October is National Co-op Month

This Co-op Month, York Elec­tric encour­ages you to remem­ber that you are part of an ener­gized group of Amer­i­cans who have a voice and a net­work of coop­er­a­tives that believe in the pow­er of com­mu­ni­ty. The Sev­en Coop­er­a­tive Prin­ci­ples below help us serve you with excel­lence and always put you first.

Thank you for being a York Elec­tric mem­ber.

THE SEVEN COOPERATIVE PRINCIPLES

1. Vol­un­tary and Open Mem­ber­ship Coop­er­a­tives are vol­un­tary orga­ni­za­tions open to all per­sons able to use their ser­vices and will­ing to accept the respon­si­bil­i­ties of mem­ber­ship, with­out gen­der, social, racial, polit­i­cal or reli­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion.

2. Demo­c­ra­t­ic Mem­ber Con­trol Coop­er­a­tives are demo­c­ra­t­ic orga­ni­za­tions con­trolled by their mem­bers, who active­ly par­tic­i­pate in set­ting poli­cies and mak­ing deci­sions. The elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives are account­able to the mem­ber­ship. Mem­bers have equal vot­ing rights—one mem­ber, one vote. Coop­er­a­tives at oth­er lev­els are orga­nized in a demo­c­ra­t­ic man­ner.

3. Mem­bers’ Eco­nom­ic Par­tic­i­pa­tion In an elec­tric coop­er­a­tive, the member’s patron­age is an inte­gral part of the busi­ness assets and financ­ing. Mem­bers have an oblig­a­tion to uti­lize the co-op’s ser­vices as mem­bers. This oblig­a­tion and the rates you pay for ser­vice help to finance the cost of build­ing, main­tain­ing and oper­at­ing the util­i­ty. Since the sole pur­pose of an elec­tric co-op is to pro­vide ser­vice with­out gen­er­at­ing exces­sive mar­gins, the co-op sets rates that will enable it to pay all oper­at­ing and financ­ing expens­es. Any net income remain­ing after expens­es is refund­ed to the mem­bers or cred­it­ed to their accounts based on the amount of elec­tric­i­ty they use in a giv­en year. This net mar­gin is called mem­ber equi­ty. As a not-for-prof­it util­i­ty, York Elec­tric lat­er returns these rev­enues to the mem­bers who orig­i­nal­ly paid them through their elec­tric bills by way of the Cap­i­tal Cred­it retire­ment process.

4. Auton­o­my and Inde­pen­dence Coop­er­a­tives are autonomous, self-help orga­ni­za­tions con­trolled by their mem­bers. If they enter into agree­ments with oth­er orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing gov­ern­ments, or raise cap­i­tal from exter­nal sources, they do so on terms that ensure demo­c­ra­t­ic con­trol by their mem­bers and main­tain their coop­er­a­tive auton­o­my.

5. Edu­ca­tion, Train­ing and Infor­ma­tion Coop­er­a­tives pro­vide edu­ca­tion and train­ing for their mem­bers, elect­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives, man­agers and employ­ees so that they can con­tribute effec­tive­ly to the devel­op­ment of their coop­er­a­tives. They inform the gen­er­al pub­lic, par­tic­u­lar­ly young peo­ple and opin­ion lead­ers, about the nature and ben­e­fits of coop­er­a­tion.

6. Coop­er­a­tion Among Coop­er­a­tives Coop­er­a­tives serve their mem­bers most effec­tive­ly and strength­en the coop­er­a­tive move­ment by work­ing togeth­er through local, nation­al, region­al and inter­na­tion­al struc­tures.

7. Con­cern for Com­mu­ni­ty While focus­ing on mem­ber needs, coop­er­a­tives work for the sus­tain­able devel­op­ment of their com­mu­ni­ties through poli­cies accept­ed by their mem­bers.