Well, it’s been a while since I updated our blog….

Things have been moving along at a rapid pace here at Eastern Illini. We had our annual meeting in June and despite a huge storm we had a great crowd! Almost 2,000 people attending the meeting. We offered members a carnival like atmosphere, a great meal (with a snack option), games and activities for the kids, and a wide range of seminar topics. Oh yeah, we also gave all attending members a $25 bill credit. Yep, free money, just for coming!

We attended several events this summer, including the Iroquois County Fair. In 14 years of going to that fair, this was – without a doubt – the hottest week EVER!! We are still looking forward to the Half Century of Progress show in Rantoul at the end of August, and the Farm Progress Show in Decatur right after that.

Another big event for us this summer was the announcement that our wholesale power provider, Prairie Power, Inc. (PPI is made up of 10 electric cooperatives in Illinois) has entered into a purchase agreement to buy some wind energy from a new wind farm being built right here in Paxton.

Wind farms are a touchy topic for some people, but at the end of the day, PPI decided that it was in our best interest to diversify our power portfolio. The price was right (it won’t have an impact on your electric bills) and the location was right (it will bring in tax dollars and jobs in our footprint).

Welcome to the last installment of our “What makes a cooperative different?” blog series.

Directors and employees at Eastern Illini want to see the communities we serve succeed. Why? The answer’s simple: we live here, too.

Local people working for local good. That’s the essence of the Seventh Cooperative Principle, “Concern for Community,” one of seven guidelines that governs electric cooperative operations.

First and foremost, Eastern Illini strengthens our communities by doing what we do best: providing a safe and reliable supply of electricity at an affordable cost. As our service area grows, so does our distribution system. So it’s easy to see why strengthening the local economy makes sound business sense. Your board of directors and staff supports policies and projects that are good for the communities we serve because what’s good for our community is good for the co-op.

We have strong community roots. Eastern Illini – through our two original cooperatives (Illini Electric and Eastern Illinois Electric) has been in business for 75 years— so you know we’re not going anywhere. Our business was founded here by members just like you, and we are not going to pull up stakes to pursue greener pastures elsewhere.

We pay our employees fair wages because that in turn helps strengthen the economy when they spend that money here. And by providing good-paying jobs, we keep our towns healthy because employees and their families don’t have to move away to make a decent living. The more people we retain here paying taxes and contributing to their communities, the more vibrant they will be.

We also work hard to provide other value-added products and services in our communities, like AQUAlity Solutions and CONXXUS.

Benefits our communities reap from our presence aren’t only financial. We open doors for our young people with scholarship programs and the annual Rural Electric Youth Tour trip to Washington, D.C. We teach children safety through programs in schools and online. We help members identify ways to save money by performing home and business energy audits. Touchstone Energy’s Together We Save campaign is another way we help you learn to manage your energy usage. On www.togetherwesave.com, you can learn how the little changes add up to big savings on your monthly electric bill.

Eastern Illini was formed locally, and it’s still managed by your friends and neighbors. Our employees go out of their way to serve by coaching youth sports teams, volunteering on school committees, participating in church activities, and even serving in various elected offices. Many are co-op members like you, and like you they want to make their communities stronger.

When it comes to Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative, community comes first. That’s the cooperative difference.

You’ve probably heard the saying, “There’s power in numbers.” I have to agree. Cooperation is a key word for electric cooperatives, and a concept vital to our form of business.

Consumer-owned co-ops like Eastern Illini operate under seven key guidelines, including the Sixth Cooperative Principle, “Cooperation Among Cooperatives.” In short, electric cooperatives serve their members best while strengthening the overall co-op movement by working together.

At the most basic level, electric cooperatives support one another in times of crisis. If a storm or other disaster hits one of our sister cooperatives, we offer whatever help we can to ensure that service gets restored as quickly as possible. If we need help, our electric co-op “family” will be there for us.

We also collaborate with other co-ops to better serve you, our member/owners, and communities we serve with programs such as collective advertising and promotion of the Co-op Connections Card Program.

When it comes to local and statewide issues, electric co-ops in Illinois combine forces through the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives (AIEC) our statewide association. The results show that when small organizations such as electric co-ops use the power of aggregation, we grow in clout, efficiency, and economy. By working together, good things happen.

The power of numbers gives us a louder voice at the state capitol when legislators make decisions that affect us. We share training resources and expertise. By working through the AIEC we lower printing and production costs of the Illinois Country Living magazine through economies of scale.

Nationally, we collaborate with other electric co-ops through the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), the Arlington, Va.-based national service organization representing more than 900 consumer-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives, public power districts, and public utility districts in the United States. NRECA presents a unified consumer voice, particularly through the Our Energy, Our Future campaign, a grassroots movement among electric co-ops and their members urging lawmakers to create legislation that’s in the best interest of electric co-ops. Not only does the organization have the ears of Washington, D.C., decision-makers, it also represents cooperative interests before federal regulatory bodies. And through NRECA’s Cooperative Research Network, we receive information about new technologies that can help us control costs, improve productivity, and deliver superior service to you.

