Meeting Details
This year, Heartland is opening up drive-through registration for our annual meeting on Tuesday, March 28, in three locations: our Girard office, Allen County Fairgrounds in Iola, and Linn County Fairgrounds in Mound City. Each member who registers (with a maximum of one per household) will receive a $25 bill credit and be entered into drawings for cash prizes.
Registration will run from 4 to 6 p.m. at each location and the meeting will begin at 6 p.m.
There is no in-person component to the meeting; after registering, members are encouraged to head home and watch the meeting livestream on Facebook Live or YouTube.
Watch on YouTube
Watch on Facebook Live
Bylaw Voting Details
When members drive through to register, they will have the opportunity to vote on some important changes to the cooperative’s bylaws. The changes fall into the following categories:
Increased flexibility in joint memberships
- This change would allow for joint memberships between two or more individuals living in the same household.
Allowance of online meetings and electronic voting
- Heartland has no plans to do away with mail-in voting, but current bylaws prevent offering an electronic option, even on a secure electronic device during drive-through registration. This change would allow more flexibility in the future.
Updates to director qualifications
- These changes would update the bylaws related to board member eligibility to match current best practices as suggested by our national trade organization, NRECA.
Removal of the primary process for director voting
- The bylaws currently require a vote-by-mail primary when more than two qualified candidates run for a single seat on our board, but that primary process has become increasingly slow and expensive. These changes would eliminate the primary and consolidate the election to a single mail-in vote.
In addition, there are many small changes to numbering and formatting to ensure ADA compliance.
You can compare the current bylaws with the proposed revisions by downloading them from our Bylaws page.
The Heartland Board of Directors recommends the adoption of these changes as presented. When you receive your paper ballot during drive-through registration, keep in mind that a “yes” vote is a vote in favor of the proposed changes.
If you have any questions, please reach out to us at info@heartland-rec.com or call us at (800) 835-9586.