7 Rivers Region Chapter of Credit Unions

Let’s start our Monday morning off with a recap from our October chapter meeting. A meeting of this caliber deserves a BIG post with many BIG thank you’s!

Venue: Bittersweet Flower Market
Catering: JavaVino
Hosts: Marine Credit Union and Co-op Credit Union
Topic: Credit Unions are ‘Grassrooted’ in Financial Education & Advocacy

Thank you to our panel of speakers for imparting your knowledge of financial literacy, the candid discussions surrounding the challenges bringing financial education to Wisconsinites- particularly youth, and continuing to champion for the financial well being for all.

Facilitator: Sarah Wainscott, SVP of Advocacy - The Wisconsin Credit Union League

Panelists:
-Jenny Rathke, VP of Member Advocacy - WESTconsin Credit Union
-State Representative Steve Doyle
-Dave Mancl, Director- Office of Financial Literacy / Executive Director- Governor’s Council on Financial Literacy & Capability- Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions
-Richard Entenmann, Asset Builders of America
-Lori Horstman, Board Member & Susan Peterson, Regional Director- Junior Achievement of Wisconsin Coulee Area
-Travis Johnson, Business Teacher- Onalaska High School
-Tony Beyer, Financial Wellness Coordinator- Altra Federal Credit Union
-Senator Brad Pfaff

🪴Through our succulent fundraiser we raised $795 for WCULAF!

UPDATE: Janelle Black here, your chapter president and I clearly manage too many social
media accounts because I posted the shirt sale to the wrong page 🤦🏻‍♀️. I was shocked we hadn’t gotten any orders yet!! Let’s try again 🙂

Umbrella Man T-Shirts for sale!

$25.00/shirt- proceeds go to scholarships for Finance & Investment Challenge Bowl

We have limited quantity of each size in stock, so orders will be honored on a first come first serve basis. If enough interest we will place future orders!

These are Unisex cotton/polyester blend and fit true to size.

To place your order email your name, Credit Union, size, and payment method to [email protected].

Raising money for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals at Gundersen Health System is one of our favorite events of the year! Big thanks to all who donated 💕 Together we raised $1,535 in an hour! Donation link is still active through the weekend if you’d like to contribute!

Also peep the new Umbrella Man shirts going up for pre-sale tomorrow at noon! Check back on our FB page on details to purchase a tee :)

Our chapter team is manning the phone banks for Children's Miracle Network Hospitals at Gundersen Health System from 9-10am!

Donate using this link: https://gmf.donordrive.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&teamID=5764 or call 608-784-5437! 💕

2024 Radiothon2024 RadiothonGundersen Medical Foundation Join Children's Miracle Network Hospitals and Mid-West Family for our largest fundraising opportunity of the year. Hear from local children and families helped by CMN Hospitals when you tune in during the two-day event, broadcast live on Z93, 95.7 The Rock, and KQ98. We hope their stories of courage...

Better late than never? 🙃 We had a full house to kick off our 2024/2025 Chapter Season!

Special thanks to:
🍷Brambleberry Winery for being such a gracious host
🌮 Taco Broz for serving up a delicious menu
🎁Governmental Employees Credit Union (G.E.C.U.) for helping with registration & prizes

We also raised $370.00 from our 50/50 raffle 🎟️ to go towards high school scholarships for the Finance & Investment Challenge Bowl.

☂️Umbrella Man shirt sale info coming soon- see you in October!

Mark your calendar, the 2024/2025 Chapter Season is right around the corner!

Reminiscing on a beautiful ending to our chapter season at On-A-Whim Event Barn last Tuesday 💕

Thank you again to all who made this happen:

*Corbin’s Chill-N-Grill food trailer for the delicious BBQ dinner
*Don Harvey for the acoustic cover jams
*On-A-Whim Event Barn for allowing us to reschedule so seamlessly and allowing us to rent your incredible event space
*Altra Federal Credit Union and Marine Credit Union for hosting the meeting & providing cool giveaway prizes 😎
*Miracle Open Golf Classic - WCUL 7 Rivers Region Chapter ~ currently seeking volunteers to help run the golf outing Tuesday, August 6th. Give their page a “like” for more information ⛳️

Lastly, we’d love to see the group photos taken from your credit unions. We saw some aspiring photographers come out that night 😉. Share in the comments!

Interested in volunteering at the Miracle Open Golf Classic supporting Children's Miracle Network Hospitals at Gundersen Health System? Follow the link below to sign up.

https://signup.com/client/invitation2/secure/252748358029/false #/invitation

Get ready to tee-off for a good cause because we're officially 2 months away from our 38th Annual Miracle Open Golf Classic, brought to you by the 7 Rivers Region Chapter of Credit Unions!

This event is dedicated to suppporting Children's Miracle Network Hospitals at Gundersen Health System. Your support makes it possible for CMNH hospitals to award grants that assist children and their families, support pediatric programs and services, purchase speciality equipment, and provide funding for pediatric medical research and education.

Grab your clubs and join us for a day of swinging, putting, and giving back to those families and little ones in need.

Put your money where the miracles are and sign up to be a sponsor or enter your foursome: https://onecau.se/2024miracleopen

CANCELLATION - Our Employee Appreciation Chapter Meeting scheduled for tonight at On a Whim Event Barn has been postponed to Tuesday June 11th. Please follow your normal RSVP process to register for this event and we hope to see you out there for a night of live music, yard games, and celebration!

✨April Meeting Recap✨Thursday, April 18th 2024

Election Night ~ YP Night ~ Keynote Speaker

Congratulations to Nick Marden (WCCU), Alex Byom (Co-op CU), and Janelle Black (GECU) on being elected to another 2 year term on the chapter board!

