PCU Member Connect has a new home.

If it seems like we just got started, that's because we did. PCU Member Connect is off to a great start and now has a new home at piedmontcu.wordpress.com. Make a visit there and let me know what you think.

Please just take a moment to update your bookmarks and feeds to the new address. Here are links to the new addresses feeds.

Piedmont Credit Union Member Connect

Feeds

• Feedburner RSS Feed
• My Yahoo Feed
• Google Reader/Homepage

Pittsylvania County Schools Budget

Yesterday we received an email from the Chamber of Commerce asking their members to support an increase in funding for Pittsylvania County Schools. Here is an excerpt from their statement:

Summary
Our region’s economic growth and prosperity will be fueled by the ability of our workforce to be productive, adaptable, and continuous learners. The foundation of a strong workforce begins with an innovative, challenging and exemplary school system that educates and nurtures students to be successful and productive citizens.

• Pittsylvania County currently ranks 132 out of 133 school divisions for funding the operating cost per pupil.
• In recent years, the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors has funded at or near the bare minimum that the state has required for education.
• Technology, vocational equipment, and extracurricular activities are just a few of the programs that are “at risk” of not being funded if school budget funding is not increased.
• The school system needs to offer competitive salaries in order to attract and retain the best teachers and staff possible. With a national shortfall of qualified teachers, we can not continue to fall behind in our compensation of teachers.
• Pittsylvania County must invest in the necessary maintenance of existing facilities. If we neglect our facilities, rising maintenance costs will continue to erode our ability to fund programs that directly support our students.

The success of our students is at stake. The success of our region is at stake.

County residents may attend the hearing on Monday, April 23, 2007 at 7pm at the Pittsylvania County General District Courtroom. Or they may contact the Pittsylvania County Board of Supervisors.

Protecting Yourself Online, Part 2

Since the credit union has implemented Multi-Factor Authentication I thought I would take the opportunity to remind us all of some basic online security practices.

As stated in our previous post "Protecting Yourself Online", MFA will make it more difficult for online thieves to create a Piedmont CU look-alike website designed to steal user names and passwords. Here are just a few more tips for protecting yourself online:

1. Before entering your password or personal information on any secure site look for the padlock graphic either in the address bar or in the bottom right-hand corner of the browser window. Note: PCU NetBranch addresses always start with "https://nbp1.cunetbranch.com/piedmont".
2. Do not click on a weblink that is inside of an email claiming to be from your credit union, bank, financial firm, or anyone that you give personal information to. Instead type the address in by hand.
3. For sites that you visit regularly like NetBranch, piedmontcu.org, or even PCU Member Connect, make a bookmark to the site and always use the bookmark to get back to it. PCU Member Connect has a nice live feed feature that can be bookmarked by clicking the little orange icon in the address bar.
4. Update your web browser. The most modern web browsers such as Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 7 have anti-phishing capabilities built-in. Use them.
5. Use MFA to your advantage. If you are using a foreign computer it should not ask you to answer and security questions. So if you using a computer you always use to access NetBranch and it all of a sudden prompts you to answer a security question, please take note and verify the address and the pad-lock icon that we talked about in step 1.

If you are ever in doubt about any Piedmont Credit Union site just give us a call, email, or even a comment on this site. Sometimes this site even gets checked on the weekends! So far no one has had any problems with MFA that we know about. Please contact our office directly if you have experienced any problem with it. Thank you for using NetBranch and thank you for being part of Piedmont Credit Union.

Freedom First FCU / VA Tech Memorial Fund

People helping people has been an ideal shared by credit unions across the country for as long as they have been in existence. In the aftermath of the tragedy at Virginia Tech here is a way that we can all help out the people most directly affected by it.

NEWS RELEASE
CONTACT: Jamie Asciolla
Vice President of Marketing
Freedom First Federal Credit Union
(540) 378-8968

Freedom First Federal Credit Union Has Established the FFFCU/Virginia Tech Memorial Fund

Salem, Virginia— Freedom First Federal Credit Union has established the FFFCU/Virginia Tech Memorial Fund to support the recovery and renewal process following the tragic events at Virginia Tech. All proceeds will be directed towards the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund.

Freedom First Federal Credit Union has been serving the students, alumni, faculty, and staff of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech) since 1986 and remains the only full-service financial institution on campus, with two branch locations at Squires Student Center.

Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund

To remember and honor the victims of those tragic events, the university has established the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund to aid in the healing process and generate financial support.

