(a) A cooperative shall have one (1) or more of the:

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Terms Used In Tennessee Code 65-25-104

  • Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
  • Board: means a cooperative's board of directors or the necessary number thereof to take action. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
  • Community utility services: includes broadband internet access and related services and telecommunications services, including, but not limited to, television communication services of any kind and by any means, television programming and decryption services, selling, leasing, both as lessor and lessee, servicing and repairing related equipment, including TV antenna dishes, and the furnishing for any purpose to itself or to others, including other cooperatives, information and data relative to its or their other purposes, including, if such is the case, the primary purpose. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Fiscal year: The fiscal year is the accounting period for the government. For the federal government, this begins on October 1 and ends on September 30. The fiscal year is designated by the calendar year in which it ends; for example, fiscal year 2006 begins on October 1, 2005 and ends on September 30, 2006.
  • Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
  • Member: means a person having the right to vote for the directors of a cooperative and upon other matters as provided in this chapter, a cooperative's articles of incorporation or bylaws, and includes each incorporator of a cooperative thereof, and also a husband and wife admitted to joint membership. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
  • Mortgagee: The person to whom property is mortgaged and who has loaned the money.
  • Mortgagor: The person who pledges property to a creditor as collateral for a loan and who receives the money.
  • Net worth: means the difference between a cooperative's assets and liabilities, which liabilities shall not include any amounts of patronage capital assigned or assignable to patrons on the cooperative's books or carried on such books even though not so assigned or assignable, determined in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles and methods and the accounting system applicable to such cooperative, as most recently, but not more than sixty (60) days, reflected in its books of account and balance sheet prior to the date of a member meeting at which a vote will be taken on whether to sell or to lease-sell all or a substantial portion of the assets and properties which are devoted to and are used or useful in pursuing a primary purpose. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
  • Primary purpose: means one (1) of the purposes provided for in §. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
  • Property: includes both personal and real property. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • secondary purpose: means one (1) of the purposes provided for in §. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
  • services: includes sales, exchanges, rentals, repairs and maintenance of land, facilities, equipment, machinery, appliances, accessories and goods and the financing of their acquisition by patrons. See Tennessee Code 65-25-102
  • State: when applied to the different parts of the United States, includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
  • United States: includes the District of Columbia and the several territories of the United States. See Tennessee Code 1-3-105
(1) Primary purposes of:

(A) Supplying or furnishing at wholesale or retail, electric power and energy services to, and promoting the efficient use and conservation thereof by, one (1) or more patrons; or
(B) Supplying, furnishing or exchanging wholesale power and energy to or with any other entity; and/or
(2) Secondary purposes of:

(A) Supplying or furnishing other community utility services as provided in §§ 65-25-102(3) and 65-25-131;
(B) Providing management or operating services by contract with any cooperative, utility district, municipality, or other entity engaged in the provision of community services or of services including, but not limited to, water, sewer, and natural gas; and
(C) Promoting economic and industrial development through participation, including either as a borrower or as a lender, in any economic or industrial development program established by any agency of the United States or of the state of Tennessee.
(b) A cooperative existing prior to, or coming into existence on or after, April 7, 1988, may, without further action other than the adoption by its board of a resolution to that effect, have, and may engage in business for, one (1) or more of the secondary purposes, and may, subject to any approvals by its members that may otherwise be required by this chapter, after engaging in such business abandon the same by the adoption by its board of a resolution to that effect.
(c) A cooperative having the primary purpose may be the only incorporator and member or one (1) of the incorporators and members of another cooperative having a primary purpose and/or a secondary purpose; and a cooperative not having a primary purpose may be the only incorporator and member or one (1) of the incorporators and members of another cooperative having a secondary purpose only.
(d) Notwithstanding any other provision of this chapter, a cooperative having a primary purpose shall not, in pursuance of one (1) or more secondary purposes, burden, obstruct, prevent, interfere with, jeopardize, impair, delay, or lower the quality, reliability or adequacy, or increase the cost of, the pursuance and achievement of a primary purpose. Without limiting the generality of the foregoing sentence, in the business and affairs of the cooperative, including its ownership of and titles to, or its interests as mortgagor or mortgagee or as lessor or lessee in, any property of any kind or estate whatever, real or personal:

(1) Its conduct of business in pursuance of a primary purpose and of each of its secondary purposes shall be separately accounted for, so that the costs, expenses, expenditures, assets, properties, liabilities, obligations, revenues, receipts, capital indebtedness, equity, book value, net worth and other information necessary to reveal the operations and financial and other conditions of its business for each may be accurately ascertained; and its books and records shall be so set up and kept that, at any reasonable time after normal periods of business accounting and reporting and after a reasonable time following the end of each fiscal year, such ascertainment, including the determination of the pro rata amounts of patronage or the amounts of equity, if any, of the patrons in respect of its business for each such purpose, may be made; and
(2) It will not so operate as to permit its income from business transacted for one (1) or more secondary purposes to be such, in amount or as a percentage of its total income, as to prevent it from being able to obtain or to cause it to lose exemption from federal income taxation relative to a primary purpose.
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