Welcome to our Hike the Hill blog! For those of you new to blogging, a blog is essentially an on-line diary. This blog is dedicated to the adventures of Daris and Andrew of Our Community CU in Shelton, Washington. Daris and Andrew are first-time participants in the Washington Credit Union League’s Hike the Hill.

What’s Hike the Hill? Hike the Hill is a two-day adventure bringing Washingtonians (the ones from the “real” Washington) to D.C. to meet with policy makers. It’s fast-paced. It’s high level, and it can be a lot of fun. Since this is Daris and Andrew’s first HTH, they’re going to share their experiences with everyone through this blog.

Check back often to read more about Daris and Andrew’s experiences, or better yet be there with us virtually by signing up for real-time notification of new posts to the blog. Just skip to the bottom of this page and click on “Subscribe to Posts (Atom)” to sign up for the RSS feed.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

1st Post


I thought I would start out this blog with a little bit of an introduction. I have worked for a credit union now for just a little over a year. In that short amount of time, I have become quite the advocate of credit unions and what they represent.

In my role in Marketing and Business development I have had numerous opportunities to share the credit union philosophy with local businesses and individuals. As I have said many times over "I just can't sell something I don't believe in." That has been a major sense of pride in my job as I have no qualms about promoting my credit union and other credit unions in the area.

I have no "Political" experience as you might call it, but I have established relationships with the "who's who in the zoo" in my local area as a son of a retired police officer in town, and in my many job functions in the community.

When my CEO approached me about going to Hike the Hill I was a little nervous and unsure of what to expect, I guess that would still hold true. Not only would this be my first Hike the Hill, but also my first time to Washington DC.

Our first talking points arrived in my inbox the other day and I have been reading up on the legislation and issues that are important to us as credit unions. My first thought was "wow" so many regulations and legislation either already up for approval or coming down the pike. I could see how just keeping up with State, Local and Federal policies would be quite a daunting task.

My CEO has asked that I have lunch with him as he explains "politicking 101" and also shed some insight on some of the Acts and Bills in the briefing. As he would put it "no one likes politics, but if you don't do it, someone else already is."

I agree that it is important to have a voice, with our representative system we can all have access to our "voice" and we should do our part to make sure our "voice" is heard. If I remember my political science class correctly; we are only 3 degrees of separation from our President with our political system. But unless we take that first step and talk to our Representatives...it might as well be 80 degrees of separation.
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