officer.

00;39;55;01 - 00;40;16;07
Lamar Heyward
Hello, everybody. So I'm going to slide over here because the clicker has walked from the podium over to this table. So I'm walking right back. That's cool with y’all. And then make sure we can make it work. Boom. All right, so we're in North Carolina. My people are actually from Savannah, Georgia. So my mom, my mom's mom and dad's mom.

00;40;16;24 - 00;40;33;26
Lamar Heyward
But, you know, back in the day, they moved up north, had kids. I was one of those kids. I was actually born in New York. And then I want to say it was about junior high. Things got pretty rough up north and my mom remembered, hey, down the south typically takes a long time, for things kept going on in north.

00;40;33;26 - 00;40;51;04
Lamar Heyward
So let's move back down south because we got kids. Probably a better place to raise children than, you know, New York City. Let's get back down to Savannah, Georgia. And when we made that move, I can remember as a transplant, hating it. I mean, like Savannah's gotten kind of cool now, but at the time it was not the place to be.

00;40;51;04 - 00;41;06;03
Lamar Heyward
And so I was pouting and complaining and whining about the fact that I had to be down south instead of north. But one of the things I noticed is that the place where all the action was in Savannah, was on these porches that you see. And so if you have any familiarity with, you know, southern living, the porch was where it was.

00;41;06;03 - 00;41;20;15
Lamar Heyward
And so that's where a lot of people congregated. You know, you caught up for the day. I hated it for two reasons. One, I was from the north, so I'm kind of, you know, a quiet kid, I come out, sit on the porch with my headphones. How many of you grew up with the attitude of, you know, you speak to people when you show up?

00;41;20;16 - 00;41;34;08
Lamar Heyward
Have you heard that? Is that a thing? Y'all familiar with that? Well, I’m this city kid, I wouldn't speak to nobody. I'm sitting on the porch. I'm young, so, you know, older folks coming out, you’re not gonna say nothing to me when I'm out here. You just going to sit here and not acknowledge my presence? And I'm sorry, ma'am.

00;41;34;08 - 00;41;49;11
Lamar Heyward
So you know how you learn how to be respectful, but it took me a long time to get that. And so that was one thing. The other thing is this was the lookout. All right. So my grandma lived a couple of houses down. And so you're a kid. You're trying to do your dirt. You don’t want the cops, you know, sitting on the porch watching your every move.

00;41;49;11 - 00;42;10;14
Lamar Heyward
But that was the situation on this porch, you know? I mean, so she's watching. I'm trying to come home early from school. What are you doing home so early? Are you supposed to still be in school? Yes, ma'am. So, yeah, the porch was not the thing for me. But there's something else I noticed that was happening is my uncle, who also lived on this block, will be coming and going, you know, consistently, religiously.

00;42;10;14 - 00;42;27;19
Lamar Heyward
He got up at the same time every morning, you know, hit the streets, come back home same time every day. And just that clockwork caught my attention. I later came to learn, which I can really appreciate now in my role, that he worked for the city. So he worked in local government. He was actually in public works and a very consistent public servant.

00;42;27;24 - 00;42;42;12
Lamar Heyward
And at the time, you know, having the city job that’s the thing, I mean, you know, you had a good city job, you had good benefits. I'm saying. I mean, you had a dedicated, you know, bit of work that you were doing. You were celebrated in that community. I didn't know anything. I just knew he came and he went pretty religiously and he did his thing.

00;42;42;21 - 00;43;03;01
Lamar Heyward
We didn't really talk about it. I'll tell you when we did talk about it, when something was broke. So let the trash not get picked up. Let the water not work. Well, all you going to hear about then is you know, how you know what's going on downtown. Why you people ain't got your act together. So, you know, you hear about it when things aren’t working well, but when it's working the way it's supposed to it, you know, not so much.

00;43;03;01 - 00;43;24;18
Lamar Heyward
Here at the Credit Union, we've always for the time that I've been here, for the past 40 years, put a lot of emphasis on celebrating our local government employees and really working to elevate them. And it's critical to the work that we do to be able to make sure that when things are going well and when they're not going well, we want to make sure that our local government community is being lifted up, is being elevated.

00;43;24;18 - 00;43;44;06
Lamar Heyward
And so, sure, we love you to death and we've been doing that within the community. One of the things that we want to do much more of going forward is a focus on taking that message outside of this community, really making sure that throughout local government, throughout the state of North Carolina, we are elevating and emphasizing the local government story.

