From the by M.D. Fletcher |
February 2011 |
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The Annual Meeting of the Members of Columbus Electric Cooperative, Inc. will be held on April 2, 2011 in Animas, New Mexico. Registration will start at 10:00am, the business meeting at 11:00am, lunch will be served at noon and the members will reconvene at 1:30pm for other business and election of Trustees. Door prizes will be awarded after adjournment of the meeting. How's that? For those of you who swear I could never put together a straight paragraph in this space, well, shimmy that up your flagpole, oh ye of little faith. I got mad skills and whatnot, don'tcha know. Ok, I'm back. The Columbus Electric Annual Meeting is the best time you're going to have finding out the business of your Cooperative. We'll have busses running from Deming and Columbus to take you over and bring you back, we'll feed you an outstanding lunch served up by some of the finest 4H kids you'll ever want to meet, give you a better than average chance of winning a pretty darn cool door prize (which, by the way, is very likely to be something that uses electricity because after all, we ain't no fools), and along the way give you an opportunity to learn more about Columbus Electric. The Cooperative's Annual Meeting is a primary example of one of our Cooperative Principles, that of democratic control by the members. I work for a Board of Trustees made up of nine members elected by the cooperative as a whole. Each year, three of those members are selected by the membership to serve three-year terms on the Board, which is made up of two from each of the four districts and one elected at large. The Annual Meeting is where all this happens. See? You learned something already. The meeting agenda is set forth in the Cooperative bylaws and includes reports from the President, Treasurer and the Manager. This is where the details of the financials and other functions of the Cooperative are discussed and explained. You'll want to hear about this stuff because whether you like it or not, you're a part owner in this outfit. Your ownership is expressed in what we call Capital Credits which are simply the money that you paid for service that exceeds the money that it took us to provide that service. The equity of the |
Cooperative is the cumulative amount of these Capital Credits held by the Cooperative for all present and past members. Still with me? Good. Now, pay attention. Periodically, the Board of Trustees resolves to return some of these Capital Credits to the members. How much they return depends on a number of important factors related to the financial health of the organization. Since every dime comes from the members and is collected through rates, a delicate balance must be maintained between returning Capital Credits and keeping the rates we have to charge in order to remain financially strong, fair and reasonable. The Board of Trustees is responsible for striking this balance. Capital Credits are returned on a first-in, first-out basis and in January, 2011, the Board resolved to return Capital Credits for the year 1973 in the amount of just over $113,000. The return will reduce our equity position by a little less than one per cent and will delay our equity target of 38% by about one year. Our equity target is important because at 38% we will be able to finance our yearly average system growth without having to borrow any additional money, which means we can then be more financially self-sustaining, which is a big deal indeed. Now, it's this kind of fascinating stuff you'll hear about during the business portion of the Annual Meeting. I tell you, I get all goose bumpy just thinking about it. But that may be just me. Anyway, if that's not your cup of menudo, there's still the infamous $20 Out of My Own Pocket Joke Contest where I put up one of my own hard-earned Andrew Jacksons as the prize for the best one out of five jokes selected by our sour-faced attorney for consideration by the membership. If you plan on submitting a joke, make sure it can pass the Elks Club Test for Purity and Decorum because I'm already in trouble with the Exalted Ruler and as you can probably guess, I need all the friends I can get. So, put a big red circle around April 2 on that beautiful calendar I sent you and plan to meet me in Animas on that Saturday for the Columbus Electric Cooperative Annual Meeting of the Members. Luego! |