The fund will be used to cover expenses including but not limited to:

Grief counseling
Memorials
Communication expenses
Comfort expenses
Incidental needs

To contribute to the FFFCU/Virginia Tech Memorial Fund, please make checks/share drafts payable to "FFFCU/Virginia Tech Memorial Fund" and mail your contribution to:

Freedom First Federal Credit Union
Attn: FFFCU/Virginia Tech Memorial Fund
PO Box 1999
Salem, VA 24153

Contributions to the FFFCU/Virginia Tech Memorial Fund will be accumulated and paid to the Hokie Spirit Memorial Fund as one contribution. Acknowledgement of contributors will be provided at the time of fund presentation.

Chartered in 1956, Freedom First Federal Credit Union serves several counties in southwest Virginia. The $200 million asset Credit Union is headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia.

Additionally, the university has a site where people may send their condolences, thoughts, and prayers here.

Our Thoughts and Prayers...

... are with the Virginia Tech community, students, faculty, parents, and friends.

Power Outage

If you live in Southside VA today then you know there are some very high winds. As a result the power is out at the main Piedmont Credit Union office.

Here's the good news! Our website including NetBranch and Online Billpay are unaffected by our local power outage. All Direct Deposits will continue with no interruption as will the ability to use your ATM or Visa Check Card(debit). The Telephone Teller is also still in operation at 1-877-768-5405.

Interesting Site With Local Economic Information

Found a site with some interesting information on it. It's called ecanned.com. At first I thought it was a spoof on the old "Danville Can" slogan from a few years ago, but it's not. It looks like they get alot of data from the last big census and from the different statistical bureaus. They publish this data along with some decent graphs. Every major locality across the country seems to have it's own page. Here are links for Danville, Pittsylvania County, Henry County, Patrick County, Halifax County, and Charlotte County. I could not find Martinsville. Any educational employee from these localities may join Piedmont Credit Union, so that's why they were selected. Some people, like me, find statistical information interesting.

One interesting read on the Danville page was how overall wages have increased by 26.5% since 2001. I am no economist but I would presume that this is the result of the economic growth our city has experienced over the last few years. I can think of 5 major employers just off the top of my head who share a large responsibility for this growth. Essel Propack, Arista Tubes, Yorktowne Cabinetry, Unarco Industries, Telvista, and coming soon Ikea. I feel like I'm forgetting some too. Here's a quote from the City of Danville's website:

Setting an unprecedented pace, the City of Danville has proudly announced 17 new projects and 9 expansions since March 2004. These companies will create 5,604 jobs and will spark the investment of more than $500,000,000 within the community. Of those 26 projects, 11 were announced in 2006.

It really is an exciting time for our city.

Our Own Newbie's Introduction to Blogging

So what is this site and how do you blog?

Thank you to everyone who has viewed or participated in our blog. It seems to be taking flight pretty well. I was thinking that it is quite likely that most of our credit union membership is like myself in that they are new to blogging and may not understand exactly how to do it. This is sort of like an online version of our newsletter except that it's interactive, meaning readers can easily share their own input on topics. Kind of like a discussion forum. To make a comment just click on the "comments" link at the bottom of the article you wish to comment on. It will give you the option to login to a Google account but that is not required. Feel free to just leave a comment with your name or even anonymously. Also it may or may not ask you to type in a set of funny looking letters. This is to keep spam off the site. Your comment might not post immediately. During business days it's faster than off hours.

In our initial post "Welcome, PCU to the world of blogging!" it was stated,

"I hope that this forum will become a place that fosters the cooperative, "people helping people" attitude that has driven Piedmont Credit Union since its creation."

I would appreciate your help in keeping myself and other contributors and commenters accountable to that goal. So here are a few things to consider when you leave a comment. Etiquette if you will.

1. This site is not our main website and is not secured by any type of login/password. Your comments may be read by anyone in the world. Just treat it like you would any other public place. You wouldn't shout out your account number to other people standing in our parking lot? Likewise, this site is just another public place for our credit union and our community to interact.
2. Give credit where credit is due. If you quote someone else, convey that somehow.
3. Please be considerate of others when you post. This site should always remain G-rated or better. So please abstain from profanity, vulgarity, or other inappropriate content. Again, it's like any public place. Such comments or posts will be blocked, removed, or edited.(Any edits will be noted)
   

Please take a few minutes to browse through our archives(bottom right of page). There is also a set of labels which are like topic names for articles. Thank you so much to all our members, employees, volunteers, and friends who work together to make our credit union something very special!

To all our faithful teachers:

Have a wonderful Spring Break this week!
For the work you do investing in our future you certainly deserve to have a week off.

Of course your credit union will be open if you want to pay us a visit.

Nestle-Danville is growing!

