Mike Couick
As a young boy, I would sometimes go bird (quail) hunting with my granddad, dad and brother. It was a special time to be outdoors, tramping across broom straw fields covered by heavy frost, watching my grandfather’s pointers and setters work the field in search of a covey.
I once got so caught up in the hunt that I walked myself right into the middle of a briar patch, and I mean a real briar patch, not rose bushes or even blackberry vines. I mean saw briars. Folks at the Clemson Extension Service tell me they are formally known as Smilax bona-nox, or saw greenbriers. All I know is they could flat rip through my Levi’s. (I didn’t have real hunting pants faced with canvas.)
There is nothing like finding yourself in a briar patch to help you focus on what is truly important. I learned that neither running nor panicking was the solution. Slowing down, focusing on the next right step and, maybe, even asking for help were the answers. When I got out, I didn’t curse the briar patch—it was there, and I walked into it—I was just grateful to be out.
There’s a point to my briar patch reflections as we go into the new year. South Carolina’s electric cooperatives found themselves in the middle of a briar patch in 2018. I am not talking about the financial fallout from the collapse of the joint SCANA-Santee Cooper nuclear project in Fairfield County. You can look for an article on that topic in next month’s magazine.
This month’s briar patch topic—covered extensively in the news media—grows out of governance issues at Tri-County Electric Cooperative in St. Matthews. For the moment, allow me to put aside the events at Tri-County and the admirable and successful effort by a cooperative’s members to reclaim their cooperative.
I want to tell you instead about the other cooperatives in the state and what they did at the moment they collectively found themselves in a briar patch. It was a briar patch where the news media, some members of the General Assembly and a few local cooperative members asked if Tri-County was just a glitch or an indicator of a broader governance challenge among South Carolina’s 19 other electric cooperatives.
That question hurt. Many cooperative board members and employees have invested decades in “walking the walk” of what we call the Cooperative Difference—providing great service and value through organizations where control is vested in the local membership.
They did not curse the briar patch, however. They slowed down and focused on the important, next right thing to do. They met as local boards to assess whether their local governance structures—established by bylaws created or amended only by vote of the members—were effective and, perhaps just as important, “modern.” Did their current bylaws lay out clear and fair processes for a member to run for their board? Could the membership easily access information about the board’s meetings and compensation? Could members identify and understand the links between their local cooperatives and other state and national organizations formed to deliver a locally governed service—but with the economic benefits of shared services costing less because they were provided on a state or national scale?
Our cooperatives have begun to share their conclusions with your local legislative delegations and the General Assembly as a whole. More updates will be needed as bylaws are presented to cooperative members for approval.
Electric cooperatives are local, community-based and independent, resulting in each being unique. As they update you—their members—and the General Assembly, the old saying about how “one size does not fit all” will also apply to the cooperatives. But they have worked together to get out of the briar patch for the past eight months, and they will continue to prove that your cooperative is your cooperative.
Has been and always will be.
Happy New Year!