We also belong to Touchstone Energy® Cooperatives, a national marketing and trade group for electric cooperatives that provides us with communications and advertising support, programs like the Co-op Connections® membership card, and tools like an online energy calculator. Our participation in Touchstone Energy extends the benefits of cooperation even further and delivers greater value to you, our member.

Even if we were in this alone, Eastern Illini would still provide you with the very best service at the lowest price possible. But when we pool our resources—work cooperatively—we offer you better value. In addition, by adding our voice to a grand chorus of fellow cooperatives, our message gets heard loud and clear by legislators. And that’s the cooperative difference.

By reading this blog post, you’re helping Eastern Illini fulfill the Fifth Cooperative Principle, “Education, Training, and Information,”one of seven guidelines that govern cooperative operations.

In fact, our online presence is one of the main ways we try to educate you about electricity and efficiency. Through this blog, our website, and our twitter feed, we can communicate directly with you, our member/owners, on important co-op business like bylaws changes and director elections. We also share energy-saving tips to save you money and safety information that could save your life.

But we don’t stop there. We sponsor programs to educate youth in our service areas with free electrical safety demonstrations at any local school. We will also visit schools to talk about energy efficiency and climate change. Visit our website to get more information about our youth programs: http://www.eiec.org/comm_programs.html.

We also support student education through our Youth to Washington scholarship program, and we also send the scholarship winners to Washington, D.C., for a week every summer as part of the nationally organized Rural Electric Youth Tour. Youth Tour students receive an all-expenses-paid trip to the nation’s capital to visit historic sites, see important governmental buildings, meet lawmakers, and learn how our system of government works. To find out more about our scholarships, visit our website at: http://www.eiec.org/comm_scholarships.html.

Our education efforts extend to our employees as well. We encourage and support them in taking courses to improve on-the-job skills through our state organization, The Association of Illinois Electric Cooperative (AIEC), or the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), the Arlington, Va.-based national service organization representing more than 900 consumer-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives, public power districts, and public utility districts in the United States.

We believe well-trained employees are more valuable to the co-op and can provide you, our members, with the high quality of service you’ve come to expect.

We also sponsor safety seminars for our linemen, field workers, and office personnel. This education is vital to keeping our workforce safe and reduces costs involved with lost-time accidents.

Keeping you informed – so you can vote for directors, learn to manage your energy usage, or understand how your co-op employees are working to better serve you – is one of our most important responsibilities.

That’s the cooperative difference.

At Eastern Illini, we’re not alone in our mission to deliver a safe, reliable, and affordable supply of power to rural residents. There are 25 electric distribution cooperatives like us in Illinois and more than 850 nationwide. Despite our obvious similarities, each co-op is different—first and foremost because the areas we serve are unique.

Each co-op boasts its own history and serves a distinctive mix of residential, industrial, commercial, and agricultural consumer-members. All make their own business decisions independently, as described in the Fourth Cooperative Principle, “Autonomy and Independence.” It’s one of seven unique guidelines that govern cooperative operations.

Electric cooperatives are generally subject to less oversight by federal and state utility regulators because of the healthy way in which you, our members, regulate us. This independence, enshrined in the laws of most states, rests on our historic commitment to the communities we serve.

Remaining autonomous and independent allows us to best serve the needs of you, our owners. That’s because what might be a sound decision for one co-op, say, with a relatively small number of members spread out over an extremely rural area, might not work for another that has a larger number of members in a more urban setting. Local service and attention to your unique needs explains why having local control is best for each locally owned and governed electric co-op.

But although Eastern Illini sails our own ship, so to speak, we are not sailing alone. Our co-op belongs to a statewide association, the Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives; a generation and transmission cooperative, Prairie Power, Inc., which purchases and generates the power we deliver to you; and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), the Arlington, Va.-based national service organization representing more than 900 consumer-owned, not-for-profit electric cooperatives, public power districts, and public utility districts in the United States. We are also a member of Touchstone Energy Cooperatives, an alliance of more than 700 electric cooperatives nationwide.

These umbrella groups provide support and products like the Illinois Country Living Magazine and valuable safety courses for our employees. Touchstone Energy gives us access to online energy audits and energy efficiency marketing campaigns. Our statewide association and NRECA advocate for us with lawmakers in Springfield and Washington, D.C., keeping these public officials aware of how their votes can impact our electric bills.

Despite these benefits, none of these groups tells us what to do. Decisions about how to deliver your electricity at the lowest possible cost are left to our employees and to our board of directors, who are elected by you, our member/owners.

