President’s Column CAN YOU SPARE 30 MINUTES FOR THE FUTURE OF COMMUNITY BANKING? COREY CONNORS President & CEO, VACB Let me start with a simple ask. At some point in the coming weeks, VACB will ask you for about 30 minutes of your time. Not for a meeting or a webinar, but for something that will help shape what your association focuses on next. I know how valuable 30 minutes is. Time is limited, and priorities compete every day, but this is time that carries real impact. Community banking runs on relationships. Not just the relationships you build with customers and local communities, but the relationship you have with your association. By the time you receive this magazine, VACB will be underway with two important initiatives: a Bank Member Relationship Audit and our Member Survey. Together, they will help shape VACB’s priorities, programs and direction as the Board prepares for strategic planning this August. These efforts reflect VACB’s 2025-2026 Alignment Plan, in which the Board identified member engagement and strategic planning as central priorities. Before we walk into our August planning session, it is essential that we ground that conversation in real input from our member banks. We are entering a planning cycle at a moment of real industry transition, which makes that input more important than usual. The Relationship Audit is the first 15 minutes. Its purpose is straightforward but important: We want to ensure that VACB is connected to the right people across every member institution. Community banking is more collaborative than ever, and many of the most valuable insights lie beyond traditional C-suite leadership. By taking a few minutes to confirm roles and contacts across your team, you help us better understand where expertise lives inside your bank. It ensures the right compliance officer sees the right alert, strengthens how we communicate, improves how we design education, supports more meaningful peer connections and helps us gather input on industry priorities. It also helps us identify emerging leaders and bring new voices into conversations that shape our industry. The next 15 minutes are the Member Survey. VACB’s Member Survey will follow in late spring and early summer. The sequencing is intentional. With a clearer picture of your teams, we can ensure the survey reaches a broader, more representative group of bankers, leading to stronger insights and more meaningful direction as we move into strategic planning. I know what some of you are thinking. Another survey. We all receive too many surveys. That’s fair. But this one matters more than most. Community banking is moving fast. Technology. Workforce. Regulation. Competition. Expectations of associations are changing just as quickly. You already started this conversation with us last year at our Spring Member Roundtables. This survey will help us close the loop and better understand where needs are most urgent and where VACB can make the greatest difference. 6 The Community Banker
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