Latest News
Do you have time to spare? Several of our volunteers have retired recently, due to health issues or family commitments, while a number of others have found paid employment with the skills they have gained. We're also looking to extend our opening hours. So we have vacancies! We are particularly looking for people in Thornhill, Trevethin, Cwmbran, Pontypool and Abergavenny.
The Credit Union relies on over 50 volunteers aged 18 to 80+. Most run our 'Collection Points' in their local area for a few hours a week, taking cash payments and dealing with enquiries. Our Treasury, Audit, Loans and Admin teams also have vacancies at Head Office. Whatever your skills, we have a role for you, and we can provide full training. We're a friendly bunch, and it's a great way to make new friends and serve your community.
Interested? Give us a call on 01495 750020. We'll arrange to meet you for an informal chat and take it from there.
Share your Money Saving Tips with us!
Are you a money saving expert? Most of us are having to make money stretch further this year. Share your tips with our members and have ten pounds credited to your savings for each of the 'top tips' we use. Email us at info@gatewaycu.co.uk or go to our facebook page Gateway Credit Union Wales.
Top tips so far from the office team are..
Bring a packed lunch to work, it's cheaper than buying sandwiches.
Save every two pound coin you get in a jar, then bring it in to pay into your savings
Save your small change every day
What's your tip?
Happy New Year!
Can we help you to achieve your New Years Resolutions? With 2012 set to be a tough year for most of us, it's even more important to save regularly, even if it's only a small amount. Lots of our members find it really useful to have an 'emergency fund' for when the kind of things happen that stretch most household finances; the car's MOT, a boiler breakdown, or just when all the bills come at once. And are you planning to have a holiday this year?
If you are still struggling as a result of Christmas, why not seize the moment to open a Christmas Saver Account for Christmas 2012?
Whatever your hopes (or fears) for 2012, your Credit Union can help. Give us a call today.
Gateway Credit Union's financial year ended on 30th September with over 2000 saving members including young savers. A record year has brought faster than ever growth in members' savings and in the number of new members choosing the Credit Union for their saving and borrowing.
Once the accounts have been independently audited, all members will receive an invitation to the Annual General Meeting, which is usually held early in the New Year.
Gateway Credit Union is now on Facebook!
Find us at Gateway Credit Union Wales
We will be posting news and updates but it's also a chance for members to tell us what being a member means to you.
We're out and about this summer. Catch us at the Abergavenny Steam Fair, Pontypool Teddy bear's Picnic, Trevethin Carnival, and Housing Association Fun days. Meanwhile, the Head Office team will be sweating over loans for our members' summer holidays. Get your application in now and start saving for next year.
Heartless fraudsters have recently been using the Gateway Credit Union name to defraud innocent borrowers in Canada, the US and Wales.
People have lost hundreds of pounds after they were approached by email or in person by fraudsters offering to arrange loans, and asking for up-front fees, to be deposited in untraceable accounts. By the time the victim has become suspicious and made contact with the real Gateway Credit Union office, the fraudster has disappeared with their money.
Manager John Richards warns "this kind of fraud is impossible for us to stop. The fraudsters have no relationship with Gateway Credit Union, they are simply using our name and have set up false email addresses. Unfortunately, some people have fallen for it. We want to warn anyone approached in this way that they are being conned. We never charge any arrangement fees for loans, never send out unsolicited e mails and can only accept applications from people living or working in Torfaen and Monmouthshire who want to join us to save and borrow. We have advised victims to contact the police."
It will be open every Monday from 10 until 12 midday.
"The Government have announced that the Saving Gateway is not affordable given the need to reduce the deficit.
The launch of the Saving Gateway – which was planned for July 2010 – has therefore been cancelled. HMRC will take no further action to process any application for approval as a Saving Gateway account provider.
HMRC and HM Treasury are grateful to credit unions, banks, building societies and their representative bodies for their interest in the Saving Gateway, and for their contribution to the development of the Saving Gateway rules and processes.
If you have any questions in relation to this message, please contact
saving.gateway@hmrc.gsi.gov.uk
HMRC Saving Gateway team "
We will endeavor to inform our members of any future changes as soon as they happen.
The hours remain the same, 10am until 12 midday every Thursday.
Gateway Credit Union Ltd opened its latest Collection Point at Bulwark Community Centre, Laburnam Way on 30th March. The new Collection Point will open every Tuesday lunchtime, 12.30-2.30, alongside the Community Centre's successful fruit and veg co-op and coffee shop, so local people can get a bargain with their shopping as well as their savings.
This amount will be added to all accounts during the first week of April.
All members are welcome and encouraged to attend.
We are delighted to announce that a new collection point for Chepstow opened for business this morning.
Situated in the One Stop Shop in the Library building on Manor Way it will be open every Thursdays from 10 until 12 midday
This service will begin in pilot form on Monday 12th October 2009 at the Civic Centre, Trevethin and Blaenavon offices only. The other offices will be added once the sytem has been tested.
For the location of the cash offices details click here. More cash offices will be added when the pilot phase is completed.
It will be open every Wendesday morning from 9.30 until 11.30 at Llanyrafon Way, NP44 8HN tel: 01633 870695
It will be open every Tuesday morning from 9.30am until midday at:
Methodist Church Hall
Newport Road
Caldicot
tel: 07905 411336 during opening hours
Our thanks to all those volunteers in Caldicot who worked so hard to make it happen.
It will now be based in the recently refurbished Bron Afon cash office above the Fairwater shops in Ton Road and will be open for transactions on Tuesdays to Fridays from 10am to 1pm.
