Does anyone know of any upcoming telephone seminars or webinars that deal with the activities that get credit for CRA. We are just starting out and one of my goals is to work in the community and educate them.

Contact your state banking association.

Network with other CRA Professionals (buy them lunch)

There are two major (of value) CRA seminars. One is put on by PCI (don't worry...they don't harp their product at the seminar) and the other is by the San Francisco Fed Reserve. Unfortunately the Fed conference is only every other year, and they had one last year, so that's out for 2005. The PCI conference is on though. I would highly recommend that one. (They don't pay me to say that...I actually enjoy going)

I second Dawnie on the PCI conference. Always a broad selection of topics including HMDA topics.

Thank you for your help but isn't PCI in the fall? I wanted something sooner so I could start putting together a plan of action.

You could always contract with a consultant for some individual training I know it's not as cheap, but if it's important to you, it might be worth it

We've had the Federal Reserve (Community Affairs) come in and do CRA training for our CRA Committee--for free. The extra brownie points didn't hurt either.

You know that's right Craig I can't think of his last name, at the San Francisco Fed came in and did that for a group of us CRA officers many moons ago in Alaska. You might visit the San Franscisco Fed REserve web site and look him up for a recomendation of a local in your area. (If you look in community affairs, and CRA you'll see he's the contact for native american programs).

Those are some great suggestions. Thanks for your help

What if you regulated by OCC... with the Federal REserve still come if we are members?

We are regulated by the OCC. The Fed also did fair lending training for our board members--free of charge.

Yes, they do it as a curtesy for all banks. Often they like to talk to a group of banks if possible (we have a CRA officers group in Alaska). But they'll still make the time if they can.

It might be time to start a local CRA group. We have one for compliance officers in this state which is very helpful

My only caution on that is that you all need to remember that you are not only CRA officers, but you're also competitors. Our group often forgets that, and when I have to remind them it makes them grumpy (Normally that revolves around them asking our bank to train them on a product line or something similar) While I love to help ya'll outside, I don't think it's in my bank's best interest for me to give the competition a great deal of support

The one we have for compliance meets 5 times a year. What is good is they have regulators and other people come in. The Mass Bankers has someone there telling us about legislative updates also. It is not just for compliance officers, it has bank auditors and auditing firms there also. There is an email tree that is similar to what we get out of BOL.

It is also helpful to see people in the same boat as I am when it comes to new regs.