April 1, 2022 Issue 103
A printed version of this newsletter is available in our lobby or by request. You may also view on our website at www.northwoodscu.org.
85th Annual Meeting
Our 85th Annual Meeting will be held on Tuesday, May 17th of this year. 
Gifts & refreshments are served at all NCU hosted locations.
Attend our Annual Meeting at one of three locations:
  • Cloquet Senior High School Cafeteria, 1000 18th St, Cloquet
  • View at Northwoods CU Office, 90 Arrowhead Lane, Moose Lake
  • View at Floodwood Event Center, 201 W 7th Avenue, Floodwood
  • Facebook Live via your phone or computer from wherever you happen to be!

The Annual Meeting will be available to view via Facebook Live, however, you will not be able to participate in any voting or in any question-and-answer session.

If we are not able to hold our Annual Meeting in-person (i.e., due to COVID-19 issues), and are forced to hold the meeting virtually, we will notify you how to register for the virtual meeting via Zoom.

SPECIAL SEMINAR EVENT
WILLS, TRUSTS AND ESTATES
Tuesday, May 17th at 5:45pm CDT
Presented by Jake Baker, Hosted by Ed Grondahl with Northwoods Retirement & Investment Services.*
The seminar will be held at the Cloquet Senior High School and available via Facebook Live and streamed to our Moose Lake location as well as the Floodwood Event Center prior to the Annual Meeting.
Please RSVP to deanna.wisneski@cunamutual.com or 218-878-3952

*Representatives are registered, securities sold, advisory services offered through CUNA Brokerage Services, Inc. (CBSI), member FINRA/SIPC, a registered broker/dealer, and investment advisor, which is not an affiliate of the credit union. CBSI is under contract with the financial institution to make securities available to members. Not NCUA/NCUSIF/FDIC insured, May Lose Value, No Financial Institution Guarantee, Not a deposit of any financial institution. Jake Baker is not affiliated with CBSI or its representatives. Opinions expressed are those of the presenter and are not necessarily those of CBSI or its representatives.
FR-4367749.1-0222-0324
NOTICE OF BOARD NOMINATIONS BY PETITION

Our bylaws guide our Board of Directors Election process. You may make nominations for The Board of Directors by petition signed by 1% of the membership, currently, a minimum of 116 voting-eligible member signatures must be collected (we suggest collecting more than 116 in case any signatures are invalid or cannot be validated).

We will not conduct nominations from the floor at the Annual Meeting when the number of nominees prior to the Annual Meeting equals or exceeds the number of seats up for election. If there are more nominees than seats up for election, the election will be by in-person balloting only at the Annual Meeting.

If you wish to make a nomination for the Board, please go on our website at www.northwoodscu.org/board-of-directors/, where you will find a brief statement of qualifications and biographical data for the nominees submitted by the nominating committee.

On the same page, you will find a link to the Nomination by Petition form and a Board Application, which must be completed along with the petition forms. If you would prefer a paper form and application, please call 218-878-3944.

Board of Director Candidates (all incumbent and all nominated by the Nominating Committee):
Lisa Follet Pollak, Board of Director
Jeffrey Kletscher, Board Chairperson
Kasey Olson, Board of Director

The closing date to submit nominations by petition is 12:00am (midnight) on April 7th, 2022.

Please submit via email at NCUNominatingCommittee@northwoodscu.org or mail to NCU, Attn: Board Secretary, 1702 Avenue B, Cloquet MN 55720. Please note that only the petition form found on our website as described above will be accepted. If you have any questions, please call 218-878-3944. 
A message from Northwoods Credit Union President Doug Wolf

Growing, Changing, and Expanding 

The COVID-19 pandemic has now lasted 2 years, hard to believe but true. While this time of the pandemic has been difficult for all of us, we have continued to provide services by whatever means we could and in doing so we have learned a lot. We have also not stopped moving the credit union forward in improving services.

During this time, we have not reduced staff, we have actually increased staff to address improving services and to prepare for the future. One significant improvement we have recently done (January 2022) is establishing a more robustly staffed call center to better handle your calls into the credit union. This commitment of more staff had an immediate improvement in the time it takes for us to answer an incoming call. In addition, these highly trained staff are able to help you with most of what you need without transferring to another department. We have also insured that our branches remained fully staffed. We are expanding our Mortgage Lending Department by adding another Mortgage Originator to make sure we are able to handle the volume of member mortgage loan requests. We are also making adjustments to back-office positions to be more efficient and improve services to you.

During this time of the pandemic, we continued to lend to members with good credit and those who have had a few speed bumps in their lives, just like we always have. We continue to look for ways to say yes to your loan requests and how we can help you the most.

We have improved our facilities with the most notable being our remodel of the Cloquet Ave B office.

We have also seen growth in new members and deposits overall. As of the end of February 2022, when compared to the end of February 2020 (pre-pandemic) membership has grown by nearly 1,000 members and our assets have grown to over $160 million with member deposits of more than $148 million. This is a growth of $40 million in assets (up 29.7%) and a growth of $37 million in member deposits (up 33.5%).

As you can see, during this pandemic, we didn’t step back, rather, we continued our focus on you, our members, and continued to make improvements. We are focused on the future and continuing to build YOUR credit union!

