Volunteering with WASCU

There are always many opportunities for volunteering with WASCU.  Whatever your background or skills, or however much time you have available, there is sure to be something that you can do to contribute. If you want to help, please get in touch.  Here are some of the areas where we need help:

Community Volunteers

These roles are based at various towns and communities around Wiltshire and Swindon.

• Helping at an established collection point, helping our members with their accounts and introducing the credit union to other members of the public. Collection points typically open for two hours, twice per week, and you would commit to helping with one or both of these openings
• Starting a new collection point in your locality. For this you would need to find a group of three or four people and a location.  Full training and support would be given
• Working with one or more local employers in the development of “save as you earn” schemes
• Working with a local housing association in the promotion of the credit union to tenants, as well as the development of a “save as you earn” scheme.
• Creation and management of a savings scheme at a local school
• Creation and management of a local promotional event for the credit union, for instance an anti-loan sharks campaign
• Helping at a local festival or event with the credit union stall

Skilled Officer Opportunities

• Working as a member of the Loans Committee. Assessment of loan applications using credit history and other information, according to established policy and processes; liaising with members as necessary in order to clarify situations
• Loan portfolio and product analysis. Extracting information from our member database, analysing it (using tools such as ME Excel, MS Power BI) in order to determine trends and patterns, and then to feed this back into the product definitions and pricing
• Design of posters and leaflets to support campaigns, collection points and other community initiatives
• Management of communications with our members (electronic and written). This includes the production of a quarterly newsletter as well as messages sent to segments of our membership for local events, targeted marketing etc.
• Internal audit, ensuring compliance with processes and regulations. This will require someone with good IT skills to examine audit trails and documentation, and then to report back findings as part of the Supervisory Team.

Board Opportunities

All the members of our board are working directors, playing an active part in the management and development of the credit union.  We are currently looking for people to take on the following roles:

• Assistant Treasurer, working with the current treasurer with a view to taking on the senior role later in 2020. This will be a “hands on” role, and will require an understanding of the credit union’s accounting system.  The treasurer develops and manages the budget, as well as working with the external auditors and regulators
• Product and Credit Risk Director, managing the overall risk appetite of the credit union and directing the analysis of the loan portfolio in order to monitor this. Also the overall definition and pricing of loan products.
• Community Development Directors, working in the local communities and developing links with housing associations, local groups and places of worship