HomeWorks Tri-County Electric Cooperative

Partners in Power

2012-01-03T07:45:00.001-08:00

When you cook dinner, or watch the news, or post family photos on Facebook, you don’t really think about what’s behind the power that makes it happen.

You’re not supposed to. If we’re doing our jobs right, your ON switches always work when you want them to.

But that power has to be generated, and then carried across miles of transmission line, before it gets to the substations where we take over with the power lines that stretch to each of your homes.

Wolverine Power Cooperative is our most important partner, taking care of the generation and transmission details for us on your behalf. In fact, their efforts are responsible for about two-thirds of your monthly energy bill.

Power generation and transmission facilities both take a lot of money to build, operate, maintain, and upgrade.

For example, in 2009 Wolverine purchased what’s known as the Sumpter Plant, with four natural gas-fired turbines near Detroit.

Last year, they purchased a share in the Ohio Valley Electric Cooperative’s power plant network located along the Illinois and Ohio rivers.

Both of these investments were made when the economy made the transactions financially beneficial to Wolverine. Still, there are increased costs associated with owning power plants, such as property taxes and depreciation.

Wolverine’s leadership, which includes two HomeWorks board members, felt paying a little more now, when these prime investments were available, would be a good trade-off for locking in a long-term power supply – and long-term price stability.

In addition, a long-term contract with Detroit Edison expired at the end of 2011. If a new contract had been available, it would certainly have included higher rates, reflecting DTE’s own increasing costs.

Michigan’s renewable power portfolio requirements also mean passing along the higher costs of purchasing energy generated by wind, hydro, and other renewable sources.

The bottom line is that your energy costs will go up as of January 1, an increase authorized by your board of directors at the special member meeting on September 26.

If you use 1,000 kilowatthours in a month, you will pay $2.53 more for your electricity (plus about 11 cents more sales tax, at 4%).

For a little over $4.00 a day, you get the value electricity provides, from hot water to TVs and video games, outdoor lights, power tools, and so many other comforts and conveniences.

For us, there is a comfort in knowing Wolverine Power is working on our behalf to make sure that electricity is there 24 hours a day.

Take Time To Be Thankful

2011-11-01T05:37:00.000-07:00

Before the year rushes to an end and it’s time to make resolutions for 2012, let’s just stop for a moment. Take a relaxing breath, and think about that planning process.
Here at HomeWorks, we enjoy an attitude of gratitude. A key part of our planning is always to take a look back and realize what we have already accomplished, then take a few moments to be grateful for the many gifts we’ve been given.
Some people have already put the idea of gratitude into words for us. If one of these sayings helps you remember to count your blessings, share it to help someone else do the same:

If you want to be successful, it’s just this simple.
Know what you are doing.
Love what you are doing.
And believe in what you are doing.
Will Rogers

I learned to appreciate and treasure each day,
because you don’t know how many you’re going to be given.
US Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor

When I started counting my blessings, my whole life turned around.
Willie Nelson

If you haven’t all the things you want,
be grateful for the things you don’t have that you wouldn’t want.
Unknown

Blessed are those who can give without remembering and receive without forgetting.
Unknown

These last two quotes may be the most useful for any of us:

Silent gratitude isn’t much use to anyone.
G. B. Stern

So take a moment to share your feelings with those close to you, and make sure they know they are appreciated. A few words can make someone’s day, and won’t cost you anything.
And finally, some words of wisdom from an incredibly successful college basketball coach:

Things turn out best for people who make the best of the way things turn out.
John Wooden

From all of us at HomeWorks Tri-County, best wishes for a happy and safe holiday season!

Co-ops Build a Better World

2011-10-01T05:21:00.000-07:00

2012 is the International Year of Cooperatives

Competition has been shown to be useful up to a certain point and no further, but cooperation, which is the thing we must strive for today, begins where competition leaves off. — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd U.S. President

