It is that time of year where we start ramping up to host our holiday parties at Sam Rosen Elementary in Fort Worth and Webb Elementary in Arlington.

Volunteering for these events is guaranteed to be one of the highlights of your holiday season.

Here’s the schedule for 2011:

Dec 6 (morning) Party Prep at Sam Rosen

Dec 7 (all day) Party at Sam Rosen

Dec 13 (morning) Party Prep at Webb

Dec 14 (all day) Party at Webb

Sandra Szymanski is the volunteer coordinator for Sam Rosen

Vince Heimann is organizing workers for Webb.

Jackie Wisneski is the coat drive coordinator.

Even though the parties last all day, you are welcome to work only part of the day if that is what you can do. In addition to volunteers, we make a donation of winter coats to each school and try to buy a few items for goodie bags for each child. Your donation of coats and/or cash would be greatly appreciated!

All volunteers must be approved in advance by the district. The procedure for volunteering at Arlington ISD has changed substantially this year. Please review the instructions carefully. In addition to completing the online information, please send a copy of your driver’s license or state ID to Vince, his fax number is 817-273-5913.

The Fort Worth ISD volunteer form must include a copy of your I.D. on the form and fax to Sandra at 817-847-0328.

The deadline to submit the background form is November 10th. If you are recruiting volunteers from your credit union, you may also want to plan in advance for substitute volunteers by having them fill out the form as well.

If you need directions to the schools, click on their names above.

Lastly, check back and check the comments to this post for any subsequent information from the committee.

Credit unions from the Fort Worth Chapter had a lot of hardware to haul home from last week’s TCUL Marketing Council conference in San Antonio! Credit union marketers compete against asset peers in numerous categories. Here is a complete listing of winners from the chapter:

Annual Reports 1st Place to Tarrant County CU, Unity One CU, American Airlines FCU and Merit Award to Fort Worth City CU

Brochures 1st Place & Merit Award to American Airlines

Complete Campaigns 1st place to Fort Worth Community CU

Direct Mail 1st place to Unity One

Logos 1st place to American Airlines

Newsletters 1st place to American Airlines

Outdoor Advertising 1st place to Fort Worth City

PR/Community Involvement 1st place to Tarrant County

Retail Merchandising/Branding 1st place to Tarrant County and Texas Trust CU

Social Media 1st Place to Fort Worth Community

Website/Electronic 1st place to Unity One and Fort Worth Community. Merit Award to Family 1st of Texas FCU

Youth/Senior Marketing 1st place to Unity One

Best in Show AND People’s Choice Awards went to Fort Worth Community for their social media campaign.

Congratulations to all of the marketers and marketing departments for your outstanding accomplishments!

Dear Fort Worth Chapter:

I am pleased to announce that the Fort Worth Chapter of Credit Unions will receive the Chapter of the Year recognition for 2010! Congratulations on this well-deserved recognition.

While there were a number of chapters that submitted entries this year, the Fort Worth Chapter once again excelled in virtually every category from advocacy to community outreach.

We all know that today’s environment is very challenging for credit unions, and this makes the time and effort you spend on behalf of your chapter that much more impressive. Your work to provide value and education to local credit unions is truly remarkable.

As in years past, the Chapter of the Year will be recognized at the TCUL Leadership Conference in San Antonio, September 8-10. I will provide more details as they become available.

Once again, congratulations and thank you for all you do.

Regards,

Jim Phelps

AVP-Advocacy & Chapters

Texas Credit Union League

Our annual vendor exposition will be at the Crowne Plaza Fort Worth South on Tuesday, June 28th.

Preferred Partners and other vendors interested in taking part should contact Natalie Parish. You can get a copy of the registration form here.

As we have for the last several years, we will be using the expo to gather donations for the USA Home Team and the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Tallil, Iraq. Our donation from the expo is among the largest received each year and is truly appreciated by the men and women serving overseas. We also welcome cash donations to support shipping expenses as well as whatever you can donate from their wish list.

Today’s youth are tomorrow’s borrowers, savers and investors; however, many lack a basic understanding of money management. And without the necessary knowledge and tools to make smarter choices, they may never achieve financial stability in the future. The Texas Credit Union Foundation (TCUF) strives to be a valuable resource for Texas credit unions seeking to deploy financial education into their local schools and communities. On June 24, TCUF will offer a full day “train the trainer” workshop in Fort Worth, in which participants will learn how to effectively present the National Endowment for Financial Education High School Financial Planning Program (NEFE HSFPP).

