Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	6/3/2005

Sayonara Greensboro City Club

We needed to have small meeting with some local leadership in the John Birch Society so one of our members put us up in the 12 seat Guilford Room of the Greensboro City Club this Wednesday evening. The food and service were exceptional even though we were only days away from the City Club's demise.

On the way out we spoke with one of the staff in the bar. He gave us some stats: The club needed to have around 1000 members to stay solvent but had dropped below that level to around 950 losing 50 memberships right after the 1994/95 IRS law changes that cut the deductions allowed for clubs. The membership roll never recovered from there. Even among the reported 600 memberships at closing many were gratis. The abundance of good new restaurants now in town along with the drop off of big corporate members were both cited as causes for the inability to keep the place solvent.

As a souvenier the bar staffer handed me a pack of wooden matches with the Greensboro City Club script printed on it. It wasn't till today I noticed something odd. They are made in Japan. Textiles in Greensboro are dead because they are just to low tech for the USA but a Japanese company still finds a way to ship matchsticks to our town. What are we missing here?

8:54:51 PM

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