There are two big celebrations coming up in 2012. One is our cooperative’s 75th birthday, which we’ve been talking about at district membership meetings.
The other is the International Year of Cooperatives, or IYC, as proclaimed by the United Nations.
It celebrates a different way of doing business, focused on human need, where the members (who own and govern the business) collectively enjoy the benefits instead of all profits going just to shareholders.
IYC has an official slogan, ‘Cooperative enterprises build a better world’, and an official logo, which features seven persons working together to lift and support a cube.
The cube represents the various projects and goals of cooperatives. The figures represent the ‘people factor’ central to the cooperative model. They also represent the seven cooperative principles: voluntary and open membership, democratic member control, member economic participation, autonomy and independence, education, training, and information, cooperation among cooperatives, and concern for community.
As illustrated by the logo, these seven principles work together to allow cooperative members to achieve the goals and desires that they would not have been able to attain through individual efforts.
Cooperatives are a major economic force in developed countries and a powerful business model in developing ones. Worldwide, over 800 million people are members of cooperatives. The economic activity of the largest 300 cooperatives in the world equals the 10th largest national economy.
Here in the U.S., more than 29,000 cooperatives operate in every sector of the economy; Americans hold over 350 million co-op memberships. U.S. cooperatives generate 2 million jobs and make a substantial contribution to the U.S. economy with annual sales of $652 billion, possessing assets of $3 trillion.
Cooperatives operate across all sectors of the US economy and include agriculture, food distribution and retailing, childcare, credit unions, purchasing, worker-owned, housing, health care, energy and telecommunications cooperatives.
Of course, not everyone pays attention to the cooperative nature of their electric service, but we sure appreciate those who do. Hundreds of members come out every year to the district membership meetings to learn more about their cooperative, to vote in elections and take part in the democratic process that keeps us strong.
We hope you’ll join us in celebrating both of these big events in 2012.

Let us know what you’re thinking... We're listening to you

2011-09-01T00:01:00.000-07:00

Listening is important in any relationship you value. At HomeWorks Tri-County, since we value each of the cooperative’s member-owners, we find many different ways to listen to what you are saying.
Whether it’s a member of the board of directors at the local coffee shop, a customer service representative taking your call, or a lineman meeting you to discuss building a new electric service, we take in your opinions and suggestions. When it’s possible – and when it benefits the co-op’s membership as a whole – we take action on the ideas we gather.
Sometimes people think we’re not listening if we don’t change our policy or procedure as soon as they let us know about their disagreement. But listening is more than just reacting to one person. It’s taking the information and considering it carefully, with the needs of the entire cooperative in mind.
Here’s a partial list of ways we actively listen to you, our membership. Remember, though, listening starts with you speaking up in some way.
• Daily contacts via telephone, front counters, email, or field visits.
• Email addresses and phone numbers for each board member are posted to the left of this column, and on our website at homeworks.org
• There’s a “Contact Us” link on homeworks.org that lists all of our phone numbers and addresses, with maps to our offices, and a direct email link.
• We’re also posting on Facebook regularly (Facebook.com/homeworks.org)
• We send hundreds of “How Did We Do?” survey cards each month to follow up on a contact we had with you. Any comments you write, whether compliments or complaints, are reviewed by the board each month, with a report on any additional action taken.
• Open member meetings are held, usually quarterly, before a regular board meeting. Notice of these meetings is published in Country Lines (see page 8) and on our website, as are any actions taken at the meetings.
• We host two geothermal seminars a year, one at each office. These are open to all members, at no charge, and are publicized in Country Lines. In fact, we have one coming up on October 11 at Blanchard.
• Our annual district membership meetings come out to your area in May. Not only are the dates listed in Country Lines, we mail every member a personal invitation to attend and talk to us.
• We have several other projects that affect smaller numbers, from our youth programs to groups of members asked to review a specific process. The most recent example is a group of members who helped us revise our bill format, then reviewed it again once we’d used it a few months.
• We work with our national association to perform a statistically valid member satisfaction every two years. This data is shared with the board, all employees, and with members via Country Lines, and is used in our strategic and tactical planning.
However you choose to communicate with us, your participation in the conversation is important to keep your cooperative strong. We appreciate your comments and your support.

The price of power supply ...

