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NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA, FEB. 16, 2009 – National Rural Electric Cooperative Association honors Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative with Paul Revere Award, for the cooperative’s exemplary campaign to engage consumer members in a dialogue with elected officials on our energy future.
At the 2008 Annual Meeting in Anaheim, Calif., the NRECA launched the Our Energy, Our Future™ campaign, to begin a dialogue between electric consumers and their elected officials. Withlacoochee River Electric Cooperative (WREC) heard the call and one week later launched its own campaign to encourage consumer members to join in the campaign.
Jack Wolfe, president of the NRECA Board of Directors, presented the award to Billy Brown, general manager and executive vice-president of WREC on the opening day of NRECA’s 2009 Annual Meeting.
“Billy Brown understood immediately that this campaign is critical to the viability of the cooperative program as we head into very challenging times,” said Wolfe. “Billy not only showed foresight, he showed leadership: consumer-members from Withlacoochee have sent more messages to Congress than from any other distribution cooperative. As of February 9, the total number of messages sent to Congress from this cooperative is 158,697.”
Management but also staff at every level of the cooperative participated in the campaign, communicating with members. The cooperative’s goal was to get consumer-members talking about the energy challenges facing the cooperative and the need for balanced legislation.
While the cooperative used traditional communications tools, such as the member news letter, to educate members, the campaign focused on in-person communication. Wherever people gathered – at the State Fair, at community and civic group meetings – the cooperative had a presence with an Our Energy booth and people. For WREC, the “Our Energy” campaign was not a dialogue in name only: staff spoke to over 180 groups about the future of energy.
Only fifty percent of the cooperative’s consumer-members have Internet access, below the national average. The cooperative made it easy for members with “dialogue cards” that gave the cooperative permission to send emails to Congress on their behalf. The co-op also set up signs and computer terminals in the co-op, encouraging members to send emails when they came into the cooperative building on business.
The commitment of Billy Brown and senior staff guaranteed the success of this campaign. Brown set the direction and stayed closely involved with the details of implementation. At the same time, the full engagement of the staff put the number of emails over the top.
The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association is the national service organization that represents the nation’s more than 900 private, not-for-profit, consumer-owned electric cooperatives, which provide service to 42 million people in 47 states.
Nearly 9,000 representatives from cooperative electric utilities across the nation are attending the NRECA Annual Meeting, February 15-18, at the New Orleans Convention Center, during which they will set NRECA’s legislative and organizational agenda for 2009. In addition to considering and acting upon policy resolutions, delegates receive reports from NRECA officials, hear addresses by key public figures and business experts, and attend panel sessions on major issues affecting electric cooperatives and their consumer owners.
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