RANCHO CUCAMONGA, Calif.-CO-OP Financial Services has eliminated the registration fee for its THINK 2009 conference, planned for April 5-8, near Austin, Texas.
Last year registration had been $450 per credit union. Two years ago, the fee was $295 per person. "It's a response to a situation many credit unions are facing in cutting expenses," said Stanley Hollen, CEO of CO-OP Network. "I think it was appropriate to have no fee for the conference. Certainly there is travel and hotel, still."
Hollen said they CO-OP has had good response to the fee elimination.
"We do see, of course, though, a number of fall-outs of conferences attendance," he said.
As far as the fee elimination's affect on CO-OP and the conference itself, Hollen said "we simply absorb that." "It was only a quarter of the total cost anyway," he said. "It has no impact on the conference. Hollen stressed that CO-OP, as a cooperative, passes its income along to its credit union shareholders every year. "Our primary focus is to add value for credit unions," he said. "We do pay a very healthy dividend."