Telephone number is 01633 864704
It was a very good and well attended service with dignitaries from Gwent, Torfaen and Pontypool, and singing that would have rejoiced Lyn's heart. He was a devoted churchman as well as politician and community worker. Here in the now named Gateway Credit Union are pleased and proud of our connection with such a public servant.
Lyn was a director of the Credit Union from its early days and was faithful in his support and service. He held the Chair for two of those years and guided the organization through those times with much expertise. He brought to the Credit Union his vast experience, gained over the years and more than this, his depth of conviction to Christian Socialism that sat so well with the credit union movement.
Below we have been privileged to be able to quote in full the Address that Mr Paul Murphy, AM, MP, Her Majesty's Secretary of State for Wales, gave at the service.
Address by Paul Murphy on the occasion of Lyn Irwin's funeral at St Cadoc's Church 14th February 2009
I had known Lyn Irwin for well over 35 years and his passing coincides with so many of our stalwarts – Leo Abse, Gwilliam Evans, Dave Lloyd, Bernice Price and others. Lyn came from this generation of Socialists who had known really tough and difficult times and who were forged by experience.
He was a Bliana boy, who came to Pontypool in 1951, qualifying as a Post Office engineer, but famously later working as a bus conductor. This is when I first met him – at the time when he was selling socialist literature in the town centre!
He started his community work as a member of the Crane Street Baptist Church Youth Club, in the early 1960's and he organised classes in rugby, soccer, netball, basketball, table tennis and judo. I never knew about his expertise in the Martial Arts, but his interest, typically, was in helping young people.
He helped to found and become the leading member of the Torfaen People's centre in Trosnant Street- a drop-in advice centre. Hundreds, probably thousands, of people over the years have benefited from this remarkable institution. The centre works very closely with my own office which is only a few yards away.
Lyn was absolutely genuine in his belief that the Christian message meant that you had "to help your neighbour as thyself" – he believed in the practical, helping, living Christianity; and he was a fighter for the down-trodden and the under-privileged.
But he was also a very dedicated politician – he had no truck with the idea that politics and religion don't mix and he was never afraid of bearing witness to both his Christianity and Socialism: because both creeds formed the very foundation of his life.
He was elected first to Pontypool Community Council (having fought twenty election campaigns across Gwent) in 1985, eventually becoming Chairman. In 1996 he became member of Torfaen County Borough Council, representing your ward in Pontypool and in 2005 becoming Mayor.
He was dignified and popular First Citizen of our valley, carrying out his duties with great success. As a councillor, he took he took a special interest – as you would expect_ in health and social services and he became Assistant Executive Member for this area of the Council's work. He had chaired many local organisations including the Trevethin Resident's Association and the United Estates Community Project.
For over half a century, Lyn served the people of Trevethin and Pontypool. His life was lived to the full: he was a good, decent, compassionate and caring friend who I will greatly miss. He was a fine orator, a deep thinker and of course the chief supplier of sweets to everyone in the valley!
Above all, he was a loving man – he loved his family of course and he loved his community. He was also a man of deep faith. He was a regular communicant and Lay Eucharistic Assistant in this church and many of you in the congregation will have received communion from him.
Lyn had been recently nominated for an award from the Queen and I have no reason to believe he would not have received one. But his true reward is that the Good Lord will have mercy on his soul.
Lyn "fought the good fight" to the very end of his life. Our own lives were enriched by his friendship. May he rest in peace.
Click on the following link "Child Trust Fund" to access more information.
29 Hillcrest Road
Abergavenny
NP7 6BN
tel:- 01873 853623
Communities First North Abergavenny have generously allowed us to use their office space and we will have the full range of Gateway Credit Union available over the coming months.
We currently have five vacancies for prospective volunteers. Below is a brief description of the roles and their main duties. A full induction and ongoing training will be given for all posts detailed. If you are interested in any of the posts, please contact Head Office to arrange an informal meeting. Volunteers are an integral part of the work of the credit union so if you would like to learn new skills or maintain existing ones we would love to hear form you.
Board Secretary : Organises Board agenda's, produces and circulates Board papers and take the minutes at monthly Board meetings.
A Member of the Supervisory Committee: Organises and conducts regular monthly meetings to look at management of internal controls. . Supervisory committee members maintain systems to protect volunteers and officers from situations, which could threaten the credit union's integrity. The committe are also responsible for overseeing the internal audit by verifying and checking accounts.
Three Collection point officers: Provide Information about the Credit Union to members and potential members at collection points and Credit Union offices.
They provide information and appropriate forms to members wishing to apply for loans or share withdrawals. Collection point volunteers also take deposits and loan repayments from members and record those transactions.
The OFT is warning consumers not to respond to a new employment opportunity scam.
The mailing from a business called 'Paid Surveys', states that it is a customer employment firm using 'mystery shopping' to assist companies in improving customer service. Recipients are told that they have been chosen as a secret shopper and will be paid £350 for their first assignment.
A fake cheque is attached to the mailing to cover pay and other expenses. The victim is instructed to cash the cheque and then complete one of their assignments by posing as a customer of a money transfer agency and wiring £1,500 to a fake 'relative' at an address in Canada.
The money wired to Canada is collected by the scammer. Victims could be liable for any funds they spend while waiting for the fake cheque to pass through the banking system, and end up losing over £1,500.
Christine Wade, OFT Assistant Chief Executive Consumer Advice and Trading Standards, said:
'This is a nasty scam which exploits the promise of paid work to defraud victims. Scams are becoming increasingly more sophisticated and everyone needs to be on their guard.'
Consumers that believe they have been a victim of this scam can contact one of the OFT Scambusters team on 08457 22 44 99.
For the full article click here
