An update for your co-op’s 82nd year

May marked anoth­er year of serv­ing you and a suc­cess­ful annu­al meet­ing for your coop­er­a­tive. We had many excit­ing moments, includ­ing the high­est record of mem­bers who reg­is­tered and vot­ed in our his­to­ry, our first Fort Mill annu­al meet­ing loca­tion and free hot dogs served by the York Rotary Club.

Annu­al meet­ing sea­son is a time I use to reflect on what we’ve accom­plished, where we are and how we plan to con­tin­ue serv­ing you with excel­lence. I’m grate­ful our Lord blessed us with anoth­er year with­out a major injury or large-scale out­age, employ­ees who live and breathe ser­vice, a ded­i­cat­ed board of trustees and the priv­i­lege we have to serve you and the com­mu­ni­ties we share.

Last month, cap­i­tal cred­its were returned to mem­bers, break­ing our record yet again by giv­ing back $2.6 mil­lion. Con­tin­u­ing to return more mon­ey to mem­bers each year not only shows the finan­cial health of your coop­er­a­tive, but it also exem­pli­fies the coop­er­a­tive dif­fer­ence, our unique busi­ness mod­el and the val­ue of your mem­ber­ship.

Look­ing ahead, we are excit­ed to be in the final stretch­es of our Rur­al Inter­net Project. Now, more than 4,500 mem­bers have access to high-speed inter­net that didn’t before. We’ve also kept your rates sta­ble for the past 12 years and plan to con­tin­ue that trend through this year. We con­tin­ue imple­ment­ing new tech­nolo­gies to mit­i­gate out­ages, mak­ing your ser­vice more reli­able than it has ever been before. This includes upgrades to sev­er­al sub­sta­tions, research­ing, devel­op­ing and imple­ment­ing pro­grams to sup­port and edu­cate our mem­bers who choose to own elec­tric vehi­cles and plan­ning for growth to ensure a robust infra­struc­ture for the com­mu­ni­ties, busi­ness­es and mem­bers we serve.

Addi­tion­al­ly, we are focused on the research and devel­op­ment of smart devices that can help our mem­bers mon­i­tor their ener­gy use and save mon­ey. Your co-op is proud to be your trust­ed ener­gy advi­sor, sup­port­ing you with the facts and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als so that you can make the best choic­es on imple­ment­ing the new tools and tech­nolo­gies avail­able in the mar­ket.

This wouldn’t be pos­si­ble with­out the abil­i­ty to focus sole­ly on our mem­bers by way of the coop­er­a­tive busi­ness mod­el. We exist for you, our busi­ness is demo­c­ra­t­i­cal­ly con­trolled by you and, at your co-op, you have a voice. Your sup­port of the coop­er­a­tive busi­ness mod­el keeps your cooperative’s busi­ness in your hands, run by a local­ly elect­ed board of trustees. The alter­na­tive, which includes mul­ti­ple lay­ers of reg­u­la­tion, wouldn’t allow us to do the right things for the right rea­sons, for the best inter­est of our mem­bers. Thank you for allow­ing us to con­tin­ue to look out for you as your neigh­bor, as your friend, as your family—as your co-op.

Sin­cere­ly,

 

 

Paul Basha
Pres­i­dent and Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer