EAGLE LAKE – With a new year ahead, officials with the International Loggers Association are looking to increase both their membership and purchasing power as they move toward creating a comprehensive network for area loggers.

The nonprofit organization held its first meeting of the year Saturday, discussing the issues and approving its bylaws.

A handful of members attended the hour-long executive council meeting at the Powell Memorial Center in Eagle Lake.

ILA officials spent the morning brainstorming ideas and reviewing projects to boost the organization’s growth and, in turn, provide better benefit opportunities to loggers.

Loggers formed the ILA last year during a dispute with Irving Woodlands in Aroostook County. The disagreement forced a three-week stoppage of most work in northern Maine forests.

“We’ve always been split up before. We’ve never had one, big voice,” Rep. Troy Jackson, D-Fort Kent, said on Saturday.

Jackson, who also is a logger and an ILA member, explained that the organization is trying to change that by working to strike deals for lower fuel prices and bargains on equipment.

“With the organization we have now, we can say, ‘Look, we have 100 members using close to $1 million in gas per year. What kind of deal can you do?'” Jackson said.

They have preliminary plans to resell the fuel to ILA members using a gauged tanker truck and a credit card system.

The issue is so big for loggers, officials said, because the average worker uses an estimated 800 to 1,000 gallons of fuel per week. If the organization can find a way to reduce fuel prices by 20 cents per gallon, it would equal a savings of $300 to $1,000, depending on the logger.

“Once you get a card out there and people can save money, they [new members] will jump right in,” one official commented during the meeting.

And new members would provide the ILA with an even stronger organization.

Along with the fuel deal, officials are working to create membership cards and application forms. Right now, the organization has about 100 members, 90 percent of them from the St. John Valley.

“We’re trying to expand throughout the state,” Jackson said. “Last year, we saw the logging issues as a northern Maine problem, but now we really see them as something that affects the whole state.”

The fee for joining the International Loggers Association is $50 per operation with three or fewer loggers, or $20 per employee for operations with four or more loggers. Officials expect to begin circulating the cards by the end of the month.

The ILA will hold its next regular meeting on Saturday, May 7, time and place to be announced.