As always, we are grateful for all of our member’s support and business … THANK YOU!

- Doug Wolf
CEO
NORTHWOODS CREDIT UNION DONATES TO AREA FOOD SHELVES
NCU and our members have raised a grand total of $5,716.27 that was donated between local food shelves in Cloquet, Moose Lake, and Floodwood! This is part of our 1% cashback loan promotion. We started this promotion at the beginning of the year and NCU matched up to $50 of each member's donation!
-----------
Thank you to our members and employees for making this promo a success in 2022 and helping our local communities!
Cloquet Salvation Army
Northwoods CU CEO, Doug Wolf; Sue Butkiewicz with the Cloquet Salvation Army; Northwoods CU Financial Services Coordinator, Deanna Wisneski
Floodwood Food Shelf
Jan Benson, Floodwood Food Shelf; Northwoods CU VP of Compliance, Pat Babinski; Floodwood Food Shelf, Lorie Werner & Susan Coccie
Moose Lake Food Shelf
Jennifer Stavely, Northwoods CU MSR Supervisor and Barb Peck with the Moose Lake Food Shelf
YOUTH WEEK!
Youth Week will be April 11-15 this year! Stop into any of our branches for gifts, prizes, snacks, and more!
15TH ANNUAL SHRED EVENT!
Edward Grondahl
Northwoods Retirement & Investing Services
Ed Grondahl, Financial Services Representative, helps you look ahead to conquer retirement obstacles in 2022 and beyond.

*Representatives are registered, securities sold, advisory services offered through CUNA Brokerage Services Inc. (CBSI), member FINRA/SIPC, a registered broker/dealer and investment advisor, which is not an affiliate of the credit union, CBSI is under contract with the financial institution to make securities available to members. Not NCU/NCUSIF/FDIC insured. May lose Value, No Financial Institution Guarantee. Not a deposit of any financial institution. CUNA Brokerage Services, Inc., is a registered broker/dealer in all fifty states of the United States of America. FR-3302354.1-1020-1122
 
Sign Up for Texting Service
*Please note that NCU offers two types of texting service:

Conversational Texting allows us to text you regarding something specific to you.
You may OPT IN by texting any of our main phone numbers.
You may OPT OUT by texting ‘opt-out’ to any of our phone numbers

News & Updates Texting allows us to send a text to many members notifying you of an event at the Credit Union, a branch closure, etc.
You can OPT IN to receive these by texting ENROLL NEWS to 1-888-458-0975
You can OPT OUT of these by texting QUIT to 1-888-458-0975.

NEW VISA Credit Card App!
The NCU VISA Credit Card App is here! Download today! Available in the Apple or Google Play store.

BOCCE TOURNAMENT!
NCU had a blast at the 2022 Moose Lake Ice Bocce tournament in February!
DATES TO REMEMBER
Attention TEENS!
Quarterly Teen Club Financial Article Contest

Members age 13-17 are invited to submit an article on a financial topic to be considered for publication in our quarterly newsletter, website and on Facebook. We will then award 1 teen, $100 for their submission.* Submit your article or ask any questions now at marketing@northwoodscu.org



FYI
We at Northwoods Credit Union believe in helping you save your money, no matter what age or stage of life you may be in.

That's why we put together these great tips! Read our blog now!
2021 Employee of the Year
We are excited to announce our 2021 Employee of the Year, Amber Tobeck! Amber works at our Moose Lake Office as a Loan Officer. Amber always has a smile and kind words for her members and her coworkers.

Our SPICE Employee Recognition Program started in January of 2020 to recognize those employees who exemplify our SPICE values. These values include Servant mentality, Progressive thinking, Integrity, Compassion, and Empathy.

Employees nominate their coworkers who are then eligible for Employee of the Quarter. Our Employee of the Year is chosen from that years' Employee of the Quarter winners.

We have an amazing team here at Northwoods CU with many deserving employees. Our first Employee of the Year was awarded last year to Krystal.

Thank you Amber for all you do for Northwoods Credit Union!
Employee Spotlight - Jennifer S.

Jennifer Stavely is an MSR Supervisor located at our Moose Lake Branch. Jennifer began working for the CU just this year and has been a welcomed addition to the NCU family.

Jennifer was looking for employment in the financial industry and heard great things about the CU. "I heard Northwoods was a good place to work, so I applied for the position," says Jennifer.

"Being able to build our team, especially getting to know our members and having fun while learning the new items and ways of doing things." Jennifer points out when asked about what she enjoys most about her role.

Vice President of Branch Operations Janell R. had this to say about Jennifer:
"Jennifer is a great addition to our Moose Lake office. Being new to our team, she's been eager to learn about Northwood's culture, products, services, and how to best help our members."

"She goes above and beyond to help our members and her fellow co-workers" Janell adds.

Meeting the people of the Moose Lake community and seeing the difference in how the CU treats its members is a portion of the daily work life Jennifer enjoys.

When asked what three words best described her, Jennifer said "Caring, helpful, and genuine."

"Every day we get the opportunity to laugh while we learn. We are a new team, so we are all learning together and growing together. We have some fun with things as well." Jennifer says about working with her new NCU teammates.

Visit Jennifer and our Moose Lake staff today! 
Federally Insured by NCUA. Membership Eligibility Required.
NCUA
FOLLOW US!