2011-07-01T03:00:00.000-07:00

... making sure it is both reliable AND affordable

We just concluded our annual district meetings, at which 682 members registered. We estimate over 1,300 people took time to be part of this annual tradition that is so very important to your cooperative.
Thank you! Your support, your comments whether they’re compliments or not, and your votes help keep HomeWorks Tri-County strong as we work to bring you reliable, affordable electric power.
One of our key messages this year was about the work our power supplier, Wolverine Power Cooperative, has done to make sure you have a reliable source of energy flowing over our reliable system of electric wires.
Wolverine’s plan is to not have all of its power supply eggs in one basket – they want power from a variety of fuels, from more than one generating company, from more than one location. Without that diversity, Wolverine could get caught in a bad position if one fuel’s price goes way up, or one generating plant goes out of service for upgrades.
In 2010, Wolverine purchased two power plant assets. One was a natural-gas fired peaking plant near Detroit’s airport. This will be used during times of high demand, like on hot summer afternoons when everyone has air conditioners cranked up.
The other was an ownership share in two coal-fired plants along the Ohio River in southern Ohio and Indiana – both plants have already been upgraded to meet all current environmental regulations, so they are very clean-burning coal plants. This purchase provides about 150 MW of baseload generation, the kind we need 24 hours a day.
With both plants, Wolverine was able to take advantage of a double economic whammy – a buyer’s market and low financing costs, which will keep your energy costs down long-term.
But there were up-front costs to these purchases that will mean a rate increase on July 1 - $3.65 per 1,000 kilowatt-hours - and another increase on January 1, when we start taking power from the Ohio River plants.
We already knew there would be an increase on January 1 as the current long-term power contract ended December 31. Wolverine chose to make the move to owning versus renting a little sooner, or as they put, “a little short-term pain in exchange for a long-term gain.”
We are fortunate to have partners like Wolverine. They are committed to our same goal of bringing you reliable, affordable electric power, and they show that commitment through their long-term work plans and management of power supply options.

Our Mission Goes On...

2011-06-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

DIRECTV Helped Us Achieve Our Mission For Nearly 20 Years

All good things must come to an end – it’s an old folk saying that sometimes is true.
In our case, the good thing is our association with DIRECTV, providing satellite television services to rural mid-Michigan, which will end July 15 as DIRECTV centralizes its sales and service strategy.
It all began back in 1986, when the co-op surveyed members about the idea of bringing TV signals past the city limits where cable companies wouldn’t stray.
After a short pilot project, the idea was brought before a special meeting of the co-op’s delegates. On April 16, 1988, meeting at Central Montcalm High School in Stanton, 80 delegates heard a presentation by then-general manager Bob Matheny about the possibilities of entering a new business.
They also heard a guest speaker, the general manager of a Georgia electric cooperative that had built a successful appliance and satellite TV sales and service subsidiary.
Those 80 delegates took a huge step forward, authorizing an amendment to Tri-County’s Articles of Incorporation to “broaden the purpose of the Cooperative to include telecommunication activities, (and) eliminate provisions restricting services to members only…” From there, Rural TV of Michigan took off, growing at one point to serve nearly 2,500 “big dish” subscribers.
In the early 1990s, we had another opportunity, this time to invest in a new satellite service, literally before it got off the ground. Your board of directors considered the facts and the possibilities, looking at financial projections and the need for an affordable source of news, sports and entertainment TV in our rural service area.
Then they took a big step out of their comfort zone and invested $350,000 in DIRECTV, buying a franchise area within our service territory. After a year or so of waiting and watching, the first satellite launched successfully and in 1993 we were in the “small dish” business.
In some ways, this reminds me of the co-op’s earliest days. People in the rural areas saw a need for their families; they were lacking a reliable, affordable service that came easily to people who chose to live in big cities. And some of those people decided to make things happen instead of waiting and hoping for something to happen.
DIRECTV has been a good business for your cooperative to be in. After 18 years, we’re sad to be leaving it, but DIRECTV bought back its franchises several years ago as a first step in centralizing control of their service, and now our service agreement has come to an end.
We have a lot to look forward to, though. Our Propane business continues to grow, and WildBlue, the satellite internet service, seems to be refreshing itself to be a better choice for people who don’t have access to other high-speed sources.
These ventures, like Rural TV, help us achieve our mission, which is to provide our members and customers with energy, comfort and communications solutions that will enhance their quality of life.
Tri-County Electric Cooperative is a better, stronger cooperative for having gone beyond the wires in this way – and our members do enjoy a better quality of life today.

What to expect on July 15
• Your programming will not be affected during the transition, as your services will be switched to DIRECTV automatically.
• After July 15 monthly billing statements will come from DIRECTV and payment should be sent directly to them. Customers who use electronic checks or a debit card will need to provide their bank with the new address.
• Rural TV of Michigan will no longer be able to accept payments.
• Please contact DIRECTV at 1-800-531-5000 for all of your future programming and service needs.

Outage Update May 31, 2011

2011-05-31T05:33:00.000-07:00

Consumers Energy finished repairs to their transmission line Monday evening, and that allowed us to restore power to most of the 500 or so members remaining.

At this time, about 25 members are still out of power. These are each individual service issues, and our crews are back out working to make those repairs today.

