Every year, CUNA schools and conferences provide credit union professionals around the country with updates on pressing industry topics and regulations. From compliance and collections to marketing departments and board volunteers, the 2012 CUNA schools and conferences offer credit union specific education for every position. Programs are designed to showcase leading experts in their field and provide attendees with take away strategies to use at their credit unions to boost membership, streamline efficiency and strengthen their business and financial institution as a whole. Attendees will also have the opportunity to network with other credit union professionals from around the country.

Many 2012 CUNA conferences also offer opportunities for educational advancement such as CPE credits, certifications, designations, graduate degrees and awards for credit union excellence. These titles are recognized throughout the credit union movement as distinctions for both job competence and career professionalism.

Get a sneak peak at a few of the upcoming CUNA spring conferences:

CUNA Governmental Affairs Conference
March 18-22 • Washington D.C.

CUNA Consumer & Residential Mortgage Lending School
April 2-5 • Orlando, FL

CUNA CU Finance for Non-Financial Managers & Volunteers
April 22-25 • Orlando, FL

CUNA Regulatory Compliance Schools
April 22-27 • Orlando, FL

CUNA Marketing Management Schools
April 30 – May 3 • Las Vegas, NV

View a complete listing of the 2012 CUNA Schools and Conferences and learn more about the educational opportunities available from CUNA.

MADISON, Wis. (January 3, 2012) –CUNA is proud to announce the latest graduates of the 2011 CUNA Volunteer Certification School. Held this past September in Tempe, Arizona, 46 credit union volunteers completed five days of lectures, overviews and testing to earn both their Certified Credit Union Volunteer (CCUV) designation and CUNA Board Financial Literacy Certificate.

The CUNA Volunteer Certification School was created to provide credit union volunteers with convenient, practical education in all areas of credit union operations through live lectures, discussions and testing. The program creates a simplified approach to complex subjects and gets credit union volunteers up-to-speed on the information they need to know to serve their credit unions most effectively.

“I would like to congratulate the 2011 Volunteer Certification School graduates for the dedication they have shown in advancing their education,” said Kevin Smith, Director of Volunteer Education at CUNA. “Volunteers who actively engage in the credit union movement improve the operations at each of their individual credit unions, and help set the bar for board education standards.”

The Certified Credit Union Volunteer (CCUV) designation symbolizes a thorough understanding of all areas and operations of the credit union. The CCUV designation can be earned by graduating from the CUNA Volunteer Certification School or completing theCUNA Volunteer Certification Program, a self-study education tool that features online learning modules. In 2012, volunteers interested in obtaining their Certified Credit Union Volunteer (CCUV) designation, can choose between the traditional classroom setting at the CUNA Volunteer Certification School, or engage in a variety of self-study training options.

The 2012 CUNA Volunteer Certification School will be held from September 23 – 28 in Long Beach, California. Additional speakers and session topics will be announced when information becomes available. Visit training.cuna.org/vcs for future updates.

More information about the designation can be found at training.cuna.org/boardcert.

“With invaluable input from our users, we have enhanced the CPDOnline training system to better serve credit unions’ needs today and in the future. We are grateful to our pilot credit unions and confident our current and new users will benefit from the new platform,” said Todd Spiczenski, vice president of Center for Professional Development.

“We are excited for the upgrade to roll out at Summit,” remarked Kimberly Frederickson, AVP of Learning & Development at Summit Credit Union, a recent winner of the American Society of Training & Development’s BEST Award.  Summit was recognized for its training and development program, which utilizes CUNA’s CPDOnline as a key component.

Serving nearly 30,000 credit union professionals, CUNA CPDOnline is the premiere web-based training service that provides more than 350 credit union-specific courses on topics including lending, member services, compliance and more. Its interactive online environment combines the freedom of independent education with the support and collaboration of a classroom setting.

The key enhancements to CUNA CPDOnline include:

• Enhanced navigation: With streamlined navigation and a clean look, users will find it easier to access exactly what they need and get relevant news.
• Improved communications: Now users can easily send notifications to groups via email with CUNA CPDOnline’s new message center. Plus, with the new collaboration center, users can also engage in conversation, blend learning and post documents for better collaborative learning.
• Extended reporting capabilities: CUNA CPDOnline’s new self-reported training function allows learners and managers to post to transcripts and include goals and additional training. Managers can also monitor the progress of their direct reports, keeping track of activities and assignments and follow on-the-job training. All of this can be done via new scheduled or on demand reporting.
• More administrative options: Administrators can easily assign activities and assignments, including deadlines and reminder notifications. Users also have the capability to assign CUNA and credit union courses and control new notifications.

For more information about the upgrade to CUNA CPDOnline, visit training.cuna.org/cpdonline. For questions, please call 800-356-9655, ext. 4072 or e-mail cpdonline@cuna.coop.

