Message From The Chairman:
Franklin Carter
My fellow cooperators, shortly after our last Annual General Meeting we suffered a great lost in the death of Chairman Patrick Bain. We are very thankful for Brother Bains’ contributions to National Workers Cooperative Credit Union Limited in particular and the Bahamas Cooperative Movement generally. He fought a good fight.
Notwithstanding our loss the Board remained resilient and determined in moving National Workers Cooperative Credit Union Limited forward. As First Vice President, I was elected President and Chairman of The Board of Directors in accordance with our by-laws and Ms. Nellerine Harding was appointed to serve until this Annual General Meeting.
We have been diligent in ensuring policies and processes of the Credit Union are reviewed and improved wherever possible. We have implemented new processes such as the formation of defined sub committees of the Board of Directors namely: The Finance Committee, The Human Resources Committee and the Marketing and New Membership Committee.
These committees were formed to assist in the overall operation of the Credit Union as the Board of Directors only meet once per month these committees are designed to work along with Management to deal with Board level issues without having to wait until the next Board Meeting. These committees also function in research, preparation and/or execution of various projects of The Board.
The selection of these committees is simply to ensure that we have a working Board of Directors delivering meaningful input to the operation of the Credit Union and ultimately empowering our membership.
Our Marketing and New Membership Committee is designed to attract new membership to the Credit Union. As we are an Open Bond Credit Union we are able to welcome all Bahamians to join the most progressive Credit Union in The Bahamas. This is an area that we feel must get attention going forward so that we would be in a position of continued growth.
This Board was responsible for the implementation and roll out of several new products and services some of which are being unveiled at this Annual General Meeting namely, Our Retirement Savings Account and our Revolving Line of Credit. These two products in particular are designed with our members in mind. Although the financial services market in the Bahamas is very competitive and diverse we still feel that there is a significant amount of people underserved because of their economic level. Our thought process is simple, although a member makes minimum wage he or she must not be exempt from prudent investment information or investments. We are of the opinion that despite his or her level on the economic ladder if given proper advice and information he or she can be empowered to improve him or herself financially.
In this vein the management team has made many presentations to member and non member organization about personal finances over the past year and will continue to do this. It is our hope in the very near future we will be putting the vehicle in place for our members to pool their resources for investments along the lines of mutual funds. We are seeking to make our members savvy prudent financial managers of their own affairs thus our theme for this year "Providing Economic Empowerment Through Education".
2006 was a successful year for National Workers Cooperative Credit Union Limited. We has some challenges which we were able to rise against but at the end of the day we remained on a course of growth and empowerment. The financial position of National Workers is solid and will be discussed in depth in the Treasurers report.
As chairman the Board of Directors we would like to express our gratitude to the membership for their confidence in allowing us to serve as directors over the past year and look forward to being your servants going forward.
Chairman
Franklin Carter
Message From The Chief Executive Officer:
Alfred Poitier
National Workers Cooperative Credit Union Limited is a work in progress. We have grown considerably over the last five years in terms of our asset base as well as services and products offered to our members.
It has been said in many circles that we are the most progressive Credit Union in the country. As we move forward our objective is simply to be the vehicle for the financial empowerment of our membership. Education is vital to ensuring success in our goal therefore; education will play a major role in our efforts to empower our membership.
We wish to be progressive in educating not only our membership but our entire community about financial responsibility. Unfortunately we have found that a significant amount of individuals in our community do not have a basic understanding of financial management. Our motto for the 2007 Annual General Meeting "Providing Financial Empowerment Through Education" acknowledges this problems and states our solution.
National Workers will continue to provide relevant products and services to its membership. As we roll out new products and services they will be based on the needs of our membership as a whole. We will seek to improve on our existing products which we feel are in the best interest of our members and discontinue products that we feel are not necessary or needed.
In order to improve our stability we will seek to diversify our membership base to diminish the saturation of members from the hospitality industry. While our credit Union was founded from members of the hospitality industry we must keep in mind that our growth has been somewhat restricted due to the cyclic nature of their employment. We are in no way suggesting a departure from our base but simply seeking to expand our membership to create a more stable existence for the Credit Union.
Diversification is not a new phenomenon to National Workers as we are an open bond credit union we have members employed in various sectors in our community. Our efforts going forward will simply be to increase the members from these other areas. New products being provided to our members include:
A revolving line of credit that we hope will minimize the amount of consumer loans being sought by our membership.
A retirement savings account to assist our membership in preparing for their future after their working life comes to an end.
Internet Banking/Telephone Banking which will allow our membership to have more access to their financial information thus being able to better tract their personal finances.
Products on the drawing board include:
Automated Banking Machines
Debit Cards
New Office Complex in Exuma
Community outreach program educating our members and the public at large about financial management and financial empowerment.
These are just a few of the projects presently being undertaken by National Workers Cooperative Credit Union Limited. We are determined to ensure that our services and products are second to none as we act as the vehicle to empower our membership.