Storm affects members in northern Jackson, southern Ingham counties

2011-05-30T07:17:00.001-07:00

A violent storm came through the southern part of Michigan Sunday night around 8:00 PM. The storm involved at least three confirmed tornadoes that caused damage from Battle Creek north to Perry.

Well over 1,500 Tri-County Electric members were affected initially by the storm and as of 6:00 AM Monday morning we have about 600 members out of power. We have a lot of trees down and some broken poles.

However, the most serious damage was to Consumers Energy’s 138KV lines that supply the 46KV line to our Plains Road substation. Apparently a number of Consumers Energy’s steel transmission towers sustained damage and Consumers Energy dispatchers are telling Wolverine Power Cooperative, and us, that repairs will take several days. This Plains Road circuit involves about 520 members.

We have all available crews, including two tree-clearing crews, working in the area Monday morning. At this time we expect to have everyone with power before the day is over EXCEPT those served by the Plains Road 2 circuit – again involving about 520 members, in Bunkerhill, Ingham, Leslie, Stockbridge, Vevay, and Waterloo Townships.

Getting A Better Deal

2011-05-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

There’s a saying that “there’s no such thing as a free lunch.”
Well, it’s true at our annual district membership meetings, coming up in mid-May.
Yes, we do serve a light supper – this year we’re planning sloppy joe sandwiches with sides like potato chips and pickles, tea or lemonade, and ice cream cups. And, no, there’s nobody to take your money for the meal.
The cost is bigger than money – it’s your active participation in your electric cooperative.
You, and your active involvement in HomeWorks, are more important than ever when it comes to the operations of the co-op. Since we officially became member-regulated last year, your votes, your opinions and your input are essential to keeping HomeWorks strong and successful.
So come to your district meeting, listed below, for that free lunch, but stay for the reports and the elections. Whether you’re voting for your neighbor to represent you at the Annual Meeting in August, or if you’re in districts 2 or 4 casting your ballot for a board seat, you’ll be earning every bite.
And besides the ice cream cups for dessert, we also offer everyone who attends a gift, and a chance at prizes such as energy certificates or a 19” high-definition flat screen TV.
And we’re bringing back our popular hot-line safety trailer, where you get a live demonstration of how the electric system works and how to stay safe around power lines.
You’ll get a meal, gifts, a chance at prizes, and a chance to be better informed about your cooperative and the electric industry. We’ll get an active, educated membership that helps keep the cooperative strong, now and into the future.
We’ll both get a better deal than a “free lunch.”

Monday, May 16 - Fulton Elementary Gym
(Gratiot and Saginaw counties, plus parts of Clinton and Montcalm counties)
Tuesday, May 17 - Eagle Park Hall
(most of Clinton County)
Wednesday, May 18 - Chippewa Hills HS, Remus
(Mecosta and Osceola counties)
Thursday, May 19 - Vestaburg Elementary Gym
(most of Montcalm County)
Monday, May 23 - Senior Center, Charlotte
(Eaton, Ingham and Jackson counties)
Tuesday, May 24 - Blackmer-Thompson VFW, Weidman
(Clare and Isabella counties)
Wednesday, May 25 - St. Edward’s Church Hall, Lake Odessa
(Barry and Ionia counties)

We start serving supper about 6 pm each night, with the business meeting afterward. Watch your mail for your meeting registration card.

Your Capital Credits Help The Co-op Grow, Stay Strong

2011-04-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

One of the seven cooperative principles is members’ economic participation. What this usually means is that each member pays for their fair share of the cooperative’s energy service, since cooperatives don’t have stockholders to invest funds in hopes of a profitable return.
It also means that at the end of each year, once the books are closed and the bills are paid, all margins (the cooperative word for profits) remaining are allocated back to the members who purchased energy during the year.
The board of directors will authorize this allocation after the audit report is presented to them in late March, and you will find a notice of your share of the 2010 allocation on your May energy bill.
Once the margins are allocated, they’re called capital credits. Each member has a capital credit account for their unrefunded allocations. However, these capital credits have no cash value until the board of directors authorizes a capital credit refund.
Cooperatives typically hold capital credits for a period of time before repaying them for two purposes:
• as working capital to keep the cooperative financially sound and to allow for emergencies, such as a large storm which requires replacement of many poles and power lines.
• to reduce debt requirements for investment made in the cooperative's electric distribution system. This builds member equity in the co-op.
In the past 20 years, the board has authorized refunds totaling $6,146,822. This is your money, coming back to you after being used to build a strong, reliable electric system to build you and your neighbors.
During this past year, your board has attended educational programs on rates and equity management, to help them make the best decisions for the financial strength of HomeWorks Tri-County Electric Cooperative. From those programs came a new board policy spelling out a long-range financial management plan.
One of the goals of that plan is to rotate, or refund, capital credits on a 25-year schedule, as long as the other financial indicators are strong enough to allow it. A 25-year rotation is a common goal among electric cooperatives like ours.
When refunds are made, a larger share of each refund will likely come from the oldest capital credits on our books, from the mid-80s, with some going to our newest members, too. Rotating capital credits this way lets current member-owners pay their fair share of the cost of providing service, just as the older members did.
If the board does in fact authorize a capital credit refund at the March board meeting, you should see it as a credit on your May energy bill. Be sure to look for it, and be proud of your economic participation in your electric cooperative.