Thanks to our The Wisconsin Credit Union League liaison Meghan Murphy for attending and giving us a League update :)

To our hosts Verve, a Credit Union and Co-op Credit Union for providing wonderful door prizes & helping with registration

Stoney Creek Hotel La Crosse - Onalaska for opening their space to us, serving delicious food & beverages and ensuring our meeting ran smoothly

To all the Young Professionals who have attended meetings all year long & were awarded with some gift cards as a thank you (raise your hand if you won!)

And lastly, Neil Ihde - professional speaker, thought leader and founder of Life IQ - for gracing us with his humor and wisdom and providing thought-provoking content surrounding emotional intelligence & the critical role it plays in and out of the work space. QR code link to his presentation + resources.

Website: https://lifeiq.com/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com//featured

✨✨✨

What a great meeting last night! Here's a few highlights:

🔹Thanks to Drugan's Castle Mound for the amazing food & hospitality
🔹Thanks for Corporate Central Credit Union for sponsoring the evening & providing a bluetooth speaker for giveaway
🔹Oakdale Credit Union and Royal Credit Union for being gracious meeting hosts and helping with registration & bringing awesome raffle baskets
🔹Our keynote speaker Brook Liu, Director of Fraud, Security, and Facilities at Marine Credit Union for speaking to us on fraud and key credit union issues - thank you! Here's the youtube link to the hilarious commercial she shared featuring granny "bailing her grandchild out of jail". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pY8OekuzOgs
🔹Chapter Board election information

See you all at the next meeting Thursday, April 18th at Stoney Creek!

Another successful Finance & Investment Challenge Bowl by Asset Builders of America in the books! A HUGE thank you to all sponsors, volunteers, teachers/students, Western Technical College, and Senator Brad Pfaff for supporting this event & helping increase financial literacy in the Coulee Region and beyond! We had a record breaking 13 schools and 34 teams compete over the course of 2 days.

As a chapter we were able to offer $500 scholarships to both first place teams from each day - congratulations to Onalaska High School and G-E-T High School for becoming regional co-champions and qualifiers for the state championship in Madison in May!

That totals $3,500 in scholarships to these deserving students funded by our chapter. Each school will receive an additional $200 per team to help with travel costs to the state tournament.

Again, thanks to our sponsor credit unions 1st Community Credit Union, Arcadia Credit Union, WCCU Credit Union, Tomah Area Credit Union, Governmental Employees Credit Union, Altra Federal Credit Union, Oakdale Credit Union, Marine Credit Union, Co-op Credit Union, Gundersen Credit Union, Verve, a Credit Union

We're working on the content for our March chapter meeting at Drugan's and we would love to hear what's on your mind! What issues regarding fraud and cyber security are you most concerned with and wanting to learn more about?

Our community needs your help! The La Crosse County Su***de Prevention Initiative (SPI) is putting together coping boxes for middle-school children to reduce stress and anxiety and help cope with ADHD while in the classroom. Boxes are made available in our community classrooms and include things like coloring books, coloring tools, pens, fidgets, pop-its, and stress balls. SPI is in need of items to place in the boxes (including things with your Credit Union's logo on it!) and/or monetary donations to help purchase supplies. Please reach out to Karlene Buckmaster at [email protected] to get involved and contribute to this cause!

It was so great to see everyone that made it out for our October Chapter meeting! Thank you to Shelby Schmudlach from the WI Credit Union League and Lori Horstman from Altra for speaking and to GECU for providing four great host prizes. We’re excited to announce that together, we were able to raise $1,200 for WCULAF! Here are just a few photos from the night, please share yours in the comments!

Update: we raised $1150 during our hour. Thank you so much to those who called in! 💗

Your chapter board is running the phone banks from 9-10 at the radiothon benefiting the Children’s Miracle Network! Give us a call at 608-784-kids (5437) or text CMNKIDS at 51555 !

If October's chapter meeting topic of "Advocacy" doesn't drive you to the meeting, we hope the food & venue will!

On the table for discussion are things we already do daily at our credit unions including financial education, community impact, and elder financial abuse and protections we can put in place to help combat this growing issue.

Also for $10 you can participate in our WCULAF fundraiser where you are guaranteed to win prizes ✨

See you there!

Ding ding ding, 🎉 we have our winner! 🎉 we would like to introduce you all to the new logo for our chapter!

Thank you to everyone that came out to celebrate the beginning of our 2023-2024 season! We also want to thank Sparky's Spit LLC for some amazing food and Pearl Street Brewery for hosting us - this event couldn’t have been possible without you and your teams. We look forward to seeing you all again in October at Hatchery Riverside!

Here's a look at our 2023/2024 Chapter Season! Let us know what you're excited for and what you'd like to see more of!

It's time to cast your vote for our new logo!

The logo with the most likes/hearts at 12:00 PM on Friday September 15th will be our winner and the new logo for the WCUL 7 Rivers Region Chapter of Credit Unions. Thank you to all participants; these are all beautiful and we can't wait to see which ones you like most.

Children's Miracle Network Hospitals needs volunteers from 10am to noon this Saturday, September 9th at Myrick Park Main Shelter in La Crosse! The purpose of the party is to build relationships between children experiencing similar challenges and provide an opportunity for them to learn from one another and providers. If you're interested in volunteering please email Sierra at [email protected].

Join us as we kick off our 2023/2024 Chapter season at Pearl Street Brewery! This event will be a great chance to network with other credit unions, meet the chapter board, get a look at the program schedule for the upcoming year, and have fun! Please send all RSVPs to [email protected] before September 4th.