Horry Electric Cooperative is breaking a 40-year tradition and moving its annual meeting next year out of Myrtle Beach to Conway.
The annual meeting of cooperative members will be at Coastal Carolina University’s new Student Recreation and Convocation Center on May 14 instead of at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center, where the annual meeting has happened since 1972, the cooperative said Tuesday on its website.
Most of the cooperative’s customers are west of the Intracoastal Waterway, so meeting in Conway instead of Myrtle Beach will make it more convenient, the company said. Some aspects of meeting in Myrtle Beach – traffic, the distance and the potential of traveling after dark – have kept some members from attending the annual meeting, according to surveys conducted in 2005 and 2008, the company said.
Horry Electric has been looking for another meeting location for the past few years, the company said. Crews are putting the finishing touches on CCU’s new center, which is expected to open before classes resume Aug. 20.
Horry Electric has nearly 54,000 members, and about 4,330 of them attended the annual meeting in 2010 and 2011, spokeswoman Penelope Hinson said.
Horry Electric customers will be notified about what to expect in the new venue, how to get there and where to go on campus. The meeting format and the credit on their bills that members receive for registering at the meeting won’t change, Hinson said.
“We’re excited about this change and are confident this will be a positive move in the long-term,” Pat Howle, Horry Electric’s executive vice president and CEO, said on the company’s website. “There is no doubt it is going to take a lot of work and coordination on our part and some patience on the part of our members for it to be a successful event.”
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