On occasion, we might need a large amount of capital to pay for expansion. We can borrow it from a number of sources including the National Rural Utilities Cooperative Finance Corporation, a private market lender that’s organized and controlled by electric cooperatives. Of course, while we enter into any agreement—whether it’s regarding financing or to buy materials or contracting with a company to perform line work for us—with a great deal of deliberation, no deal gives a third-party control over our operations.

Leaders of our co-op, who are also members just like you, know this area and its needs well. Our ability to make our own decisions allows us to serve you in the most efficient way possible. And that’s the way it should be.

Ever wonder who owns your power company? If you get electricity from Eastern Illini, the answer’s easy—look in the mirror.

You and other folks who receive electricity from us are the member/owners. Of course, being an owner doesn’t mean you can drive to a substation and take home a transformer or borrow a spool of wire. Those assets are owned collectively by everyone who has signed up for electric service. A portion of the electric bill you pay each month, in fact, goes into building distribution infrastructure—poles, wires, and substations—that bring you a steady supply of power.

Cooperatives follow a unique consumer-focused business model led by a set of seven principles. The Third Cooperative Principle, “Members’ Economic Participation,” requires all of us to chip in a bit on our monthly bill to keep Eastern Illini in good shape.

Your cooperative conducts business locally. Investments we make in infrastructure don’t profit someone in an area far away—benefits stay right here in our community. We also provide plenty of other services you have asked for, including: standby generators, water quality products (through our subsidiary AQUAlity Solutions), long distance services, surge protection, and a suite of telecommunications services.

Paying your monthly bill does more than build lines, buy equipment, and purchase wholesale electricity. You also pay the salaries of our hard-working employees, who live right here in the community. They, in turn, buy goods at local businesses, spreading income around and boosting our local economy.

Here’s another membership perk: you get money back. We’re not-for-profit, so any funds left over after bills have been paid, infrastructure built, and an emergency fund established, goes into a capital credits account for each co-op member/owner. Then, when our board of directors determines the co-op is in good financial shape, this capital is returned to you, either as a check or bill credit. How much money you get back depends on how much electricity you used.

Capital credit refunds are to you what dividends are to stockholders at for-profit companies. Only we don’t aim to make a profit. Our goal is to provide you with electricity at a price that is as close to cost as possible. That way, more of your money stays in your pocket—up front.

In short, you are receiving a vital resource, electricity, from a business owned and operated by you, your friends, and neighbors. Working together, we provide you with the highest level of service we can while striving to keep your electric bills affordable.

And that’s the cooperative difference.

For folks new to Eastern Illini (and for those old hands who might need reminding), let me introduce you to the Second Cooperative Principle, “Democratic Member Control,” one of seven guidelines that govern cooperative operations. That means you, as a member/owner of Eastern Illini, ultimately select who represents you on the co-op’s Board of Directors and determines the strategic direction of our local, not-for-profit business.

It’s not an easy task. Responsibilities stack up, and time commitments are considerable. Besides attending hours of meetings every month, each director must continuously educate himself or herself about the complex business of electricity production and distribution. Directors also spend lots of their free time boning up on the intricacies of strategic planning and financial decision-making. Our directors must take a series of courses and receive their Credentialed Cooperative Director Certification to serve on the board.

But the learning doesn’t end there. Numerous other classes and seminars cover topics that must be part of each director’s pool of knowledge. And after all of that education, sorting through difficult choices remain.

Like any successful democracy, this decision-making process does not operate in the dark. We keep you informed about the financial condition of the co-op, tell you when situations arise that could affect your bill or service, and educate you about the issues involved. We do this through our PowerLines newsletter (included in your monthly billing statement), through our website, through our annual report, and, most importantly, during face-to-face conversations, whether at our annual meeting or other events, or even just a conversation in the local supermarket.

In a democracy, member participation is crucial. That’s why it is important for you, if you care about how your co-op operates, to attend our various meetings and let us know when issues arise that need our attention. Consider giving your time, whether in service on the board or on various committees.

Co-ops are different than other forms of businesses because of you, our members, and because of the way decisions are made. We welcome and encourage your involvement. After all, it’s YOUR co-op.

Welcome to a new segment on the Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative blog.  Each week for the next seven weeks, we will let you know exactly what being a member/owner of cooperative means, and how you benefit from being part of a cooperative family.  Enjoy!

Now, as always, it’s a good time to be a member of an electric cooperative.

Not only are co-ops locally owned and controlled—by you, our member/owners—they are locally run to serve your needs.

While many Illinois electricity consumers pay power bills to companies that answer to far-away stockholders who demand a healthy profit every quarter, local members call the shots at electric co-ops like ours. Co-ops aren’t under pressure to keep rates high enough to generate big profits. Instead, co-ops try to keep your bill as low as possible while providing high-quality service. Co-ops invest money in excess of operating costs back into the business locally or return the excess (known as margins) to you in the form of capital credits.