The certificate will continue to be offered in 2012 and can be earned after successfully completing exams associated with one of the following four tracks:

1. Attend either the CUNA CU Finance for Non-Financial Managers & Volunteers School this April 22-25, 2012 in Orlando, FL or the CUNA Volunteer Certification School September 23-28, 2012 in Long Beach, CA.
2. Attend the CUNA CU Finance for Non-Financial Managers & Volunteers eSchool beginning May 8, 2012.
3. Complete six self-study CUNA Volunteer Achievement Program (VAP) courses including: Financial Reports for Volunteers, Managing Risk for Volunteers, Financial Management, Asset-Liability Management for Directors, The Basics of Risk Assessment for Volunteers, and Understanding Audit Reports.
4. Book an in-house training session.

After completing the designated track, applicants must pass the appropriate assessment(s) to earn the CUNA Board Financial Literacy Certificate.

As a result of an increasingly more complex financial industry landscape, new NCUA requirements were issued in order to ensure that federal credit union directors had a sufficient working knowledge of their credit union’s financials. The NCUA now requires directors to comply with educational benchmarks that confirm they have at least a working familiarity with the basic finance and accounting practices of their credit union.

For more information on the new NCUA regulations or certification visit http://www.cuna.org/training/boardreq/index.html#ncua

The offer is part of CUNA’s commitment to help credit unions provide excellent staff training on the latest updates and regulations in the financial world at a price they can afford.  Credit unions can purchase CUNA Training Bundle from now until January 15, 2012.

CUNA Training Bundle offers participating credit unions unlimited access to hundreds of audio conferences, webinars, eSchools and recordings of these events.  With highly rated content, CUNA Training Bundle features professional, in-depth training on topics such as: compliance, marketing, lending, finance, human resources, training, security, operations, volunteer topics and a variety of other credit union specific topics.  Participating credit unions realize significant savings versus ala carte purchasing.  CUNA offers two packages:  six month for $2,499 or one year for $3,999.  Discounted pricing is available for CUNA CPDOnline members and small credit unions with less than $20 million in assets.

“We hear from our credit union members that when times are financially tight, training budgets get severely reduced.  It can be a tremendous challenge to keep employees motivated and up-to-date on regulations and skills without good training tools,” said Marlo Foltz, director of blended learning at CUNA.  “Our CUNA Training Bundle allows credit unions to keep quality training a priority at an affordable price.”

For more information, visit training.cuna.org/trainingbundle.  For questions, call 800-356-9655, ext. 4249 or e-mail training@cuna.coop.

MADISON, Wis. (September 22, 2011) – CUNA’s Experience Learning Live! Conference announced today its final speaker lineup.  Experience Learning Live!, which will take place October 16-19 in Las Vegas, is a supercharged environment designed to provide training professionals hands on experience they can use to motivate staff and jumpstart credit unions.  This year’s conference features training leaders at the forefront of innovations to maximize staff energy, motivate the dedication of credit union volunteers and increase the knowledge level of credit union members.

Keynote Speakers:

Becky Pike Pluth – 101 Movie Clips That Teach & Train

Becky will utilize movie clips to spice up training programs.  She’ll demonstrate how effective movie scenes can help grab classroom interest immediately and discover how to follow the clips with questions that garner solid discussion and teach topics in a memorable way.

Jon Aleckson – Mind Meld: Micro Collaboration – Collaboration Between Designers & Subject Matter Experts

Jon has logged more than 30 years of leadership experience in the educational media industry.  His presentation will focus on ways to engage subject matter experts in training project through techniques to “mindmeld” and share expertise.

Juli Lynch – Pushing the Limits on What You Know & Do

Juli will tie how success in today’s market requires that people – and their training departments – push themselves to the limit.  She’ll talk about how leadership lessons gained during training with Navy SEALS in expedition-length endurance races can apply to training departments and credit unions as a whole.  Juli will work with the issues and challenges that credit union staff from reaching their potential and demonstrate how to push credit unions to increase sales, improve service and boost performance while still keeping motivation and commitment levels high above the competition.

Lance Dublin – The New “Blended” Learning

Lance will share highlights from his interviews with 25 learning leaders and organizations for the Chief Learning Officer Magazine.  He’ll discuss how these leaders define what blended learning was and what it is today.  Lance will present a guided tour filled with specific examples that are working and detail lessons learned from those that are not.  His session will explain what blended learning design is and how to evaluate what will work best for credit unions.

Robert Richman – How Can Training Revolutionize Your Organization?

Rob will unravel the secrets behind the Zappos phenomenon.  From Zappos Insights, their corporate learning center, he will share what they are doing right and how to bring a little Zappos back to credit unions.

Tom Kuhlmann – Design Good Courses With the Resources at Hand

Author of the widely popular “Rapid e-Learning Blog,” this “rock star of e-learning” receives hundreds of questions from readers who are on a limited budget.  They want to know about free tools that they can use to build their e-learning courses.   A self-proclaimed “junky” for all of the free stuff online, he will share his best finds and the latest technology.  His hands-on lab will give attendees new ideas, techniques, tactics and strategies to use right away to build better courses.

For more information on CUNA’s 2011 Experience Learning Live!, visit training.cuna.org/ell. For questions, call 800-356-9655, ext. 4249 or e-mail training.cuna.coop.