00;43;45;15 - 00;44;10;21
Lamar Heyward
There's a reason, though, that we haven't focused on that as much in the past. And it's really this emphasis on local government, the idea being that if everybody in the state can’t join, does it really benefit us to be able to talk about local government in a very broad and meaningful way? Because you could run into a scenario where people get excited about and they find, well, actually, you know, I'm not a local government member.

00;44;10;21 - 00;44;30;29
Lamar Heyward
I'm not, you know, an employee, I'm not a family member. So, you know, maybe I can’t get in this Credit Union that I'm hearing a whole lot about. But what we've really learned to come to appreciate is that brand awareness, that recognition that you can bring to your organization is important and powerful, even if people can't get in.

00;44;30;29 - 00;44;46;28
Lamar Heyward
And because what you're building is, you're building confidence, you're building trust, you're building awareness. And that's exactly the type of thing that you want to see happen. I mean, we see that happen with our partner, in State Employees, that comes up all the time. You know, people get excited about that organization and they realize, well, I'm not a, you know, state employee, so I can't join.

00;44;46;28 - 00;45;06;19
Lamar Heyward
But there are lots of brands out there where that may be the situation. So a lot of us would know. So my favorite one is Spanx. I'm not wearing no Spanx, but I know what Spanx is. You see what I’m saying? So that brand is very well known. You know, even though I don't use it, anybody can quiz me on what's Spanx.

00;45;06;19 - 00;45;17;08
Lamar Heyward
Oh, well, let me tell you, a lot of people they need the Spanx and let me tell you why. Because it keeps everything where it's supposed to be, you know, and that's what you want, especially at a lovely event. Like, I'm not going to poll the room. Who got on Spanx? We're not going to do it.

00;45;17;18 - 00;45;34;29
Lamar Heyward
But just so I'm aware of that brand and it's a good thing, you know, same thing with other brands like Patagonia is a really good one that I'm very familiar with. Lamar is not into camping, at all. I like my stuff in the house, you know what I'm saying? If I did camp, I need to make sure it was in a cabin. The boy ain’t taking no tents.

00;45;35;15 - 00;45;54;27
Lamar Heyward
But I'm very familiar with Patagonia as a brand. And so that's the way we want people to be with our Credit Union. We want to be able to celebrate it in a way where even if you aren't a member or eligible for membership, you know, hey, you know, there's this organization in the state of North Carolina that’s doing really great things for our city and county workers.

00;45;54;28 - 00;46;12;29
Lamar Heyward
And we want to really be able to activate that passion that people have, because here's what I see when I talk to people about it. It's a dormant appreciation. As soon as you bring it up, people are, yeah, you know what, man, I do appreciate that excellence, but until you do, it's not something that's top of mind. Something has to happen.

00;46;13;01 - 00;46;32;00
Lamar Heyward
We saw it big time with the pandemic. As soon as the pandemic hit and people realize, you know, the services that were being provided by all of these workers and supporters throughout our state, that we're doing things behind the scenes, because it was put on this big stage, this huge platform that allowed people to appreciate what people were doing.

00;46;32;00 - 00;46;49;18
Lamar Heyward
But you needed an event to bring that to the spotlight. What we're really working to do, have been in the past and even much more in the future, is to be that spotlight. Shining the light on our local government throughout the state of North Carolina so that everybody gets to see you as the superstars and the heroes that you really are.

00;46;49;18 - 00;47;10;25
Lamar Heyward
And we don't need a global pandemic for it to be brought to their attention. And so here's the goal. And I talk about this sometimes on my team at the office, is if you talk to most kids, they will appreciate and align with the role of the job as a firefighter. They just know it. There's people in here probably that had that as their dream when they were growing up.

00;47;10;25 - 00;47;50;12
Lamar Heyward
Some of you actually fulfilled it and you're firefighters right now, so you went all the way. You know, I didn't go that far. I kind of probably made it to age seven and then I want to do something else. But you took it all the way to the end. But what we're looking to do is that same affinity that most people in our country have with the firefighter profession, that's a part of local government. How do we extend that appreciation throughout local government? So that same recognition exists not just with firefighters or, you know, frontline workers or a lot of the service personnel that, you know, have that big, bold brand recognition because of what they do. But those folks that are behind the scenes and so we're telling the stories. We will continue to tell the stories.

