Manchester Credit Union celebrates 21st birthday

Manchester Credit Union (MCU) has come of age, as they celebrated their 21st birthday, last Thursday 18 October at Manchester Town Hall.

Manchester Credit Union (MCU) has come of age, as they celebrated their 21st birthday, last Thursday 18 October at Manchester Town Hall.

The Credit Union, which is made up of several CUs from around the area, has grown from less than 100 members to over 10,000 over the last 21 years.

Christine Moore became the first paid member of staff in 2000 and is the acting CEO of the Credit Union. She said that celebrating their 21st birthday felt “fantastic”.

She added: “We’ve come such a long way and we are an amalgamation of lots of different CUs, that have all joined together to form MCU, it feels brilliant.”

We’ve got a whole range of people; we’ve got partners, there’s ex volunteers, people who’ve been involved in all the CUs over the years, we’ve got a real mixture – it’s fantastic, I can’t believe it.”

Tim Presswood, the Chair of the CU, became the Treasurer in 1996.

He explained that the birthday was: “a thank you” to all the members, partners and staff who have helped over the years, “not least of which is Manchester Council,” he added.

Tim was encouraged to join, what was formally Beswick and Openshaw Credit Union, by Nora Davies, referred to as a legend of the CU on the MCU website.

He explained: “A little old lady twisted my arm, her exact line was ‘Tim you’ve got a degree, you can be treasurer’, the fact is that my degree is in French, so really no use whatsoever. That was the origin of CUs, we were local people and if you had the potential to do basic book keeping, you did.”

Nora was honoured at the ceremony by receiving one of four pioneer awards for outstanding work with MCU.

Other award winners were Rose Askew, June Smith, and Rob Galvin.

Sir Richard Leese, leader of the Council, also attended the celebrations.

MCU celebrated their 21st on International Credit Union Day 2012.

Photograph courtesy of Andreas Andrews.

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