This fall, MEEA hit the road to shake off the small talk cobwebs and dip our toes into small, safe networking gatherings again. In seven weeks, we visited six cities to host our members for happy hours, each offering outdoor space to distance and mingle with snacks and cocktails.

These six events brought the first time I’d been in an airport or on a plane—or at a work gathering in 19 months—and I was nervous, but pleasantly surprised at the number of masks and understanding head nods I got throughout my travels.

Currently, around 90% of the population in the United States is under a stay-at-home order, with many of us working remotely and away from our colleagues. While this is a stressful time for all of us, MEEA continues to work to be a resource to our members. Though social distancing may prevent us from networking and forming relationships the same as we have in the past, MEEA offers many opportunities to keep up on changing policies, learn new trends and grow your relationships.

Here are three MEEA Membership Benefits that can help you stay connected.

One of the most common reasons organizations join MEEA is to raise their visibility in the industry. MEEA membership can help build your reputation, promote your successes and attract industry-leading partners. The best part: these benefits are included at no extra charge as part of your membership.

Here are 5 ways we can help your organization stand out from the crowd:

1. Present on MEEA Webinars

If you have a successful project, program or technology you’d like to share, MEEA webinars are a great platform to connect with hundreds of energy efficiency decision makers.  

The year 2007 was an unforgettable year for multiple reasons. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows (the final book of the series) was released, Al Gore won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on Climate Change, and it sparked the start of the subprime mortgage crisis which sent America into the greatest recession since the great depression. But, perhaps more influential than anything else was when Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone to the world. The iPhone took the world by storm, completely changing the way society interacts with technology and the way technology interacts with society.

In 1930, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that, thanks to technological advances and increases in efficiency, his grandchildren’s generation would only work 15 hours-a-week.

Fast forward to today, and the 15-hour work day is probably more common than the 15-hour work week. Peek at your jam-packed work calendar and bottomless email inbox, and it’s clear we’re as busy as ever.

But don’t worry – these MEEA member benefits can help take the hassle out of your workday. Here are 3 favorites of MEEA insiders:

As more and more distributed resources come onto the grid, we are coming full circle back to something that looks more like Edison’s original distributed energy system, after a century of Samuel Insull’s centralized model. Besides changes in how energy is generated, the way it is used is also changing, with energy customers becoming active participants rather than just passive consumers. The interoperability of all of the devices on the grid is essential to keeping up with the changing needs of customers and energy markets.

Nationwide, over 16 million households struggle to meet their heating, cooling and other energy needs, but energy efficiency is increasingly recognized as a potential solution to this problem. In 2018, Illinois, Michigan and Missouri began holding income qualified energy efficiency stakeholder collaboratives to strengthen program design and delivery for these communities. Throughout the Midwest, decision makers across the political spectrum recognize the value of low-income energy efficiency in helping families afford their basic energy needs.

On June 20-21, MEEA members from across the country united for the Annual Meeting of the Membership in Louisville, KY. Fueled by hot browns and watermelon salad, MEEA members swapped ideas, strengthened relationships and looked ahead at the coming year in energy efficiency.

This year's Midwest Energy Solutions Conference (MES) incorporated interactive workshops into its agenda for the first time ever, and one of the three workshops focused on Net Zero Energy (NZE) in the Midwest. MEEA staff wanted attendees to consider what Net Zero Energy means for energy efficiency (EE) in the Midwest specifically. (For the purposes of the workshop, “NZE” was referring to any building, development or community that does not use more energy than it produces. See DOE’s NZE definitions).

Building efficiency experts from around the Midwest convened in Ann Arbor, MI on November 15-16 for the 8th Annual Midwest Building Energy Codes Conference. This was the first time this conference was hosted in Michigan, which helped MEEA and attendees understand the unique challenges to the Michigan building community and provided critical local perspectives to better inform future building energy code policy. In past years, MEEA had the opportunity to host this conference and learn from local groups in Ohio, Minnesota, Missouri, Indiana, Kentucky and Illinois.