Things you didn't know about UCU employees...

Spot light on:

Michael Zienchuk

Michael poses for his newspaper photo

Michael Zienchuk was born and raised in Kitchener, Ontario. His parents were big on education so in addition to regular school Michael and his brothers attended Ukrainian Saturday school. On top of that commitment, Michael also managed to pack in violin lessons, reaching a grade 10 level and completing the Royal Conservatory of Music performance exam before deciding that a career in music would not be in the cards. Being an athletic sort, Michael played many sports and was part of his highschool’s basketball team.

Michael is a well-traveled and worldly individual. As a student, he spent time working in Finland. His degrees include a PoliSci BA from the University of Waterloo, and MA in International Political Economy from the University of Reading (UK) and an MBA from the Ivey School of Business.

After graduation, he did a stint in Kyiv, Ukraine as an advisor to Roman Shpek, who was then the Minister of Economy in Ukraine. As part of this effort, Michael was a member of a team of economic advisors led by Prof. Anders Aslund and funded by George Soros that was working with the Ukrainian government. Michael was in charge of running the Kyiv office and following fiscal issues.

Michael recalls many memorable moments in Ukraine, including witnessing what 10,000% inflation in one year is like (a good bit of experience for someone who is tasked with managing, growing and safeguarding peoples’ life savings we think!). He also got to travel with the Ukrainian governmental delegation to the IMF/World Bank annual meetings in Madrid, Spain (1994) and Washington, DC (1995).

While in Ukraine, Michael married Svitlana Bohoslavetz and welcomed their first child Liza into the world.

Other memorable moments include the trans-Ukrainian Express from Kyiv to Simferopil, which Michael rates very highly (NOT!!! – he says – LOL we say), swimming in both the Chorne More (Black Sea) and Azivske More (Sea of Aziv) as well as in the Dnipro River, and translating for Prof. Jeffery Sachs during his first meeting with Viktor Yushchenko when Yushchenko was the Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine.

Now Michael is heading up the wealth management department at UCU. He enters that role at an exciting time when a great opportunity has opened up to steer the wealth management department into a new phase. You’ve already seen a bit of Michael’s knowledge in our regular Meest financial article series where Michael has written about gold and is preparing additional articles. You will also see and hear much more of him around town as he embarks on his mission to help people make sense of their financial options in an uncertain world.

To read about other UCU employees that have been featured in a Spot Light please visit this page: Spot Light On...

Oldest Ukrainian Catholic Parish in Ontario celebrates 100th Anniversary



Parishioners gather in front of
Ontario's oldest
Ukrainian Catholic Parish

On Sunday August 20, the parisioners of the Ukrainian Catholic Church of the Transfiguration of Jesus Christ celebrated the church's 100th anniversary. The celebration was led by his excellency Bishop Stephen Chmilar.

It is the oldest Ukrainian Catholic Parish in all of Ontario! The church building was completed in 1918 and blessed by Nyjyta Budka, the first Ukrainian Catholic Bishop of Canada. Since then it has hosted such dignitaries as the Patriarchs Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and Cardinal Jospeh Slipyj. 

The parish priest Reverend Volodymyr Chvets and representatives of the Ukrainian Orthodox and Roman Catholic accompanied the Bishop in the mass.



Article in The Chronicle Journal
by Stefan Huzan

You can read more about this event in the attached article that ran in The Chronicle Journal.

Ukrainian Credit Union Branch Manager Oksana Harapyuk, a long-time parishioner at the Church of the Transfiguration, and her co-worker Danuta Sterniczuk, attended as  representatitves of our credit union. Oksana gave a short congratualtory speech and present a donation from the credit union to the parish in honour of this great occasion.

Oksana Harapyuk presents a donation to the parish
on behalf of Ukrainian Credit Union Limited

More pictures are available on our Facebook page!

New entries to Summer Photo Contest

So while we were on a bit of a summer break from blogging, we've had a couple of new photos added to the Summer Photo Contest 2011. This brings us up to a total of 5 contests. There is still lots of time to enter your own picture and try to win one of the prizes! So far we have a bit of a race for the People's Choice Award between two entries. But considering the highest vote so far is 6, this is really anyone's game at the moment!



*Added with parental permission.