On Tuesday this week Nestle announced that they will be adding about 50 new jobs by opening two new production lines in their already massive production plant. (Newspaper story here.)
This is great news for our local Nestle facility, whose employees are a member group of Piedmont Credit Union. Nestle USA had other choices of where to do this expansion but they chose the Danville plant. Congratulations to all the Nestle employees who do a great job everyday at making their company a success. I had the pleasure of meeting many employees of Nestle over the last several weeks and I must say that that they all conducted themselves with a high degree of professionalism and integrity. It is easy to see why their company has been and will continue to be a huge success.

Wow.... the benefit of cooperatives!

Recently I helped to form a brand new cooperative! If you're wondering what a cooperative is, just look on wikipedia has a good definition as does Miriam Webster. My new cooperative is called the Pressure Washer Family Co-op. My father-in-law, brother-in-law, and I all own a share of a new gas powered Troy Bilt 2550 psi pressure washer. My coop total cost of the pressure washer is less than $95. It cleaned my house beautifully last weekend. Since I am not the sole owner of it I have already noticed that I treated it more nicely than if was altogether my own. I followed all the directions being careful not to damage anything. (I usually don't read directions!) But the best part is not having to pay two months worth of my savings to buy it and not always having the responsibility of storing it in my limited storage space. Sure, it requires a little more communication and planning if I need to get the pressure washer, but we're all social creatures. Personally, being naturally reserved and quiet, I need a little motivation to build relationships with my friends and family.

Much like my little co-op, Credit Unions are big cooperatives. Every credit union member owns a share of their credit union. They each get one vote as to the operation of their co-op. They can even volunteer to serve and oversee the administration of their co-op. Since my pressure washer co-op consists of just three people we don't have alot of administration to worry about. If I ever have a problem with the way my family uses our pressure washer I have a responsibility to let them know otherwise, in the long run, I may lose the benefit I have by owning a share of the pressure washer. And the benefits are what makes co-op's so attractive. I pay a little and get alot! In my case I save almost $200 by sharing a pressure washer. It's the same for credit unions. Members pay alot less for the same(or better) services that for-profit business offer.

Is your money melting away in the current Spring heat?

Lately I have been finding so many things to spend money on! My wife wants a pressure washer, I want a shop vac, I need a car so i can give my mother's truck back to her!(that I've been driving for 5 months now) I don't know if the reason for my current spending urge is the wonderful weather we've been having or the fact that I received a tax refund of much more than I expected this year. I think its a combination of the two. From Christmas until now I've been in the mindset of trying to save money. Now that I have some money it seems like it just wants to jump out of my pocket. Perhaps you can relate? When you get out in the nice weather it is so easy to look at your house and think of ways to improve it. My neighbor borrowed a bull-dozer and is trying to level out his back yard. I am hosting my daughter's first birthday party next month and the house needs to be spic and span inside and out. There are so many things that need to be done. The siding needs to be cleaned, the basement needs to be organized, I need more gravel on my driveway. That is the short list, if you want the long list ask my wife.

Here's the point of my typing this morning. I have to find some way of saving some of the money I have. It's ok to spend money, nobody likes a scrooge, but first I must take a few minutes to sit down and think about how much I want to save from this years tax refund. Then perhaps I'll have a better idea of what I can afford. I've got to prioritize my purchases and watch out for the little things that make my money vanish, like a quick stop at a fast food store, or a new flash drive that's on sale! Stuff like that adds up quickly. If the Spring heat is making my money melt away, I need to put some in the freezer, and thaw it out when I really need it. Share certificates and IRA's are good for that sort of thing because the money can't be withdrawn for just anything. But a secondary savings account is also a good idea, one that's not tied to an ATM card. That way I would at least have to talk to a teller in order to get my money, and I would not be tempted to use it while I'm out and about.

So that's my encouragement for all who think their money is just melting away. If anyone(PCU member) reading this would like some help with establishing some savings habits, feel free to give me a call at the credit union. You know I just realized something funny. Last year at this time I bought a new freezer!

Beware the Invisible Button!

