By The Virginia Association of Community Banks
2020 can be adequately summed up with the Grateful Dead’s song “What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been.” Beginning with the pandemic that stopped us all in our tracks in March, to the PPP loans that community banks deployed at a lightning-fast speed, to the bitter battle for the presidency and everything in between, 2020 is one for the record books. Zoom became a noun and a verb as companies, associations and people flocked to this platform to conduct meetings and keep in touch with family and friends as we grappled with social distancing and stay-at-home orders. VACB’s training followed suit, going live and virtual successfully, and like most of our counterparts across the country, we eventually opted for a virtual convention, too. Moving VACB’s convention to an online experience was not a decision made lightly by our board and executive committee members. But, once the decision was made, it was time to figure out the specifics.
VACB partnered with Financial Education to present our 2020 Annual Convention. Financial Education is our webinar partner that offers most of our webinar products. We were very confident in its ability to help us with our pivot to a virtual program. Luckily, our two business sessions had been finalized earlier in the year, and it was just a matter of reaching out to our presenters to alert them that we would now be online. Speakers were contacted, recording sessions were scheduled, and VACB began promoting the reformatted convention to the membership.
To add a little excitement, VACB added a few twists to this year’s program that were a lot of fun! VACB opted not to hold a virtual exhibit hall but still wanted to have networking opportunities for the membership. We kicked off the convention Sunday night with a networking session featuring a local Richmond sommelier. Attendees were given a list of items to have at the ready and our sommelier walked attendees through two educational sessions on wine tasting and food and wine pairings. To add fun to our Sunday night event, we carefully curated a selection of goodies and had swag boxes shipped to attendees just ahead of the convention’s start. The logoed items in the swag box dovetailed nicely with our Sunday night wine and cheese event.
For the first time, running simultaneously during our convention was an online silent auction. We collected donations from the membership and put together a great collection of items ― literally something for everyone! It was a great way to get some early holiday shopping completed.
We would be remiss not to mention the overwhelming support our associate members provided to the convention efforts. They assisted financially with the convention, and several were on hand to do speaker introductions. Our sincere appreciation and gratitude to all who helped us have a successful online convention.
Monday morning, our first business session was called to order by Chair Lloyd Harrison, Virginia Partners Bank, and the first order of business was the election of officers. Lloyd passed the leadership baton to Mike Thomas, Select Bank, our chair for 2020-2021. Dennis Dysart, First Bank is our chair-elect and Jay Stafford, Benchmark Community Bank, is our vice chair. We also elected and welcomed new board members to the class of 2023.
As with any convention VACB holds, the business session on Monday morning historically has begun with an economic update. We were honored to have Renee Haltom from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, and her comments on the state of the economy did not disappoint. Zach Fox from S&P Global followed Renee with an update on commercial lending status through the lens of the pandemic. Zach shared his thoughts on what to expect and where the CRE sector’s challenges could arise in the coming months.
Monday’s business session ended with a familiar friend of VACB’s. David Ruffin, with IntelliCredit, shared his outlook on some credit issues that could be looming on the horizon as the pandemic drags on. David always does a great job, and his comments were both timely and relevant.
Tuesday morning, our second business session began with an update from ICBA vice chairman, Brad Bolton, who came to us virtually from Red Bay, Alabama, where he is president and CEO of Community Spirit Bank. Brad provided an update on the activities ICBA is involved in, including the state of community banking, the political scene in Washington and how ICBA is supporting the nation’s community bankers.
Speaking of ICBA, our next speaker came to us from the national organization. Charles Potts joined us to share his thoughts on the future of Fintechs and community banks, and how their partnering could be mutually beneficial and an advantage to a bank’s customers. Charles touched on the many benefits fintech partners could bring to community banks, ranging from forward-facing customer engagement to back-end servicing solutions. The possibilities are limitless!
Our final convention speaker was futurist Mark Zinder, who asked the question, is it different this time? He took us on a quick tour through history and discussed how we got to where we are and where we are headed ― both financially and as a country. Mark shared that the events that have occurred in 2020 due to the pandemic will have profound rippling effects on how we purchase goods, conduct business and educate our children in the future. Mark certainly provided a lot of food for thought with his remarks.
After Mark’s comments, Kim Belcher and Luke Gore with Yount Hyde Barbour rejoined the meeting for the Yount Hyde Barbour Grand Prize Drawing. The winner got to choose between three gift options, and the item would be shipped directly to their home. This year’s lucky winner was Mark Hanna with F&M Bank in Timberville. Steve then thanked attendees for tuning in and made sure everyone knew the dates of our live, in-person meeting scheduled for 2021. VACB will hold its 44th Annual Convention October 3-5 at the Hotel Roanoke & Conference Center. And with that, Steve wished everyone to stay healthy and in touch, and the 43rd Annual Convention concluded.
The Virginia Association of Community Banks
This story appears in Issue 4 2020 of The Community Banker Magazine.
