The UFirst Credit Union Board have started a blog, and its a great start. Its timely, relevant, and is up to date. Comments are being commented on quickly, (rule #1), and in this case, by the authors within an hour.
UFirst is located in Plattsburg new York, and as far as I can tell has one office. So this is a classic local bank, and blogs are an idea forum to speak to the local people, from your local CU. (Hat tip Netbanker)
The Boardcast The latest news and announcements from the UFirst Federal Credit Union Board of Directors.
Source: The Boardcast
In this case UFirst are also linking to Flickr to follow progress of new construction of a branch. The content is relevant, written concisely, and using Typepad. It speaks about fraud, security,financial advice, links to web casts.
This is the best example yet of a financial services blog, that directly speaks to the general customer base (not one segment) openly and freely. I hope they keep it up, and keep it simple. If they talk it up in town, customers will start to look at it, and comment.
Observation … today is Jan 31st… last post Jan 27th – keep up the momentum folks!
Bankwatch 
It’s a good sign that they tackled the security concerns with the credit cards early. I’m afraid that way too many FIs sweep such breaches as far under the rug as possible…
Couldn’t agree more that this is a model for other CUs to follow. Couple of comments/thoughts:
1) They posted something on the 30th so don’t be so hard on them re: momentum.
2) And regarding the notion of “momentum”, or posting frequency, you seem to imply that 3 days is too long to go without posting — why? Are there THAT many things going on at the board level that they need to comment every 2-3 days?
3) I’d make two recommendations to UFirst: a) indicate which board member made the post (right now its an anonymous poster), and b) add to the links (although I’m sure that OpenSource CU doesn’t mind being the only one).
I am the moderator of The Boardcast. I did identify myself in the first post when I launched the blog. Your comment made me realize that if I have someone different adding a post I will identify the new person. I hope to add a new post a minimum of every 3 days. My original idea was once a week but I’ve decided that that would not be often enough. I’m including short member education posts along with those on board and credit union activities.
I appreciate the input since I’m new to blogging.
Virginia .. fantastic response times, and attitude. Best of luck to you, and if you need advice or suggestions, lots of free advice available from these three (un)opinionated folks!!! 🙂
PS ..
Trey … too right. I love it that Boardcast is addressing real issues head on. I don’t know if you may be involved here, but well done to all concerned.
Ron … I appreciate the slap on the wrist … I have off times all the time.
Colin, no involvement on my end – Virginia and the rest of the Board have been doing it all on their own from what I understand.
For the credit union, this project is definitely affordable. The Board is unpaid (all volunteers), the blog is hosted with TypePad for cheap, and they’re using Flickr.
I had to bring that up with the recent ROI of blogging conversations 🙂
Fair enough Trey, but your influence in the CU movement is significant enough, that I think I can be pardoned for thinking that 🙂