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Take it from Shelley Cook...
“You've got to be in it to understand it. Creative Arts 'gets' it.”
– Stunt veteran Shelley Cook
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ACTRA to open Ontario credit union in January
The Globe & Mail, Tuesday December 16, 2008
by James Bradshaw
A little over a decade ago, accomplished Canadian actor Peter Keleghan, best known for his roles on The Newsroom and The Red Green Show, was 38 and sitting humiliated in a bank office as he sought his third mortgage. The bank wouldn’t grant it unless his father, who owned his own home outright, would co-sign with him.
“I had bank managers asking me, ‘What guarantees us that you’re going to be employed in five years or two years or one year?’ And I said, ‘Well, what guarantees that you’re going to be employed?’”
The experience convinced Keleghan to press the Alliance of Canadian Cinema, Television and Radio Artists (ACTRA) to look seriously at starting its own credit union. The ball started rolling four years ago, and early in the new year, Ontario entertainment workers beleaguered by the credit crisis will have a tailor-made financial home, the Creative Arts Savings & Credit Union, to help weather the storm.
A similar entity, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists/Screen Actors Guild Credit Union, exists south of the border.
Keleghan, who made use of the AFTRA/SAG credit union while living in Los Angeles, says it accommodated the fluctuations and peculiarities of his earnings as an actor, and took a longer vision of his income, which would see one cheque a year or a windfall of work. It also offered advice on the technicalities of self-employment across multiple borders.
The main attractions for the Canadian institution, says Keleghan, are a board of directors composed of members elected by fellow members, and the fact that profits are funnelled back into the union rather than to outside shareholders.
“From our members’ perspective, I don’t think there’s any question that there has been, and will continue to be, a tightening of credit. What better time to have an organization that is your No. 1 advocate?” said union CEO Steve Mumford, who was headhunted from his general manager’s position at a Woodstock, Ontario-based credit union.
The Creative Arts Savings & Credit Union currently has three paid employees (the goal is to have five to seven). It has administrative offices in Toronto but will provide its services – including bank accounts, investment portfolios, mortgages, savings and loans- primarily through the Internet and phone. A small mobile team that can travel to meet clients “because [entertainment workers] are a very active bunch,” Mumford said.
Members of ACTRA and virtually any union, guild or association connected with it are eligible to join, as are their immediate families. Mumford hopes to sign up 700 members by the end of the first year and 4,000 members by the end of year five from an estimated pool of about 25,000 people.
But he hopes to eventually accept anyone in the entertainment industry, just as he would like to push the restrictions that now confine the credit union to Ontario.
Keleghan was careful to emphasize that the union is not a lender of last resort – “poor credit is poor credit” – but said they will work with members who can’t meet their loan conditions rather than showing them the door.
To succeed in convincing a group of increasingly fearful and reticent people to entrust their money to an infant institution, Mumford will need to lean heavily on the reputation of its founding investors. More than 100 members have contributed the $2.5 million in seed money needed to earn regulatory approval, among them Keleghan and his father in-law, renowned Newfoundland actor Gordon Pinsent, who put “a whack” of cash into investment shares.
“A lot of it from my point of view was putting my money where my mouth is”, said Keleghan, who was recently awarded ACTRA’s highest honour, the award of excellence, in part for his work creating the credit union. The most important service the union promises, according to Keleghan, is to take a broad view of a member’s income. Whereas low-earning or single-cheque years can scare banks away, they’re considered par for the course for many in entertainment.
“You can have someone who’s making a very decent overall living in this profession, but it’s up and down, it’s feast or famine,” Mumford said. |