To vote for one of these contestants or for one of the previous entries, click on the picture, this will take you to our Facebopok page. Then vote by clicking the like button under your favourite picture(s). You may have to "like" the UCU facebook page first in order to vote. Also, since we don't seem to be able to add these two pictures to the actual contest folder, you will have to go to this album to see the rest of the contests.
For more info read:

• First three entries
• Summer Photo Contest 2011 Rules

Summer Photo Contest 2011 Update

Our first three contestants are now entered into the UCU Summer Photo Contest 2011 on Facebook. They are:

To vote on one of these candidates click on their picture to go to our Facebook page, then click the "Like" button under one or more pictures that you wish to vote for. Incidentally, as of 2:30pm on Friday August 19, Zenon Chwaluk (Contestant #3) was leading in both the race for the Grand Prize and for the People's Choice Award. You're not going to let him just walk away with both are you?

To enter the contest yourself, read this post: Summer Photo Contest.

Mandry update - Autograph signing announced!

Its less than a month now when Mandry will appear on the main stage at the Bloor West Village Ukrainian Festival. In addition to the performance, we will be holding an autograph signing session at the Bloor St. UCU branch at 2397 Bloor St. West (corner of Armadale). Pick up your souvenir autograph postcard at any UCU branch before the festival so that the band can sign it for you on Saturday September 17.

The festival organizers have now posted a short promo video about their appearance.

For more info about Mandry click here. Here are a few little tastes of the songs that you can expect to hear at the main stage on Satruday 17, August at the corner of Bloor and Jane in the Village.

Rusalka



Kartata Sorochka

Lyubov

Kalyna

 

Romansero pro Nizhnu Korolevu

Hope to see you at the concert!

IUFT Toronto 2011 Update

We've posted a whole bunch of new photos on Facebook and a few videos on our YouTube channel.

Videos

IUFT Toronto 2011 Opening Day - Prelude


IUFT Toronto 2011 Opening Day - Parade

IUFT Toronto 2011 Highlights of Great Britain-Australia game Monday Aug 15.

UCU - Great Britain connection made at IUFT!

Today we discovered that UCU has a bit of a connection to the team representing Great Britain at IUFT Toronto 2011 which is going on right now.

The son of Anna Horbal, who works at our Windsor branch is playing for Great Britain (Jersey #2).

Mark Horbal (#2) enters the field with Great Britain

To see more IUFT picutres, please visit our Facebook page.

For information tickets on tickets to IUFT games, please visit our community events page.

For additional information please visit the official IUFT Toronto 2011 page.

IUFT Kicks off with a bang



Canada takes possession of the ball early in Game1 against Australia



Yulia sings before the first game.



IUFT football now rules Centennial Park in Etobicoke. Day one on Saturday saw Canada A defeat Australia 4-1. Granted, the Aussies were quite jetlagged, having flown in the previous day. And its winter down under right now so, one can forgive their opening performance. The Aussie goalie noticably improved in the second half, making several spectacular saves one after the other as Canada A hammered him repeatedly.

The Canadians looked pretty fast on their feet. We'll have to see how they do against a well rested opponent. Team USA also won their opening match on Sunday, so perhaps we are heading for a North American final on Saturday August 20? Come out and see for yourself.



The audience watches Canada
attack the Australian net.



Anyway, you can see photos here on our facebook page: IUFT Toronto 2011.

UCU volunteers take a break
to watch the game.

Summer Photo Contest

Grand Prize $100!!!!

+ 10 Earlybird Prizes

and People's Choice award

 

 

Submit a photo of yourself wearing UCU sunglasses - which we are distributing at the IUFT Toronto 2011 games on Saturday August 13, Sunday August 14 and Saturday August 20 (or other UCU branded swag such as a t-shirt, ball cap or other item) - to our Facebook page www.facebook.com/ucuykc and win one of several prizes!

To qualify for the UCU Summer Photo Contest you must enter by September 22 (end of summer!) Winner will be determined at 12:01 AM September 23, 2011

Grand Prize

The Grand prize of a $100 restaurant gift card will be given to the person who submits a group photo with the most people in it who are wearing UCU (or So-Use branded items). In case of a tie, one winner will be randomly drawn. Choice of restaurant subject to availability of gift certificates.

An example of a group photo with So-Use ball caps- if you wanted to beat this you'd have to submit a photo with 8 peopole. This photo is just an example and does not qualify for the contest.

Early Bird Prizes

The first ten people to submit a photo will automatically win a $10 Time Horton's Card. The order of submissions will be determined by looking at the Facebook timestamp on when a photo was submitted. UCU will be the sole judge of order of submission in case of any disputes.

