From: Sarah Arthurs M.Ed.

Some of us are of the Dragon Tales generation. We either watched Dragon Tales (a cartoon for 3-to-7 year olds) as kids, have children who have watched Dragon Tales, or maybe even sat with grandkids and flew to Dragonland.

One of the dragons has two heads, Zak and Wheezie. As you can imagine the plot often involves their having differences of opinion and the two needing to come to a common decision.  Zak is the calm and tidy one, while Wheezie is more excitable and carefree—known for saying “LOOOOOVE IT” when she approves of something.

It is my observation that the credit union community has a lot in common with Zak and Wheezie; we are like a two-headed friendly dragon.

One of our heads is our established, institutional, hierarchical nature with obligations commitments and structures.  All good!  Our other head is our grassroots beginnings, our member driven agendas, our democratic infrastructure and commitment to socially progressive community friendly values.  Also all good!

From the one head we get stability, resources, infrastructures, from the other we get energy, ideas, relevance and responsiveness.  One provides the answer to the question HOW, the other the answer to the question WHY.

As we look toward the International Year of Cooperatives we need to benefit from the contributions of both of our heads. This can happen through the use of web, social media, and in-person network and strategy sessions.

There are a number of internet crowd-sourcing platforms we can use to harness the power of social media and ask our members, staff, management, and directors how they would like to use the IYC to raise the profile of credit unions as well as celebrate and expand the contributions that we make to our communities.  A successful web platform would empower users to make suggestions, develop ideas, and vote for their preferred ideas.

Crowd-sourcing through social media allows us—in a manner concurrent with our member focus—to begin engaging our members in the IYC experience. It also allows us to demonstrate our commitment to democracy and the input of members by involving them in the process of determining what we might do. Most importantly we can benefit from the wisdom, creativity, and ‘on the groundness’ of members and front line staff.

In-person networking and strategy sessions are a good way to move from the idea generating stage to action plans, timelines, and collaborative partnerships.  Through social media we can enable the two heads of our friendly dragon to collaborate and benefit from the unique and complimentary assets of each. We can enjoy both the “LOOOOOVE IT” factor and the infrastructures and resources of our established organizations.

And where does the Detroit Robocop sculpture fit in?  In just 6 days citizens and friends of Detroit created the idea of the Robocop sculpture, shared it through social media, and were able to find enough resonance to raise more than the $50,000 project required.

Just imagine what we as Credit Unions could do to make the International Year of Cooperatives a significant experience for Credit Unions and the communities we support as we benefit from both of our heads.

Sarah Arthurs M.Ed., C.Psych. is Director, First Calgary Savings; Director, Credit Union Central of Alberta; and a member of the Prairie Sky Co-housing Co-op.  Send Sarah an e-mail at sarah.arthurs[at]prairiesky.ab.ca