Telling the Co-op's History: Your Help is Needed

2011-03-01T13:27:00.000-08:00

March 29, 1937, is the date we consider to be Tri-County Electric Cooperative’s birthday.

It was on that Monday, the day after Easter, that the cooperative’s first board meeting was held, at its newly-established office on Allegan Street in Lansing. The board members, as recorded in the official minutes, were William V. Clegg, president; Jasper L. Terry, vice-president; Lawton Heeney, secretary; Dorr L. Cady, treasurer; and James E. Houston, director.

Following a special organizational meeting, the board met in regular session to authorize construction of power lines in Eaton, Ingham, Jackson, Livingston, Clinton, Calhoun, Ionia and Washtenaw counties—a total of 350 miles of line to serve 1,975 members.

Seventy-four years later, your cooperative serves 22,193 members and 25,520 meters across 3,338 miles of line, and our “counties served” list heads north to Osceola and Clare counties, rather than south or east—we never extended lines into Livingston, Calhoun or Washtenaw counties, to my knowledge.

So why the history lesson? In preparation for a year of celebrating our 75th Anniversary, starting next March 29, we hope you can provide some co-op history of your own. We’re looking for stories, anecdotes, facts and photos—any memories you have of the cooperative’s early days.

Did your father help install power poles? Did your mother go to neighbors to recruit them for the co-op? Maybe you attended an annual meeting in the 1950s, or have attended district meetings for 30 years in a row. Do you have a copy of your bill from the 1940s?

We’d love to hear from you. If you want to write up your own story, you can mail it to us, or give us a call and we’ll write it down for you. Any photos, bills or artifacts you share will be scanned carefully and returned promptly.
Send your memories to:

HomeWorks Tri-County Electric Cooperative
Attn: Jayne Graham
7973 E. Grand River Avenue
Portland, MI 48875

Or, email them to jayne@homeworks.org. You can also call Jayne at 517-647-1252.

We’re hoping to hear from a lot of you. Just as we can’t operate this cooperative without your input, we can’t truly celebrate our 75th Anniversary without your contributions.

Working to Keep Your Power On

2011-02-01T13:23:00.000-08:00

In mid-December, heavy snow and ice centered in Mont- calm, Mecosta and Isabella counties knocked out power to about 5,000 of our members on a cold Sunday morning.

We called all available line crews in from both Blanchard and Portland to work on restoring power. Although condi- tions worsened during the day as ice accumulated on the lines, power was back on by midnight for all but about 400 members. Crews went back out first thing Monday morning and worked all day, and completed repairs to every affected member by 5 p.m.

Four days later, I had the opportunity to ride along with Matt Miller, our manager of electric operations, as he checked on the crews and repairs. Even several days after the storm had passed, we could see where ice had accumulated a couple of inches thick on the wires, weighing them down and putting stress on the poles and other equipment.

It was a long couple of days for our crews, but it could have taken a week to restore all the power if your cooperative had not, over the past several years, invested heavily in system upgrades and clearing vegetation away from line rights-of-way.

Yes, we do still have some problem areas where trees are growing too close to the power lines, or where older equipment is one ice storm away from being overloaded. But those areas have become smaller and smaller every year, and they’re on our to-do list.

Beyond the big, multiple-mile work plan upgrades, our crews have also taken on an operations and maintenance (O&M) program in which they look for smaller, potentially troublesome spots and repair them before something happens.

Another O&M project is sectionalizing, where we install circuit breakers and other equipment to break up long stretches of line, reducing the number of members affected if an outage does occur.