These “Train the Trainer” sessions are open to credit union staff, teachers, and community partners who are interested in teaching or distributing the NEFE curriculum, a curriculum that is approved by the Texas Education Agency for use in Texas classrooms. NEFE “Train the Trainer” sessions are sponsored by TCUF as a service to Texas credit unions and the communities they serve. Participants will receive an instructor’s manual, student workbook, and practical hands on content training. Additional student workbooks and supplementary materials for future classroom presentations are free of charge as well.

“TCUF is committed to being an essential partner for our member credit unions, and one way we are able to demonstrate that commitment is by providing credit unions with these free ‘train the trainer’ sessions so that they can be more successful in their financial education outreach efforts,” says Courtney Nickles, executive director of the Texas Credit Union Foundation. “Together we can help Texas youth make sound money management decisions.”

While the “train the trainer” session is free, pre-registration is required as space is limited. To learn more about the NEFE curriculum and to download the registration form, please visit www.tcuf.coop. If you have any questions, please contact TCUF, at (800) 953-8283.

The Spring 2011 edition of the Chapter Communicator is out. Thanks again to Pressman Printing for their support of the chapter!

The Fort Worth Chapter’s calendar of events for this year is rounding out nicely. We’re bringing in a few of our most popular speakers from the past, we’re helping credit unions stay on top of regulatory changes, we’re trying some new things like a “speaker-free” MayFest, we’re going to Shake, Rattle & Bowl, and we’ve moved our golf tournament to benefit TCULPAC to October!

As always, we try to keep our members informed here, on the Facebook, and at our calendar page at Upcoming.org

The Chapter is again offering the Raymond Shands Memorial Scholarship to Southwest CUNA Management School for employees of member and affiliated credit unions. The scholarship is in honor of Raymond Shands, a long time member of the chapter board and a 1974 graduate of SWCMS.

The application and instructions can be downloaded here:

• Scholarship Application

For more information, conact: Terrie Johnson, of Texas Trust CU and Chair of our scholarship committee.

The Chapter’s 1st annual bowling night to benefit Children’s Mireacle Network is slated for Tuesday, August 17th at City View Lanes.

Registration is $35 per person and includes 2 games of bowling, a cool pair of loaner shoes and pizza dinner. We’ll also have

RSVP’s are due by August 13th to this address.

A “BIG THANK YOU” to our Corporate Sponsors

Dinner Sponsor – CUNA Mutual Group

Drink Sponsor – Adobe Title

Shoe Sponsors – Liberty Mutual, Certified Funding, CUDL, SWBC

And a “BIG THANK YOU” to our Credit Union Sponsors

The Powerhouse – American Airlines FCU

The Strike – EECU, Fort Worth City CU, Fort Worth Community CU, Southwest Corporate FCU

The Spare – First Class American CU, Tarrant County CU, Texas Trust CU, Unity One CU, Corps of Engineers FCU

The Split – Arlington Federal CU, Ben E. Keith FCU, Family 1st, Members Choice FCU, My Credit Union, Security One FCU, Texas Health Resources CU

The Kingpin – Guardian First FCU, Kearly & Company, American Income Life

Make plans now to join us for the Fort Worth Chapter of Credit Unions next meeting. You will not want to miss this meeting! Let’s just say it’s not going to be the typical chapter meeting – it’s going to be more of a performance. The Power of Performance is a session that will show you how our credit unions are just like and band and teach us how to:

Exceed the expectations of your audience – or members in our case.

Get a standing ovation for everything you do – who doesn’t want satisfied members?

Leave them wanting more – we want to give our members a reason to keep coming back to us.

Not only will this session help improve our performance, it will help identify who is our audience. Is your idea of Facebook old pictures out of year book? Are you still chasing the Gen Xers or have you recognized the impact of the Millennials yet? Baby Boomers, Gen Xer and the Millennials comprise our staff, management and membership. How do you exceed expectations, get a standing ovation or leave them wanting more if you don’t know who they are and what they want? Join us to find out. Wednesday, July 28, 2010 Raddison Hotel Fort Worth North 6:00 p.m.