And unlike the boards of directors of investor-owned utilities who keep an eye on generating profits for people living far away, your co-op’s directors (fellow members, by the way) have only one thing in mind: keeping lights on safely, reliably, and keeping costs affordable in our local community. That’s why you elected them. And that’s what’s so great about co-ops. If you don’t like the direction your co-op is taking, you have the power to change the leadership through democratic means.

You may know the history of the electric cooperative movement, how seven decades ago rural residents banded together to bring the conveniences of electricity to their communities when investor-owned utilities would not extend service. The associations they formed, on the same democratic principles as this great nation, are as strong and relevant today as they were back then.

But co-ops are not just products of a proud past. These days, Americans from all walks of life have come to recognize the co-op approach—members working together to achieve price and service benefits—can work for other needs just as effectively as it delivered affordable power to rural Americans.

The seven principles upon which electric co-ops were founded—voluntary and open membership, democratic member control, and members’ economic participation, among others—are as meaningful today as they were when electric co-ops began in the 1930s.
Leadership at Eastern Illini shares the same concerns as you, our members. We are accessible. You can give us a call or send us an e-mail and know someone here is listening. And at our annual meeting, held each year in June, you can visit with us in person and share insights on how you want your business operated.

In these days of economic turmoil, folks who receive electricity from co-ops are lucky. As locally owned and operated businesses, electric co-ops understand the people they serve. Directors and employees at your co-op share the same values and have the same pride of place as you do because it is our community, too. We act like neighbors because we are neighbors.

That’s the cooperative difference.

May is National Electrical Safety Month

I heard a pretty amazing story the other day. It involved two teens in Indiana, Lee Whittaker and Ashley Taylor, who were driving down the road with some friends when their car started to fishtail. Lee did his best to keep the vehicle on the road. But before he knew it he was sliding straight into a utility pole—and that pole came down, lines and all, right on top of his overturned car.
Now, most folks faced with this situation would do what comes naturally: get out of the car. But Lee and Ashley knew better. Not a week earlier they had attended a safety demonstration at their school sponsored by their local electric co-op. One of the key messages relayed was “stay in your car if it ever hits a power pole, where you’ll be safe from any electrical current.”
The two did just that, and kept their friends in the car and family members at a safe distance once they arrived. As a result, the entire group walked away with just a few minor injuries. However, without a basic knowledge of electrical safety, the outcome that night could have been much different.
The electricity Eastern Illini provides day-in and day-out is a phenomenal resource, powering our modern lifestyles in a safe, reliable, and affordable way. But electricity must be respected: if safety isn’t made a priority, what changes our lives for the better could change them for the worse in an instant.
Lee and Ashley know this from experience, and we’re striving to keep you informed of electrical safety so you don’t have to learn a similar lesson the hard way.
Safety has been a part of the fundamental culture at Eastern Illini since day one. Being an electric lineworker is ranked by the U.S. Department of Labor as one of the top ten most dangerous jobs, on the same list as fisherman, loggers, and military servicemen. We demand that not only those out in the field, but employees at all levels make safety a top priority.
As part of our safety commitment, please take time to learn how you can be safe around electricity at home. Spending just a few minutes with some helpful resources can make all the difference when you’re faced with a possible unsafe situation. For more information on electrical safety, please visit our website, at www.eiec.coop, as well as SafeElectricity.org and Electrical-Safety.org.
I hope there won’t be any stories about Eastern Illini members getting into sticky situations like Lee and Ashley. But if there are, a few minutes spent studying safety today could ensure a happy ending.

Nominating petitions now available for the June 10 director election.

Directors in Directorate Districts 1 and 7 will be elected on June 10, 2010, at Eastern Illini’s Annual Meeting.

Incumbent directors Kay Horsch, of Dewey, District 7 and Harold M. Loy, of Beaverville, District 1, have indicated they will seek re-election.

Any Eastern Illini member interested in being elected to the board of directors may pick up a nominating petition at Eastern Illini’s headquarters at 330 W. Ottawa in Paxton. The petition must be signed by at least 25 Eastern Illini members.

Petitions need to be filed at Eastern Illini’s headquarters in Paxton no later than 5 p.m. on Monday, April 26, 2010.

The Credentials Committee will meet at the cooperative’s headquarters on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, to review the qualifications of all candidates who file nominating petitions to determine their eligibility to serve as directors of Eastern Illini.

Based on the results of the recent special meeting of members, Eastern Illini’s Board of Directors will be officially decreased to nine members (from 11), effective at the June 10 annual meeting.

This change, overwhelmingly approved during the special meeting, will allow board members to continue to provide adequate representation for all Eastern Illini members, while lowering expenses.