From the corner of the board room Lower rates, rural internet coming

As we close out a year full of unprece­dent­ed times, we want to thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port and mem­ber­ship. Please allow me to intro­duce myself on behalf of YEC’s Board of Direc­tors, who are hon­ored to con­tin­ue serv­ing you. My name is Tom Set­tle­myre. I rep­re­sent Dis­trict 1 on your board and cur­rent­ly serve as chair­man. I am hap­py to share insight from the board room, as well as a review of your co-op’s 2020 accom­plish­ments.

Service, growth and internet

The year 2020 was dif­fi­cult to nav­i­gate for all of us. For the first time, we can­celed our annu­al meet­ing and closed our lob­by to keep our mem­bers and employ­ees safe. Despite the pan­dem­ic, we are proud to say we con­tin­ued our ded­i­ca­tion to you, serv­ing you with excel­lence, remain­ing pro­duc­tive and com­plet­ing many sys­tem improve­ments.

This includ­ed upgrades on nine exist­ing sub­sta­tions and break­ing ground on our new Aycock School sub­sta­tion, which will serve mem­bers liv­ing near McConnells. We are on track for this to come online in the spring. We’ve also start­ed work on sev­er­al oth­er new sub­sta­tions that will be con­struct­ed in the next few years. We con­tin­ued our back­lot bur­ial project, putting miles of our over­head lines in con­gest­ed areas under­ground; trimmed 390 miles of right-of-way, stay­ing true to our five-year right-of-way trim­ming cycle; worked to enhance com­mu­ni­ca­tion and the trans­paren­cy of our busi­ness; and respond­ed to 100% of all out­ages with­in one hour.

Although our board meet­ings looked dif­fer­ent this year, we con­tin­ued to look out for the best inter­est of our entire mem­ber­ship, striv­ing to improve the qual­i­ty of life in our area. We com­plet­ed 21 train­ing ses­sions to bet­ter under­stand the jobs of YEC employ­ees and how we can best sup­port them in their mis­sion to take care of you. We con­duct­ed a fea­si­bil­i­ty study to offer fiber inter­net to the unserved areas of our ter­ri­to­ry. Upon review, we are excit­ed to announce we will be part­ner­ing to offer high-speed fiber inter­net in phas­es to mem­bers iden­ti­fied in this study. YEC mem­bers west of York and McConnells, includ­ing mem­bers in Chero­kee Coun­ty, will ben­e­fit from this new offer­ing. We will com­mu­ni­cate direct­ly with affect­ed mem­bers in the spring. As we move for­ward with this new ven­ture, we will share more.

Bylaws and dri­ve-thru Annu­al Meet­ing

Each month we study safe­ty reports, approve finan­cial doc­u­ments and pro­vide direc­tion, vision and approval for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment projects to plan for future growth. We set goals for improve­ment, and annu­al­ly review and sug­gest bylaw changes to pro­tect mem­bers’ rights. Please look for sev­er­al pro­posed bylaw changes in March’s South Car­oli­na Liv­ing, as well as infor­ma­tion regard­ing our first-ever dri­ve-thru annu­al meet­ing. We look for­ward to enlarg­ing our exist­ing dri­ve-thru expe­ri­ence to include all attend­ing mem­bers, enhanc­ing con­ve­nience, as well as increas­ing reg­is­tra­tion and vot­ing hours to improve acces­si­bil­i­ty.

Every dol­lar counts

Last year, we made sev­er­al impor­tant finan­cial advances to secure our future and save mon­ey for mem­bers. We reduced part of our debt and low­ered our aver­age inter­est paid by over 1%, sav­ing us mil­lions of dol­lars. We com­plet­ed two cap­i­tal cred­it retire­ments, return­ing more than $2 mil­lion to mem­bers. Thanks to these strate­gic moves and the effi­cien­cy of employ­ees, we will not only extend our streak of 10 years with­out a rate increase, but also slight­ly low­er rates for all mem­bers begin­ning this month for 2021. Per­haps one of the most impact­ful finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions has been to dis­trib­ute more than $3.1 mil­lion dol­lars to those in need in our com­mu­ni­ty through our Oper­a­tion Round Up Trust, all because of your gen­eros­i­ty.

Thank you for allow­ing us to serve you and make a dif­fer­ence. Please let us know if you need any­thing. We’ll be in the board room work­ing for you.

TOM SETTLEMYRE
Chair­man, Dis­trict 1