00;47;50;12 - 00;48;30;19
Lamar Heyward
But I need you to understand that our main goal, our purpose, what really drives us, it’s that. It's elevating and celebrating local government in a meaningful, meaningful way. So what I'd like to do now is pass the baton to my colleague, Ashley Ruffin, to talk some about what you've been hearing throughout the day. We've been sort of weaving the word “summits” every time you turn around and you've probably wondered if you weren't a part of it, like what does that have to do with anything? If you were a part of it, you probably think we're going to let you do a skit up here today. But you hear that? Yes, we did a lot of skits. People hated them then. They loved them and they hated them, didn't love them. But Ashley is going to come as our Chief Impact Officer and give us more detail on that. Ashley Ruffin.

00;48;30;19 - 00;49;15;17
Ashley Ruffin
So a couple of things. I think probably I should have gone before Lamar. He's very entertaining. I'm not sure he's not wearing Spanx. He made kind of a big deal about it. So I'm not sure. And the other thing is that was a really cool slide he put up there in the story he told about the porch, because I'm a lifelong North Carolinian and lived, probably until I moved away and went to college, every Sunday afternoon on the porch because, you know, it never gets cold in North Carolina.

00;49;15;26 - 00;49;40;15
Ashley Ruffin
Spent a lot of time on the porch with my family. So great, Lamar. So you guys have been hearing a lot about the summits. Summit, summit, summit. So with the transition that we're going through, we wanted to go out and talk to our members, hear from our members. What do the members need? What do the members want? What are their aspirations?

00;49;40;15 - 00;50;04;07
Ashley Ruffin
And so we did just that. We hosted, we hosted five summits across the state during February and March. We started here in Raleigh, then we went to Greenville, then we went to Wilmington, from there to Asheville and finally ended up in Hickory. It was a whirlwind tour that we went on. We called our staff that went on all of these, our road crew.

00;50;04;15 - 00;50;28;01
Ashley Ruffin
Diana and company were with us the whole time. We had a blast. It reminded us why we're here. A lot of what Lamar and others have said, you know, a lot of times you get caught up in doing the day to day and you really don't appreciate the stories that are behind our membership. So we had a great time to connect with our members.

00;50;28;19 - 00;51;00;20
Ashley Ruffin
We invited folks from State Employees to come along for this journey. You know, as we've said before, this is a fantastic cooperative relationship. State Employees loves our members almost as much as we do, the relationships that they've built along the way. So this transition is, is something that they are going through at the same time we are. So I'd like to start off showing you a video if I can work the clicker.

00;51;00;20 - 00;51;24;26
Ashley Ruffin
This is a drone view in some instances, and then video and photos from this journey that we did. It's going to show you a little bit about where we were, what we did, and a little bit of the fun that we had. But I wanted to say that in these locations we were able to capture, most of you know that are in the room that are on the Advisory Councils,

00;51;24;26 - 00;51;56;21
Ashley Ruffin
we have 31 councils that make up our entire state. Our 100 counties are divided into those 31 regions. We had representation at 22 of those at the summits and out of 100 counties we had 50 represented. So we thought that was a very, very good showing of our membership and a very, very good start for us. So members shared their enthusiasm for our process, for their future and our, and our futures as their Credit Unions.

00;51;57;00 - 00;52;26;26
Ashley Ruffin
So I wanted to share a couple of the comments that we heard. Some of you may have had a chance to see some other comments as you've been reading them when you're roaming around. But one person said, I'm really looking forward to the ability to be able to do banking from home and to use the technology going into the new Civic app. That was a member from Randolph County. Another one as a member of both Local Government and Civic, I absolutely love the user-friendly experience that we have. A member from Waynesville.

00;52;28;14 - 00;52;50;20
Ashley Ruffin
I'm looking forward to the opportunity to be involved in the transition of moving everything over to Civic and to get going with this virtual banking. I think it's a great opportunity. And that was from Brevard. So these statements are powerful reflections of how summit participants felt and how they engage with us to build the future for themselves and for their Credit Unions.

00;52;51;08 - 00;53;21;00
Ashley Ruffin
So this is an unusual time in the history of our Credit Unions, but we all know the saying that history repeats itself. And as Dwayne said earlier, in fact, 40 years ago this very day, a group of members who wanted to keep their credit union, a credit union affiliation, embraced the change, much like what we're seeing today. In 1983, this group believed their credit union memberships were so important that they agreed to be a part of possibly the most unique cooperative relationship recorded.

00;53;21;15 - 00;53;46;16
Ashley Ruffin
These members were uncertain, but they believed it was crucial to keep their memberships. And thanks to that perspective, here we are today. This Credit Union was born because industry change demanded it. And here we are meeting another change and a challenge head on. So now I want to just walk you through a little bit of what happened at the summits.

00;53;46;16 - 00;54;05;29
Ashley Ruffin
We had a bunch of different activities and I think Lamar just made a joke about the skits. I know that everybody raise your hand if you loved doing the skits. Sorry, Diana, I don't want you to hit that. But we did, we did a lot of fun activities, a little bit similar to what you did this morning when you took your 5 minutes to get to know each other.

00;54;05;29 - 00;54;41;26
Ashley Ruffin
But we did a whole day of that. We did a whole. Yes. Where’s Barry? Is he here? Oh, well, we needed to get Barry to do a reprisal of that song. It was fantastic. But we did a lot of interactive activities with folks and this is a very different way that we are engaging with our members. It's called Appreciative Inquiry, and it really, it involves asking for what is possible, asking for what it is that folks want and how do we get there.

00;54;42;20 - 00;55;06;29
Ashley Ruffin
It's a very positive approach. And we found that as we were going through this process, magic happens, you know, when you approach things in a different way like this. So as we started our day, we asked as members came in to think about what they were thankful for with, from LGFCU. That might be some of the examples we've said earlier, maybe a first-time homebuyer.

00;55;06;29 - 00;55;25;23
Ashley Ruffin
Maybe you're getting your first car or maybe you got a scholarship to go to college, whatever it is. We ask them to think about it and to post that so that others could see, and so that we all could see what has Local Government meant to folks throughout the years and what is it that we really need to be paying attention to as we move forward?

00;55;26;24 - 00;55;48;04
Ashley Ruffin
Next, we ask people to think about digital experiences that they use, and some of us use a lot more digital experiences than we even realize. I mean, think about with the pandemic, some of the things that we started doing online. We bought our groceries. I mean, you can do that before, but maybe you didn't, right? You can order food.

00;55;48;04 - 00;56;22;21
Ashley Ruffin
You know Hello Fresh and what are all the ones that we have the options of doing? DoorDash. But think of the other things that you already do. Probably a lot of you already use BillPay, you book airline tickets. You, you know, whatever it is that you do. And the cool thing that we found is once people really started thinking about that, they realized how comfortable they already are using digital services and how what maybe they're doing somewhere else translates into the way that we are transitioning our business to run.

00;56;22;21 - 00;56;52;04
Ashley Ruffin
And next we shared our values. And we talked about what do our values, how do they resonate with the membership? We're really excited about our values, where we're transitioning into a values-based banking organization. And our values are People First, Planet Always, and Prosperity for All. So when we looked at that, we talked a little bit about what folks are doing in their own communities.

00;56;52;19 - 00;57;17;24
Ashley Ruffin
What is it that means the most to them? Is it on a personal level? Are they doing solar panels on their own homes? Is it something that they're doing in their local government? Are they buying, you know, electric fleets, whatever it is that people are interested in, in terms of like your planet. And then what are people interested in, in terms of their finances in, for, for us doing people. People is why we are here.

00;57;17;24 - 00;57;43;05
Ashley Ruffin
Without, without our people, we wouldn't have a purpose. So as part of that, we did another activity where we asked people to post what each of those values means to them, and then the coolest thing was once that was done, we were able to see patterns. You know, a lot of us care about a lot of the same things, and we got some great ideas from that, things that we hadn't even considered.

00;57;44;01 - 00;58;29;03
Ashley Ruffin
And I'm very proud to say that we are the first Credit Union that has successfully placed and launched a solar array. I'm not sure, Anthony, if that's the right way to describe it. A solar array on our corporate building. So we're the first in North Carolina to do that. So I think that is worth celebrating. And so the next part of the process is we ask folks to talk about what their hopes and dreams were for their communities and here at the Credit Union, we have programs that we are very interested in, partnered with other organizations, to provide and to help fund that do develop communities.

00;58;29;26 - 00;59;00;03
Ashley Ruffin
We have several of those that we have done in partnership with the Development Finance Initiative through the School of Government, that have we heard examples of how that program has been able to be utilized in cities large and small across North Carolina. So we, you know, in a dream for your community can be something as tangible as a parking deck to something like, you know, getting a sprinkler system for the kids in the summer.

00;59;00;03 - 00;59;38;16
Ashley Ruffin
So, you know, it's your dream is your dream, right? So we talked a lot about those and that was very inspirational and educational for us. And finally, and the thing that kind of gives me goosebumps to think about, is we asked at the end of the day, after everything that people had talked about, after getting to know folks that they had lunch with and had conversations with, we asked them to think about what out of all that we talked about, could they commit to doing in this transition that we're going through?

00;59;38;28 - 01;00;01;25
Ashley Ruffin
So as we've talked about before, we had representation from all different areas of local government. We had HR, we had public works, we had law enforcement, we had administration. And so everyone plays a different role in that. And as well as our partners, they play a different role. And State Employees clearly plays a role in how our transition is received.

01;00;02;21 - 01;00;25;29
Ashley Ruffin
So we asked each and every person to make a commitment to how they are going to play a part in this process. And then we read each of them aloud. And so it was very, very inspirational for us to hear that. And it, you know how sometimes when you go into a process and you think, oh, I'm not really sure why I'm here, I'm not sure what we're doing.

01;00;26;17 - 01;00;50;18
Ashley Ruffin
And that's understandable, right? This was different. But when we left the room that day, you could see the excitement and the hope on most of the faces. And it's also a time that we invited people to share what was on their hearts, right? Total transparency. I'm not saying that there weren't frustrations. I'm not saying that there weren't things that people are concerned about.

01;00;50;18 - 01;01;17;08
Ashley Ruffin
But that's OK. We want to hear all of that. And gosh, I just realized, y'all, I did not go through any of my slides. So, you know, I think I'm the only one today who has done that. So there you go. Anyway, this is just, you know, spoiler alert, this is a lot of what I've already talked about.

01;01;17;08 - 01;01;47;15
Ashley Ruffin
But I did want to show you this word cloud that we have here that really speaks to what people are looking for in this experience. And you can see, you know, the usual suspects are there: convenient, friendly, easy to use, accessible. And then as we talked about, right? And then this is something that we talked a lot about in our summits, and this is what we're calling the Local Government Ecosystem.

01;01;47;15 - 01;02;04;22
Ashley Ruffin
And I don't know if you guys can see that or not, but as you can see in the center there, we have the local government communities and we've listed a lot of the folks that are all involved in how, how we look at things, how we make decisions, and, you know, how you look at each other and us.

01;02;05;02 - 01;02;23;13
Ashley Ruffin
So we talked about that ecosystem and that is something that is going to be perennial. You know, as we look to what we're doing, all of these folks plus more, right? We probably could not fit all of them on one. And then this speaks to, it shows you a couple of examples of some of the commitments that people made.

01;02;24;20 - 01;02;46;19
Ashley Ruffin
So you might see your own commitment up there. So we're going to check in on you, see how you're doing in your commitments. But anyway, it was very inspiring and I hope that those of you who are in the room who were able to share in that experience had a positive experience. We are going to be doing more summits.

01;02;47;12 - 01;03;07;17
Ashley Ruffin
We are going to be doing more things that aren't necessarily called summits as well. We learned a lot about how to do interactions differently, how to do things the same way that we're doing. But we're looking at doing things virtually. We're looking at doing things in a shorter duration. So any ideas that you have on those things, please share them with me.

01;03;08;06 - 01;03;35;14
Ashley Ruffin
But I would like to say that we consider by all measures, our summit experience was successful. And so finally, I want to share with you something fun. As you guys saw in the back, the storyboards that we have from each of the Summits. I just want to show you a little bit of this. When on a start, I'm not going to take you all the way to the finish, but this is amazing.

01;03;35;26 - 01;04;07;23
Ashley Ruffin
This is Britney. She's from a company out of Charlotte called You Talk. We Draw. And it was really amazing for us to watch that process as she went through and listening to what we were saying and capturing it. So you guys get the idea of how that, how that is. But that was very much a fun part of our day.

01;04;08;02 - 01;04;37;28
Ashley Ruffin
So again, thank you to all who participated. We look forward to connecting with you in the future in similar and even more fun ways. Thank you.

01;04;42;26 - 01;05;08;16
Dwayne Naylor
So we thought there was going to be a Foundation presentation. So with that, Mr. Chairman, we will open it up for questions. OK. And I may defer some questions to the Leadership team, but I hope you enjoyed the presentations. We have such diverse talent across our organization. It's good for our members to get to experience the different styles.

01;05;08;27 - 01;05;41;01
Dwayne Naylor
So with that, I want to open up to questions to our members. I believe we have mics located on each side and if you could go over there then we’ll take questions. And if I need a little help, like I said, I'll ask my team to assist. We would love to hear your voice and I'm sure that you guys have some ideas in your mind.

01;05;41;25 - 01;06;12;21
Dwayne Naylor
We have like 20 minutes, so but anyway, we would love to hear. There's we understand there's, there's some concern, but gosh, there's so much excitement building right now. Right. And we're and again, I'll repeat cash, physical presence, defining what that means because there's a bunch of different ways to do that. We think we're going to create the most local digital Credit Union on the planet and that means we're coming to you.

01;06;12;23 - 01;06;34;01
Dwayne Naylor
You do not have to get in your car and come to us. Right? But we will have most likely a solution of a physical presence where we can enjoy each other and you can come in and we'll train you. So there's, there's a hand over there, if you wouldn't mind going to the mic right behind you.

01;06;34;26 - 01;06;40;14
Questioner 1
Yeah, I just was wondering, is Civic the new name?

01;06;40;14 - 01;07;02;13
Dwayne Naylor
Thank you. Yeah, I started thinking that when I was looking at the presentations. So the plan for independence. Local Government Federal Credit Union, we love that name. For 40 years, it's been very prideful to us. But when we started Civic, again, we didn't want to jam up the channels at State Employees’ Credit Union.

01;07;02;24 - 01;07;27;27
Dwayne Naylor
OK? Civic means, I wish I had the definition somewhere, but it's cities, towns, elected officials, municipalities. So it, it is local government. And so when we were starting Civic, we said we need to use a different name because it would really confuse the State Employees and our Local Government members and so we chose Civic.

01;07;27;27 - 01;08;11;22
Dwayne Naylor
So at independence, so after 40 years of building the brand of Local Government Federal Credit Union, what, what we're doing is we have to let that go because we're creating something new. And then the new name would be Civic, of the end state organization. But this is very important. Local Government isn't going away. The charter that we get from our National Credit Union Administration is Local Government and that field of membership. The charter that, if when the members vote for Civic and they decide that yes, we want to merge, that charter would go away.

01;08;11;22 - 01;08;52;25
Dwayne Naylor
And we'll talk about that at the Civic meeting. So the end state, the charter license to do business, the 40-year-old, the 40-year organization remains. It doesn't go anywhere. Just the name would change. And that helps with channel conflict with State Employees’ Credit Union. Thank you for asking that. Any other questions?

01;08;52;25 - 01;09;29;06
Ken Noland
So I believe. All right. So I believe through our Volunteer Meeting this morning that we had the opportunity to answer the questions that maybe the membership had. But my notes have disappeared. Let me grab some fresh ones here. Sorry about that. And all this fancy stuff that got me weird. Anyway. All right, so we'll just get back to business.

01;09;29;06 - 01;09;54;06
Ken Noland
Appreciate your comments. I appreciate the questions we had. I will say at the end state, we will not forget what brought us here and that is our local government base and that's what we will rely on moving forward. A name change doesn't change the mission, right? But we are going through that process and we are excited where we will get on the other side.

01;09;55;12 - 01;10;30;21
Ken Noland
It really is an exciting time. And I will just say this one comment about change. If you're not changing, you will become irrelevant. And if you look at the financial services industry, it has changed enormously in the last 10 to 20 years. We got people in this game that you would never realize, right? You got PayPal out there, Venmo, all these other services, and we have to be ready for that because if we're not, people will, will, will use their, their feet and their dollars and move them where they believe is best served.

01;10;30;28 - 01;10;53;06
Ken Noland
And so we want to make sure we're in front of that instead of catching up behind it. So we are excited with this change. We are excited with our partnership with SECU. You will find that partnership will live on. It's not going away. We are very, with how we worked together for these last 40 years and we're very, we're very excited about how we can work together moving forward.

01;10;53;06 - 01;11;13;00
Ken Noland
So just want to make sure we're all clear about that. So now at this point in the meeting, it's time for new or old business. So does any member have any new business they wish to bring before the board? If so, please go to a mic and present that. All right. Not seeing any movement. Does any member have any old business?

01;11;14;22 - 01;11;38;03
Ken Noland
And I don't see that either. So are any announcements that the membership may have that they want to tell us about? Good things going on in your community? All right. I know there's a lot of good things and I'm certainly excited for spring, although it has got the best of me. I've been coughing and sneezing all week, but it's nice to see some warm weather coming.

01;11;38;03 - 01;12;04;23
Ken Noland
So I want to just say that I appreciate this membership in the room. We are open to your comments. If a question comes up after you walk out of here, grab our senior team, grab one of the board members or send us a note. We are available to you. So at this time, thank you all for being here and part of our 40th anniversary, our Annual Meeting.

01;12;04;23 - 01;12;06;06
Ken Noland
This meeting is adjourned.