All these projects and investments are paying off because of your support and cooperation. When you allow us to build a power line on your right-of-way; when you plant trees and bushes away from power lines; when you call us to report a possible problem you’ve seen, you are helping to reduce outages and keep the lights on for your family and neighbors.

Keeping track of the little things...
As a side note, the cooperative’s annual inventory was completed in late October with an adjustment of $701. Since a total of $770,412 in materials moved through inventory during the year, that’s shrinkage of just less than one-tenth of 1 percent. The employees involved in working with inventory every day, handling the materials or accounting for them, did an outstanding job again this year.

Difficult Times Bring Out True Colors...

2011-01-01T14:11:00.000-08:00

As the calendar year closes each year I spend time reflecting over the past 12 months, and planning for the next.

The difficult economic times here in mid-Michigan continue to manifest themselves in our neighbors losing their homes and struggling to make ends meet. Your cooperative’s employees have daily contact with members in difficult financial situations and strive to treat them with dignity and compassion.

But this caring for the membership runs deeper than just words. Your co-op’s employees donate money every “Blue Jean Friday” to a fund that is provided to local food banks.

And several times a year, employees bring in slightly used items and baked goods for a silent auction with the proceeds going to a local charity. We have raised over $25,000 in the past year through these efforts.

Other employees donate time to local community organizations and fund-raising efforts. The employees truly care for each other, the members they serve, and the communities in which they live.

Your cooperative’s employees faced a difficult time of their own in November.

Our health insurance carrier, Blue Cross/Blue Shield, dropped the annual insurance renewal increase bomb on the cooperative: over $284,000, a 44 percent increase.

The employees, knowing many members are in financial difficulty and many are without insurance of their own, took a huge hit to their own pocketbooks to save costs from being passed to co-op members in their electric bills. Through decreased coverage, higher co-pays, higher co-insurance payments and picking up higher deductibles, they were able to save the membership over $208,000.

As your chief servant, it’s difficult for me to say just how proud I am to work with this group of caring employees. They come to work every day with a very clear mission of taking care of you, the co-op’s members.

But beyond that, their true colors show when they have difficult times of their own and still put the members of the cooperative first. Wow!

You can also help fellow co-op members that are going through hard times! Enroll in our Operation Round Up program and turn pennies into dollars that help fund food pantries, pay medical bills, or provide other necessities. See page 8 for details on how to enroll.

Communicating Both Ways

2010-11-01T06:37:00.001-07:00

Sharing information and listening to you are both important.

About the time you find this in your mailbox, the political winds of the November elections will be calm again. Now, we just have to wait and see who will do the best job of working for us and communicating with us to move our country, state and local governments forward.

Please notice—that was “communicating with us,” not “to us.” Any successful relationship—whether it’s your family, job, government or your electric cooperative—has to start with two-way communications.

For instance, mailing you Michigan Country Lines magazine each month does no good if you don’t read it and sometimes act on the information that’s provided. Bake a recipe, visit a Michigan site, get outdoors, and attend a co-op meeting!

Those of you who have attended HomeWorks Tri-County meetings in the past have heard us say that we need your thoughts and opinions. Your comments and compliments, even your complaints, definitely shape what we do to serve you.

At our district membership meetings each May, we try to establish that two-way dialogue by presenting a simple operations and financial report, and leaving time for questions. We also make sure our staff is available before and after each meeting for one-on-one conversations.

We’ve involved more members than ever in the democratic process, with the officers elected each year by members at the district meetings. These people are members like you, who’ve volunteered to take on a leadership role by running their district’s annual meeting, and by serving as the nominating committee every three years.

We now hold a district officer training meeting in conjunction with a board meeting each year that helps them learn what board members do and what qualities are needed in the candidates they nominate for election to the board.

If you look to the left of this column, you’ll see a listing of your board of directors, complete with mailing addresses, email addresses, and phone numbers.

Your board members are not some anonymous group of people in a distant city; they are your neighbors, with many of the same concerns you have. They expect to hear from you when you have a question or issue, and they will make sure your concerns are heard at the board table as decisions are made.

We also use telephone surveys, monthly survey cards, even trends in the telephone calls we receive, to find out what you’re thinking.

This is your electric co-op, and we know serving you better happens when we listen to you. Don’t be shy—share your concerns and your compliments whenever you can!

Local. Trusted. Serving You.