Last night I went by Danville's new Office Depot. Quite an impressive store! Everything is very clean and new looking. The young lady who printed my daughter's birthday invitations was very helpful especially when it came time to pay up. I'm a credit union employee who knows that when I use my debit card I need to always process it as a credit card transaction in order to avoid the significant fees charged by the point of sale machine. I can think of so many new debit card users who have asked why they were charged $1.00 every time they used it even when their total purchase might have only been $0.55! It's because when you enter your PIN at the cash register the store is going to hit you with that fee just like a foreign ATM would. Well last night, when the cash register asked for my PIN I confidently pressed the "Clear" button thinking "Ha, Ha, Ha you're not going to get my $1.00! I'm going to do a credit transaction and circumvent your little fee." When nothing happened, I tried pressing "Clear" again. And again, no change, it only wanted my PIN and nothing else. There were no other buttons anywhere on the device so I asked Alex, my helpful cashier, for help. She told me of the "invisible" button located beneath the "7" which would take me to the familiar credit card transaction screen. How clever is that? WalMart has been automatically asking for the PIN for some time but at least they didn't hide the "Credit" button! Lessons to learn from my experience:
1) Always treat your cashier with respect. If you're nice, chances are they like you more than their boss who wants to maximize the stores profits by charging that $1.00 to everyone.
2) Don't be afraid to ask for help. (unless you didn't do #1)
3) Just start pressing random places on the screen until it does what you want!

Happy Check Carding!

Protecting Yourself Online

Next month Piedmont Credit Union's NetBranch will get a security upgrade. If you have used NetBranch since March 14 then you have undoubtedly seen a notice about this. I promise that the pop-up will not become a permanent feature of our site! I thought I would use this forum to give a little more detail about this thing called Multi-factor Authentication. It is all designed to protect our members from Phishing. Phishing is when an Internet thief creates a website or an email that asks you to put in some type of your personal information. You might say "But I would never do that!" But it is easier to get scammed than you might think. According to phishtank.com, a website devoted to fighting this type of theft, eight of their top ten copied websites were bank websites. The reason thieves do this is to try and get bank customers to enter their logons and passwords into a "fake" bank website. The thieves in turn take that stolen info and attempt to steal other information or gain control over the accounts. Our new MFA upgrade will completely change the way we login to our NetBranch so that the possibility of such a thing ever happening to PCU is virtually eliminated.
-Dan Veasey
Piedmont Credit Union

My Sports Conundrum!

Great news! Danville's George Washington Eagles are playing for the VA state boys basketball title this Saturday! They defeated Booker T. Washington by a score of 67-61 per the Register & Bee.

So why did I choose the title for this post that I chose? It's great that the Eagles have a chance to bring lots of attention to our region, leave their mark on history, and bring a trophy home to brag about. I have been a Danville resident for the past 14 years, my wife is from Danville, and I have made a very nice home and life for myself here. It's a really great place to live. I want only the best for Danville. The only problem is that the Eagles are playing against my alma mater, the Highland Springs Springers! So I am totally confused! Am I still a Springer at heart who bleeds black and gold even though I haven't been to any of their sporting events since I played for their tennis team in 1993? Or do I cheer for the hometown heroes, the GW Eagles, some of whose parents are members of our credit union and whose children might be applying for the new Dr. Harold Henry Scholarship, and whose teachers are members of our credit union.

I will choose to think of it as a win-win situation. Either way I can celebrate, either for my new home town of Danville, or my old home town of Highland Springs. The great thing really is that all these kids are playing their hearts out to try and do something great. So lets all take note and cheer them on to victory whoever you are pulling for(publicly or privately).

-Dan Veasey
Piedmont Credit Union

F.Y.I.: For all you GW fans who want to "know your enemy" Here's a link to some history on Highland Springs, VA. Highland Springs HS school website here. The Game will be broadcast on WBTM 1330 at 5:00pm.

GW Eagles Make State Semi-Finals!

The George Washington High School boys basketball team advanced to the Virginia state semi-finals on Saturday by defeating Wakefield HS by a score of 85-64! The full story is at the Danville Register and Bee . Next up for the Eagles is Booker T. Washington High School. The game will be held at the VCU Siegel Center in Richmond, VA this Wednesday night at 7:30pm. The game will be broadcast on WBTM 1330 starting with the pre-game starting at 7:00pm.

Let's Go Eagles!

Welcome, PCU, to the world of blogging!

On March 1, 2007 Piedmont Credit Union launched Member Connect to test the waters of the Internet 2.0 world. I hope that this forum will become a place that fosters the cooperative, "people helping people" attitude that has driven Piedmont Credit Union since its creation. Since 1969 our credit union has grown from serving local educators to serving educators across Southside Virginia as well as employees from almost 50 Dan River Region business. For our credit union to continue to thrive it will need that same spirit of teamwork to be shared by all of our members, volunteers, and employees. So if you are a Piedmont Credit Union member or if you simply have an interest in credit unions, financial cooperatives, or just want to leave your feedback, please leave a post or comment on our new blog. Together we can keep making a difference for years to come!

In the future I hope to post some helpful information about what's new at the credit union. Your comments are welcome.

-Dan Veasey
Piedmont Credit Union