We’re suspending your annual meeting

A hearty hand­shake. A slap on the shoul­der. Maybe even a warm hug. You don’t usu­al­ly asso­ciate these types of behav­iors with a busi­ness meet­ing. That is, unless you’re talk­ing about York Elec­tric Coop­er­a­tive’s Annu­al Meet­ing. It’s what makes us dif­fer­ent bring­ing mem­bers, employ­ees, trustees and our com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er to engage with one anoth­er and par­tic­i­pate in the busi­ness of their coop­er­a­tive. Hav­ing such an event has always been an impor­tant part of serv­ing you and thank­ing you for your mem­ber­ship.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, right now, the very things that make our annu­al meet­ing so spe­cial cre­ate an even greater risk to the com­mu­ni­ties we serve. York Elec­tric’s 2020 Annu­al Meet­ing of Mem­bers is sus­pend­ed to pre­vent fur­ther spread­ing of the coro­n­avirus.

Although unprece­dent­ed, this deci­sion by your board of trustees is con­sis­tent with York Elec­tric always putting safe­ty first. The trustee elec­tion, bylaw changes and coop­er­a­tive busi­ness that need­ed to be done on May 9, 2020 can be accom­plished at a time when it’s safer for us to be togeth­er again.

As you may know, these annu­al meet­ings are part of coop­er­a­tives’ DNA and are required to hap­pen as writ­ten into our bylaws. But a pan­dem­ic has no use for bylaws. Statutes and reg­u­la­tions don’t make sense if fol­low­ing them is harm­ful for the peo­ple those rules are meant to pro­tect. For exam­ple, YEC has lim­it­ed per­son­al con­tact with mem­bers, sus­pend­ed account dis­con­nec­tions, increased social dis­tanc­ing for meet­ings, and increased employ­ee com­mu­ni­ca­tions detail­ing the signs of COVID-19 and guide­lines to help pre­vent spread­ing germs in the office.

 

Although it has not been nec­es­sary yet, York Elec­tric may adjust its office hours or even tem­porar­i­ly close. We strong­ly encour­age you to vis­it this web­page, fol­low us on Face­book, Insta­gram and Twit­ter, or just sim­ply call our mem­ber ser­vices team at (803) 684‑4248 to receive the lat­est infor­ma­tion on how our ser­vices have changed.

In the mean­time, we’re doing every­thing we can to pre­vent the spread of the virus. Our offices are rou­tine­ly cleaned and dis­in­fect­ed. Our employ­ees, espe­cial­ly those who inter­act with the pub­lic, adhere to strict per­son­al hygiene guide­lines and have been instruct­ed to stay home if they are fever­ish or do not feel well.

As you prac­tice social dis­tanc­ing or self-iso­la­tion, let me remind you of our remote account man­age­ment ser­vices. With YEC’s Mem­ber Por­tal, you can pay your bill, cre­ate a pay­ment arrange­ment, request ser­vice orders, or report an out­age on your desk­top com­put­er or using our mobile app. Our free YEC Mobile App also pro­vides these ser­vices, along with our opt-in tex­ting at 352667. If you haven’t already, now is a good time to take advan­tage of them. Please call us if you need assis­tance.

YEC is always look­ing out for you, so I remind you all to stay in safe spaces, prac­tice healthy habits and stay informed. We want to help you and our com­mu­ni­ty stay well.

Sin­cere­ly,

Paul Basha
Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer