News > Manager’s Message: 2018 Annual Meeting Invite

Manager’s Message: 2018 Annual Meeting Invite

The Power of Your Co-op Membership

I would like to personally invite each and every member to the 81st Annual Meeting of Stearns Electric Association at the Melrose High School Auditorium. This year’s meeting will be held on Thursday evening, April 5th. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. with the business meeting taking place from 7-8 p.m. After the Annual Meeting, we will have an ice cream social in the lobby.
 
The Annual Meeting is not only an opportunity to visit with fellow members of the Co-op, but to get to know your Board of Directors and the employees that work for you. We have a goal each year to keep our business meeting short, but meaningful. The leadership team and I will give a business report, which contains pertinent information on the finances and operations of the Cooperative for the past year. We’ll share with each of you the accomplishments from 2017, our plans for 2018 and the recent results of our cost of service study. We take seriously our obligation to share in a transparent manner any issue or event that has had a significant impact on the Cooperative. This is an opportunity to learn more about the topics that impact you and talk about what we as a community can do to address our most pressing challenges and take advantage of available opportunities.
 
By now, each member should have received an Annual Report containing the 2017 financials, as well as operations and performance measures for the past year. We encourage you to review this report to learn about your Cooperative. Please don’t hesitate to ask questions.
 
Your Cooperative is not owned by far-away investors with a Board you have never met. We are owned by you, our member-owners, and run by a democratically elected Board that is given the privilege to serve because of your vote. The ability to choose who governs your electric utility is an advantage of being a member-owner and should not be taken lightly. In addition to the Annual Report, active members in Districts 4, 5 and 9 (districts in which a director election is being held) have received a voting ballot and have the opportunity to vote for the director of their choice by mail or in person at the Annual Meeting. (For information on each of the candidates running in this year’s election visit www.stearnselectric.org.)
 
Almost as important as the director election, I believe, is the opportunity for members to be heard during the question and answer period towards the end of each meeting. We, as employees and directors, fully understand we work for you, and it is our duty to give you an answer to any business-related question.
 
We are committed to doing our best to serve you and we appreciate hearing from you on how we can serve you better. I look forward to seeing you at the 81st Annual Meeting on April 5th.