The League is looking for 5 outstanding young professionals to serve on the YP Network’s Advisory Board and guide the future growth of our state’s YP development efforts.

To be eligible, Advisory Board nominees must be:

• Employed by, or volunteer at, a member-credit union of The Wisconsin Credit Union League.
• 35 years of age or younger at the time of their nomination.
• Currently engaged or have a strong interest in credit union advocacy, outreach, education and/or volunteerism beyond their current job role.
• Available to participate in monthly conference calls and attend in-person meetings and other events such as The League’s Annual Convention, State GAC, nearby Chapter events and YP meet-ups as needed.
• Familiar with The League’s YP development efforts to date (strongly encouraged).
• Prepared to lead others, drive new ideas and help promote the overall growth of credit unions in Wisconsin.

The nomination process itself has two steps which should be completed by Friday, July 20:

1. Work with your CU President/Manager to fill out the nomination form and submit it to Chad Helminak at The League.
2. Complete the online application.

Nominees will be considered by The League and notified by July 27.

For the past four years, we at the League have continued to grow our young professional networking and development efforts. From the creation of our Young Professionals Council to the Crash events we’ve held at Convention and GAC, we’ve found more and more young credit union employees with a desire to be more engaged within the movement.

We launched the YP Network in 2011, which has helped us to keep track and stay in touch with young professionals. But in realizing that we need to do more, we’ve introduced a new leadership model and website that aims to give much of the control and direction of the Network to YPs themselves.

Therefore, the YP Council has been discontinued in favor of a new, five person Network Advisory Council. The roles and responsibilities of the Board can be viewed here. They will not only work with The League’s YP Liaison, but also the Chapter YP Liaisons –  while these roles aren’t new, they’ve been traditionally more a part of the chapters than our YP group. So we’re changing that.

Through the Advisory Board and YP Chapter Liaisons, we hope to:

• Extend our reach across the state and better connect with YPs
• Create a formalized structure for the Network and fine tune our communications model
• Provide more leadership opportunities for YPs

And regarding that last bullet: while it may look like we’re cutting back leadership positions, the Network will remain flexible and we’ll have the option of creating separate leadership committees for specific events (like when we  brought in mentors for the Crash event at our League’s Annual Convention).

We have some amazing young professionals in our ranks and it’s time we build something that truly allows them to develop into leaders and play an integral part in ensuring credit unions continue to prosper and reach younger members.

Onward and upward.

- Chad