People's Choice Award

People's Choice winner from the
Spring edition of the contest

The picture that gathers the most "LIKES" on Facebook will win a $50 People's Choice award in the form of a gift certificate to a restaurant of your choice (choice of restaurant subject to availability of gift certificates).

How to enter

Step 1:   Take a photo of yourself modeling your UCU/So-Use branded gear.

Step 2:   Post your photo on the UCU facebook page: www.facebook.com/ucuykc into the Summer Photo Contest 2011 photo album (if you don't have a facebook account, email your picture to contest@ukrainiancu.com and we'll post it for you.)

So… pull out that t-shirt from tabir that’s UCU branded, that mug in your baba’s cupboard that has been there since you can remember, or that package of breath mints which really came in handy last night.

Show Us Your Member Spirit!

VOTE for Contestants here:
Entry #1
Entry #2
Entry #3
Entry #4
Entry #5


Small print and contest rules

Applicant must be 18 years of age or older. (or have parental permission to upload photos)

By posting your photo you give UCU rights to use the photo for promotional purposes.

UCU reserves the right at its sole discretion to reject any photos deemed inappropriate.

Limit of one $5 prize per person.

Early bird prizes are not available to UCU employees. However UCU employees can qualify for the People's Choice and Grand Prize awards.



IUFT ticket winners

A couple of our recent IUFT Toronto 2011 ticket winners dropped by today to pick them up so we took the opportunity to photograph them while they were here!

Rev. Ihor Panchyshyn of St. Mary's Ukrainian
Catholic Church (Leeds) won two tickets

Stephanie Pinchak picked up tickets on behalf of
 her husband Alex who also won two tickets.

Irena Urbanky was another lucky winner who
dropped by our offices at Bloor and Durie today

Youth leadership in the community

Noviy Shliakh article
on youth leaders

Recently our Youth Marketing Officer Kristen Glover, who is also very active in the UNF was recognized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress for her work in helping re-energize the MYHO youth organization. Most recently Kristen's hard work resulted in a string of highly successful children's summer day camps in various towns with an UNO branch.

Page 2 of article

You can read about her award in the pages of Noviy Shliakh the Ukrainian language weekly serving the Ukrainian Community. We've attached some jogs of the pages that contain the story.

 Also awarded for his work in SUSK and Plast was Andrij Wodoslawsky. He was also recognized for an innovative game that he recently published called "Za Volyu". Andriy is the son of the former Vice-Chair of the UCU Board George Wodoslawsky.

Final draw for IUFT Toronto 2011 Tickets - Winners announced

We have just informed the last batch of winners of tickets for the IUFT Toronto 2011 soccer tournament that is beginning this Saturday!

The winners each will receive two VIP tickets to games held at the Centennial Park Stadium on Saturday August 13, Sunday August 14 and Saturday August 20.

The winners are:

Irena Urbanska
Robert Farnworth
Bohdan Zabansky
Barry M. Walker
Alex Pinchak

Mr. Zabansky, due to prior commitments, graciously asked that we draw another name in his stead. And so the final set of tickets goes to:

Ihor Panchyshyn

We posted pictures of some of the winners here.

Winners of the previous batch of IUFT 2011 tickets are listed here, scroll near the bottom of the page to see them.

There is still time to buy tickets to this great event at one of our branches in the GTA as well as in London or St. Catharines. Read more here: Buying tickets at UCU

Also, there is still time to win one of the two sets of TFC tickets that we have available. See details here: Toronto FC Contest.

Read more about IUFT Toronto 2011 on their web page http://www.iuft.net/

Jobs!!!!

Why not help us Build Community from the inside? We currently have two exciting positions open. One at our flagship branch in Bloor West Village and one in the Systems Department.

Member Services Officer - Bloor Branch

Oracle/Linux Administrator - Systems Departments

If you have what it takes to work for a $500+ financial institution that serves customers across Ontario from 13 branches and other service points, then click on one of the links above. We would love to have you on board.

We have our first e-Statement iPod contest winner!

Eugene Ladna is the first person to win an iPod Nano in our e-Statement contest. His name was drawn from among those people who opted to stop receiving paper statements from UCU on or before August 30, 2011.

Since then the following people have been drawn for the other 4 iPod Nanos:

• Olena Dzybak
• Tatiana Koroliova
• Valerie Roberts
• Ludmilla Goy

To learn more about e-Statements visit our website. Or go directly to the contest page.

Everyone who enters on or before September 30, 2011 will also have a chance to win the Grand Prize of an iPad. Keep your eye on the blog for future announcements of winners.