As Basin Electric gears up for its annual meeting, the cooperative’s audio/visual and graphic design teams have already been busy helping member co-ops with their own annual meetings.
“This service provides our team with a touchpoint with our members and helps us understand their needs so that we can better tailer our programs and services to meet those needs and help make their job a little easier,” Jeremy Woeste, supervisor of Member Relations, said. “These touchpoints assist in relationship building and keeping an open line of communication with our members.”
Most member co-op meetings are held in late May and early June, according to Juan Thomas, multimedia specialist III and audio/visual producer at Basin Electric, with a few meetings scattered in the fall. In total, he said the team assists around 17 member co-ops with their annual meetings.
The team helps these cooperatives in several ways. Among them is providing screens and projectors, cameras and digital streaming, and running videos and PowerPoint presentations. Thomas also said there are several “add-ons” such as setting up podiums with TVs and the member co-op’s logo, providing background and stage lighting, setting up audio speakers and mixers, and making sure microphones are available for Q&A sessions.
“We also produce some video to show at annual meetings,” he said. Besides the time spent on these projects, there’s also the time it takes to load, travel, and set up—and then break down the equipment after the meeting and travel back to headquarters. The time it takes to prepare for a meeting varies from one co-op to the next, as some are more time intensive than others.
Joy Schnabel, multimedia specialist II at Basin Electric, says she and others on the graphic design team also help co-ops throughout the year.
“Spring is a popular time for annual meeting help,” she said. “This past season, I started design work for annual meeting projects in November and finished in May. However, things pop up all throughout the year.”
The next member co-op to hold its annual meeting is Basin Electric Class C member West Central Electric Cooperative on Oct. 10 in Murdo, South Dakota. But there’s not much downtime for the Basin Electric team, as they’re preparing for Basin Electric’s own annual meeting on Aug. 12-14 in Bismarck, North Dakota.
“Our annual meeting is huge for the graphics area,” Schnabel said. “We have tons of digital graphics for social media and our websites, PowerPoints, signage, name tags, retractable banners, cards and tickets, and so much more. It is something we work on for several months in advance to make sure everything is done professionally and communicated well.”