2010-10-01T08:45:00.000-07:00

Cooperative businesses were born when Benjamin Franklin and his neighbors formed an insurance company owned by its policyholders back in 1752. Electric cooperatives began in the late 1930s in response to Franklin Roosevelt’s call for rural electrification. In each case, the cooperative was formed by a group of people to meet a common need.

Today, there are 28,000 different co-ops in more than 45,000 different locations in the U.S., collectively accounting for over a trillion dollars in total assets and meeting the needs of some 130 million members.

Since October is National Co-op Month, which you can read more about on page 11, this is a good time to remind you how HomeWorks meets the cooperative ideals all year round.

Co-op Principle #2: Democratic member control
In May, three of seven geographic districts held elections for a seat on the board of directors. Philip Conklin defeated John Lord to be re-elected in District 1 (Eaton, Ingham and Jackson counties), while Cara Evans in District 5 (Gratiot, Saginaw, Montcalm and Clinton counties) and Dean Floria in District 7 (Mecosta and Osceola counties) ran unopposed this year.

In 2011, Districts 2 (Barry and Ionia counties) and 4 (most of Montcalm County) will hold elections. The members of those districts’ nominating committees were also elected at the district meetings in May.

Coop Principle #3: Member economic participation
In April, your board of directors authorized an allocation of capital credits. Over $1.2 million in member equity was assigned to you and your neighbors, based on your energy purchases during the year.

The board also approved a refund of $350,000 in capital credits from 1984 and 2009, giving each member back a portion of your investment into HomeWorks from those years.

Co-op Principle #4: Autonomy and independence
In January, your board of directors voted to return HomeWorks to self-regulation, which included taking responsibility for the oversight of our billing and accounting practices from the Michigan Public Service Commission. While the MPSC retains jurisdiction over safety and territorial issues, billing and accounting questions will now be dealt with right here at home.

This short list doesn’t even mention the other cooperative principles, such as education, cooperation among cooperatives, and concern for our communities. It would take a year’s worth of Country Lines to tell all those stories, so we hope you’ll keep reading in the months to come.

A History of Reliability

2010-09-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

In planning our 73rd Annual Meeting, which took place August 21 in Ionia, we started adding up the years of service given to the Cooperative by its current board of directors and employees.

When you add in the Tri-County Electric People Fund board, we came up with a grand total of 1,187 years among 88 people.

That’s a lot of years, and a lot of history. And there’s more history among our members, a few of whom still remember when the lights came on in rural mid-Michigan, or heard the stories from their parents and grandparents.

Why is history important? The history of HomeWorks is also the history of rural electrification, and that’s a story of trust. Rural families had to trust their neighbors and REA agents. They had to be willing to make big changes in their lives and learn to use new technologies, and they had to find a new way of working together to make good things happen for everyone involved.

And that’s still happening.

We have a history of caring, of building trust, of making good things happen, and of working together to meet our member-owners’ needs.

Through the years, our board of directors has also supported us in seeking out better ways and newer technologies to do our jobs, not to be trendy, but so that we can continue to improve customer service and reliability while keeping your rates stable.

These days, of course, the electric and energy industries are so complicated and changing so quickly that the board has to focus more on strategic issues such as power supply, an equity management plan, or what services we can offer to our members and customers.

We also make sure the co-op has the right people in place. Trucks and computers and buildings are important, but our key tool is our people.

We know our member-owners rely on us to keep your lights on, to keep your family safe and comfortable, and we are humbled by your trust. Thank you - and we look forward to many more years of serving you reliably.

Continuing to work on your behalf, our privilege...

2010-07-01T08:05:00.000-07:00

If you attended your district meeting in May, you heard reports from both HomeWorks and our generation and transmission partner, Wolverine Power Cooperative, on what has been accomplished as well as future plans to provide you with reliable electricity at an affordable price.

HomeWorks’ employees work every day to earn your trust, as they have for nearly 75 years, with that mission in mind: reliable electricity at affordable prices. And Wolverine has been our most trusted partner for nearly 60 years with that same mission, in a job that is never done, working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We view working on your behalf as a privilege that we take seriously.

A puzzling decision...
So when the state of Michigan announced May 27 they would deny Wolverine’s air permit for the proposed Rogers City Clean Energy Venture, we were puzzled, and very disappointed. (See page 24 in the July issue of Country Lines). The state, in its announcement, claimed the plant was not needed due to the economic downturn and that alternatives were not fully researched. The state also said the plant was too expensive, with projected power costs of 20.5 cents per kWh, or nearly double the cooperative’s average rate today. Neither of these claims reflects the reality of what was being proposed, nor what we have been regularly communicating to you through Country Lines.

