Fireside Chats Revisited - Mark Your Calendar! - Well Maybe Not ...

Although "the current/former" CEO has his bags packed, nothing else much has changed at the "new/new" SECU. Best indication?   

  The new "We Are SECU On The Road" dog and pony show.

 First meeting: ✅ July 12 in Greensboro from 4 to 6 at the Proximity Hotel on 704 Green Valley Rd  (😎 See you there?)

         

The "current/future" CEO has announced a series of "smaller venue" meetings with "selected" Member Advisory Boards to talk about the "SECU Strategic Plan". The "We Are SECU On The Road" meetings appear to be nothing more than the same old same old. A better title for the tour might have been a Yogi Berra take off: "Fireside Chats: Deja Vu All Over Again"! 

✅ 4 concerns about the "We Are SECU On The Road" tour : https://secuvote.ey.com/

1. This Board and "current/future" management continue to refuse to openly address the SECU membership. Why the fear?
   
2.  Smaller venues, invitation only meetings - while apparently even trying to exclude some of the more rambunctious advisory boards! -  smacks of contrived "message management" and brightly spotlights the absence of transparency at SECU. Why the fear?
   
3. The proposed agenda for the meetings shows a 2 hour meeting with 15 minutes for Q & A? Is that really enough time to discuss current concerns about SECU? (Answering "The $6.5 million question"  alone will take longer than that!) Is this a "talk at" or a "listen to" meeting?
   
4. The re-regurgitating of a fluffy Strategic Plan which appears generated by an ancient AIChatbot (some of that vintage pre-1983 tech!)? Reality check: No one reads Strategic Plans, most are pretty vacuous, pure pablum (SECU's is "industry standard"!), no one takes them seriously. See #3 above! 

 

✅ But the real core, insult to the entire SECU membership of the "We Are SECU On The Road" tour is to be found in that title. This Board and the "current/future" still are tone deaf to the fact that - "they" ain't "We" at the credit union.  

At SECU, the 2.7 million members are the "We"!  https://secuvote.ey.com/

✅ Clearly with "new/new", the self-importance and hubris continue unabated, just...

            "Deja new/new all over again!" https://secuvote.ey.com/

👉 Here are the dates and locations of the other "We Are SECU On The Road" meetings to which  99.99% of the 2.7 million SECU members - and probably little ole you! - will not be invited to attend. Why the fear? https://secuvote.ey.com/

✅ July 13 RTP from 4 to 6 at the Sheraton Hotel 4700 Emperor Blvd

✅ July 18 - Wilmington - Aloft Hotel Wilmington at Coastline Center 501 Nutt St Wilmington

✅ July19 - Greenville - Greenville NC Convention Center - The Emerald Room 303 Greenville Blvd SW

✅ August 16 - Charlotte - The Ballantyne Hotel 10000 Ballantyne Commons Pkwy

✅ August 17 - Asheville - The Omni Grove Park Inn

 

 

  Gonna be kind of ironic if tomorrow's meeting in Greensboro at the Proximity Hotel is held in the ....

 

 

                                                                

 

SECU Board - Individual Accountability - Stelfanie Williams and Jennifer Haygood

                     

Ms. Stelfanie Williams

Dr. Williams joined the SECU Board of Directors in 2017. 

Ms. Jennifer Haygood

Jennifer Haygood was appointed to the SECU Board of Directors in 2019.

 

[link to SECU Board profiles]

 

Resuming the profile of the current SECU Board, here are two additional members who have strong educational credentials and are leaders at two of North Carolina's most important universities.  Many members held out great hope that these two talented leaders -  younger, intelligent, independent thinkers - would be open to public, member-wide discussion of critical issues and would make a positive difference on the SECU Board. So far, that hope has not been visible.

 

✅ So, let's try a little different track in this post and get back to an important, specific issue - risk-based lending (RBL) - with these two new SECU Board members. 

 

But first, lots of fuming and fussing going on with commenters, which tends to distract. Listen, if the SECU Board has "unanimously gone corporate" with an open disdain for the opinions of the membership, then employees in IT, the call center, and the branches shouldn't be surprised that they are receiving the same treatment - and shown the same lack of respect. New operating policies, employee scheduling/pay practices, and the "our way or highway" leadership style reflect that "new/new" corporate mentality.  Employees - at all levels, by the way - simply become just another lump of  "raw material" or "micro-economic input" for that (a bit of a joke) "Strategic Grand Plan". Didn't realize that you had become "canon fodder" ? Well c'mon, what part of "our way or highway", do you not understand?

👍 Dear Ms. Haygood and Ms. Williams,

 

✅ As members of the SECU Board of Directors, you have approved the introduction of risk-based lending (RBL) at SECU, effective March 1, 2023. Risk-based lending unjustly empowers discrimination against African-Americans, younger North Carolinians, university students, hospital workers, and North Carolinians of modest means, who seek to borrow from SECU.  

 ❓ 1) ✔ Do you personally endorse discrimination in lending against these members? (Of course not... but you have!)

 

✅ That risk-based lending is discriminatory is proved by SECU's own financial data and in publicly recorded statements by SECU's senior lending staff (see "Fireside Chats", multiple RBL posts above)? 

❓ 2)  ✔ Why have you chosen to disregard this actual data which confirms RBL discrimination? (Any possibility you may have been misinformed and misled... any downside to revalidating your decision, just in case?)

 

✅ The former CEO of SECU, Mike Lord, has vigorously and directly advised you that risked-based lending is discriminatory and unfairly, financially punishes the majority of SECU borrowers. I personally join Mr. Lord in that admonition of your approval of discrimination in SECU lending. Hope you will acknowledge that with over 80 years of experience in consumer lending that Mr. Lord and I may have a clearer understanding of lending discrimination than either of you - despite your great expertise in other areas.

 ❓ 3) Why have you chosen not to seek the reasons for this opposing view? (Do you believe that hearing other expertise will harm your credibility as a Board member? Think again...)

 

✅ The University for which you work has many SECU members - on the support staff, in the Duke/UNC hospital systems, graduate instructors, active students, and among the faculty. Many are adversely affected by risk-based lending - none support discrimination by race, age, or against North Carolinians of modest means.

 ❓4) Do you believe that UNC-CH and Duke University would support you in adopting discriminatory lending at SECU? (Of course not... so don't you agree that you owe the members of SECU, the Universities, your co-workers - and yourself! - the courtesy of publicly discussing and affirming if RBL is fair?)

 

✅ Ms. Haygood and Ms. Williams, you have a duty to the membership on RBL - you have a choice!  (And no it won't wait... nor will it go away until resolved). It's time for you to act - intelligently, independently.

 ❓ 5) Ms. Williams and Ms. Haygood, if the SECU Board has been advised that a mistake may have been made with risk-based lending wouldn't you at least want to hear that concern? Would you publicly speak out against RBL, if it was unjustly penalizing SECU members - and your co-workers at the University?

 

 😎 Lastly, I would be delighted if wrong (won't speak for Mr. Lord!) to have the opportunity to be proved a liar, shown to be loosing my marbles, forced to apologize, publicly humiliated, tarred & feathered, and driven from the State - if wrong. And as an extra bonus - I will SHUT UP!

("tarred & feathered, driven from the State"?)... Hey, better him than you, right?!