End of year greetings from Randall

I wanted to take a minute at the end of the year to thank each of your for making ECCU a great place to work. While great financials are really nice (especially in todays world). The feedback from members, the laughter I hear when you work together, the amazing team work to accomplish projects and task during the year, and the personal sacrifices you make each day makes ECCU a truly amazing place to work.

We have seen the largest number ever of staff participating in community events showing your committment to the communities we represent. You may not know but ECCU recently was nominated to the Cy-Fair Chamber of Commerce as Small Business of the Year by area businesses. As well our community development team has been providing counseling to economically disadvantaged through the Alliance for Economic Inclusion program sponsored by The United Way. Also in 2009 we adopted Hargrove elementary School participating in the bus buddies program (getting our young ones to the right bus stop at the beginning of the school year), collected school supplies, provided give-aways to the booster organizations, and assisted with fundraising in purchasing ads in Jersey Village High School Sports Programs. In 2009 we sponsored our most successful shred day ever.

Also 2009 brought us mutiple awards including; the B.E.S.T. award (Business and Education Stand Together) by the Cypress-Fairbanks ISD and the Lone Star award for marketing awarded by the Texas Credit Union Marketing Council.

We will end the year with one of the most challenging economic years ever for credit unions. Even in spite of accessments from Southwest Corporate FCU and the NCUA totalling almost $600,000, and loan losses exceeding $915,000 will still post a net gain for our members for the year. ECCU will generate a return on members equity well in excess of other Houston Credit Unions and the Nation. As well ECCU holds one of the best total capital positions in our industry postioning us well in the event of future financial crisis. All of this has been accomplished through tight managment of all of our resources and a team that determined what our needs are in the best interest of the entire organization vs individual or departmental needs.

2010 will provide new opportunities and new challenges. We will begin our Mentor program with Hargrove Elementary, focus on development of an Economic Development counsel through the Chamber, expansion to membership in the Hispanic Chamber. Through our participation with 20 other pilot credit unions in Texas ECCU's community development team participates in the National Credit Union Foundations "Real Solutions Program" this has led to development of our underserved products Fresh Start Checking and our Reloadable Debit cards which we will further develop in 2010.

Today I completed a contract with Teres Solutions which will create a much more efficient loan process and delivery system for our members. As well Teres will tell members their rates on current products so that we can show them immediate savings on products if they move to ECCU.

We are anticipating even more accessments through NCUA, SWC and higher loan losses in 2010 resulting in approximately 1.7Million in both accessments and loan losses. We will need to continue to manage all of our resources as wisely as we have in the past and even more so.

To keep you posted on the exact status of ECCU and the CU industry I will be holding some sessions addressing the entire staff next year. This is an opportunity for me to be as transparent as possible regarding ECCU's financial condition and share current challenges we are facing together.

I wish each of you and your families the very best Holiday Season

Randall