We’ve been busy lately.

In the last few weeks, we played to some great audiences. First, we kicked off the picnic at the Credit Union Development Education (DE) Training in Madison to an audience of credit union professionals from across the United States, Africa and Scotland. Since the band was formed after meeting at DE Training, that event was pretty special for us to return three years later to play a few songs and talk about our journey and experiences as a credit union band.

The next week, we drove to Schaumburg for the Illinois Credit Union League Annual Convention to perform our education session “Credit Unions in the Key of Awesome.” Carla Day was in the audience and did a nice write-up  afterwards at CU Chat Up. She also recorded a video of us performing “Credit Union History (Fact)” from our session. Enjoy:

Last week was probably the biggest week for us as we returned to the Wisconsin Credit Union League’s Annual Convention & Exposition as event emcees. We had fun and kicked off all the general sessions for the conference. We even played some live versions of “Building a Better World,” our song for Bank Transfer Day, and many others. We also did a special credit union history and philosophy session for the “Crashers” or young professionals at the conference. Oh, and we met baseball legend Rollie Fingers!

Click here for part of our live “Building a Better World” performance last week.

We had a great time sharing our music, passion and stories about what makes credit unions unique and powerful the last few weeks. Hope to see you at an event sometime soon!

Does your credit union organization have an event or staff meeting coming up? Check out our booking page to learn more about how we can rock out with you and your attendees/employees.

The Disclosures are excited to present/perform at the Credit Union Association of New York’s 2012 Annual Meeting & Convention:

Join us on June 7-10 at The Sagamore Resort on Lake George. For more info on the event, visit https://www.cuany.org/services/convention.

Hope to see you there! Inspiration awaits…

The Disclosures will be returning as event emcees for the Wisconsin Credit Union League Annual Convention on May 9-12, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin!

For more information on the event and to register, visit http://www.theleague.coop/convention.

Hope to see you out in the crowd!

Chad & Christopher gear up for their Illinois Credit Union League Annual Convention appearance:

Join us April 26-28, 2012 in Schaumburg! For more info on the Illinois Credit Union League Annual Convention, visit http://www.iculeague.org/2012AC.htm.

Hope to see you there!

Do you work in marketing or business development at a credit union?

Then you need to attend the premiere national event for your area – the CUNA Marketing & Business Development Council Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana on March 7-10, 2012.

It’s a great event filled with inspiring, informative, and thought-provoking focused sessions. Plus where else can you network with hundreds of your fellow marketing and business development professionals?

Oh, and the Disclosures will be there too! We’ll be performing our new education session “Add More Cowbell to Your Credit Union Messaging” on Thursday at the conference. It’s a repeating breakout session so you have two chances to come see us in the morning.

Hope to see you in The Big Easy!

> Click here for more information on the event

Hey credit union event planners & training directors! This post is for you.

It’s been a while since we’ve checked in with you on the “Top Five Reasons to Hire The Disclosures for your Next CU Event” and since then we’ve been pretty busy. Recently, The Disclosures have:

• Created a song and music video that went viral for Bank Transfer Day.
• Recorded a song and produced a collaborative music video with more than 40 CUs around the nation for International CU Day.
• Released a video for our song “98 Problems (but a Bank Ain’t One)” for CUs to use in their web communications.
• Played at more than a few credit union chapter meetings, industry events, CU staff trainings and even the first Co-op fair in Madison, Wis.

• Introduction and application of creativity into your credit union’s identity.
• How to “humanize” your messaging while remaining accurate and informative.
• The attraction of credit union philosophy and values and why they should be a part of credit union communications & employee training.
• Creating cost-effective, original social media content and how to properly share it.
• Utilizing young staff in member outreach and how it can benefit your credit union.

And in case you’re wondering, we’ll still have our guitars handy to liven up the audience with some credit union inspired music!

Thanks and we look forward to hearing from you!

Christopher Morris & Chad Helminak
The Disclosures

The Disclosures were lucky enough to chat with CUBroadcast recently to play a few songs, talk about our music and much more. Enjoy the interview!

Looking for the perfect gift this holiday season?

We’ve got you covered. Our debut album, “(Hey, We’re) The Disclosures,” makes a great stocking stuffer, or alternatively:

• Gift for colleague or boss.
• Gift for your staff (or members? vendors?).
• Gift exchange or office party gift.
• Gift for your friends who work at a bank.
• Decorative coaster for your warm mug of hot cocoa.

We think they’ll like it. But don’t take our word for it…. As Madison’s Isthmus said, “Each track sheds a different light on the history and philosophy of financial cooperatives… backed by the duo’s brisk and lively acoustic guitar interplay.” Or as the Credit Union Times put it simply - “The Disclosures rock the credit union difference.”

Where can you buy the album? The album can be purchased digitally online of course through Amazon.com, iTunes, etc but for gift purchases, you’ll probably want to get the actual, physical copy through CDbaby here. And as a bonus, if you buy more than one, you get 10% off!

Happy holidays and THANK YOU!!!

PS -  If you live in Madison, let us know and you can buy the CD from us directly. Also, if you want to buy a large quantity of CDs for your organization, let us know and we can most likely provide an even bigger discount on discs.

In advance of Bank Transfer Day on November 5th, the credit union music duo The Disclosures have released a short music video highlighting how consumers can switch from a big bank to a local credit union. Credit unions are encouraged to use the video on their website and social media channels as part of their member outreach efforts.

The viral Bank Transfer Day continues to grow amidst widespread dissatisfaction with high bank fees. Bank customers who have become disillusioned by practices like these are now looking to local cooperative credit unions, who typically charge fewer and lower fees and provide other services that represent their structurally-driven commitment to people, not profit.

“The idea of moving your money to a credit union is a hot topic now because of Bank Transfer Day, but we hope credit unions will find value in sharing our video long after November 5th,” said Disclosures band member Chad Helminak.

The song gives a quick overview of the steps needed to move funds from a bank to a credit union and is a slight departure from The Disclosures’ recent video efforts around their original songs. Instead, they re-worked Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” in a fashion similar to their call-to-action video, “Don’t Change Interchange”, which parodies George Michael’s “Faith”.

“Sometimes it helps to get an important message across if you take something people know and turn it on its head,” said Disclosure Christopher Morris. “And like everything we do, we don’t take ourselves too seriously to help make it entertaining.”

With thousands of consumers pledging to move their money from big banks to local credit unions on or before Bank Transfer Day (November 5th), we wanted to highlight a couple of our music videos that credit unions can use to promote the credit union difference.

Bank Transfer Day has been highlighted in numerous national media outlets and continues to grow amidst widespread dissatisfaction with high bank fees. Bank customers who have become disillusioned by practices like these are now looking to local cooperative credit unions, who typically charge fewer and lower fees and provide other services that represent their structurally-driven commitment to people, not profit.

We have a few YouTube videos that share themes with Bank Transfer Day:

• Movin’ on With My Money” http://youtu.be/fKCZFkKhH-Q
• “98 Problems (But a Bank Ain’t One)” http://youtu.be/YJm7H00_lxM
• “Building a Better World” http://youtu.be/8QX8EniLa9o

We encourage you to use the videos on your websites and/or corresponding social media channels to highlight the philosophy of credit unions in the run-up to Bank Transfer Day (and anytime really). In addition, we invite credit unions to use any of the songs on our album, “(Hey We’re) The Disclosures, ” as part of their on-hold message, lobbies, etc to help communicate the credit union difference in a fun, musical way.

Hope you find these resources useful and Happy Bank Transfer Day!