What is accurate?
It is true that developing a power plant is not easy, fast, or inexpensive. Over four years have been invested in studying alternatives and putting this plan together at a cost of $22 million. The Rogers City plant would have modestly increased our power costs while providing long-term supply reliability and price security.

Wolverine continues to diversify its power supply with wind and natural gas generation. The Rogers City plant would have complemented the plan with a state of the art coal plant, allowing some of the inefficient 50-plus-year-old plants in Michigan to be retired.

Our mission continues...
The denial of the air permit will not stop us from working on your behalf to provide reliable electricity and affordable prices. It’s a shame that political winds are getting in the way of getting that job done. If you have questions or wish to comment on the Roger City Clean Energy Venture, my direct phone line is 517-647-1281 or you can email me at mkappler@homeworks.org.

Sticking to Our Principles: Concern for Community Means Giving Back

2010-06-01T11:38:00.001-07:00

Cooperatives around the world are guided by seven Cooperative Principles. These principles work for all co-ops: a grocery co-op, a credit union, a farmer’s co-op such as a community grain elevator, or an electric cooperative like HomeWorks Tri-County.

We bring Principle #2 Democratic Member Control to your neighborhood through the annual district membership meetings in mid-May, where you can vote for the member who will represent you on the board of directors.

This year, and in most recent years, we’ve demonstrated #3 Members’ Economic Participation when we retired capital credits from 1984 and 2009 on your May energy bills. These represent a portion of your share of the members’ equity in HomeWorks; by retiring some capital credits.

In April, we used #5 Education, Training and Information to search for top high school students, sending three young women to Michigan Rural Electric Teen Days, and awarding $2,500 in Touchstone Energy scholarships to four more students.

And when you turn to page 5, you’ll read about #7 - Concern for Community in action. This one has a lot of meanings, from being good stewards of our environment to supporting local schools.

It also means creating the Tri-County Electric People Fund, for which many of you round up your energy bill to the next dollar. The donated funds are given as grants to families and organizations in need right here in mid-Michigan.

Your support of the People Fund over $1.5 million given back since 1993 - has been a real inspiration to us.

Our employees show their concern for community through paying a small fee to wear jeans on Fridays, donating time and energy to organizations in their hometowns, and rallying to raise funds for special causes.

Over the past several years, through jean day funds and holiday collections, they’ve given thousands of dollars to food banks and community funds in the Portland and Blanchard areas.

Employees from both offices also helped made a HomeWorks-supported Relay for Life team the highest fundraiser in Portland last year.

Each of the seven cooperative principles is important to us, but I think we all get a few goosebumps when we look at what we can accomplish together by caring for our communities.

Democracy in America

2010-05-01T07:01:00.000-07:00

Come to your district meeting for a reason, or 'just because'

When you run a business, it’s important to keep up with the operations and financial reports, and to get to know the people who work for you.

That’s why you’re urged – not just invited, but encouraged – to attend your Tri-County Electric Cooperative district membership meeting this month.

As a member-owner of the cooperative, YOU run the cooperative by electing the board of directors. They in turn hire the General Manager (me) and hold the staff responsible for safety, reliability, financial accountability, and all those key items you expect from a well-run business.

At your district membership meeting, you will hear operating reports and some financial statistics. We don’t get into deep detail, but we do provide a printed copy of the financial report for you to review.

There will also be a group of staff members from each of the cooperative’s teams to meet and discuss your concerns with, and your district director will be on hand as well.

Why is attending a district membership meeting important to you? First, an informed member is more likely to be involved in voting, expressing concerns, and yes, even letting us know what we’re doing right.

Second, a district meeting is your voting booth. Board elections will take place at three meetings this year – Charlotte, Fulton, and Remus – and at Lake Odessa and Vestaburg, members will elect district officers who will serve as their districts’ nominating committees in 2011.

But those are the serious reasons why. There are many more fun reasons to join us.

How about a light “Made in Michigan” supper for your family while you visit with neighbors.

Each member receives a free gift as well as a chance to win energy certificates worth up to $50, or even a 19" flat-screen HDTV.

And if you bring your children aged 5 to 16, their names will be put in a drawing for a netbook; one will be given away at each district.

We hope you’ll attend your district membership for any of the reasons listed, or “just because.”

We’re looking forward to seeing you there.