The 103-year-old social club in Springfield, Mass. closed in May of this year to avoid going into debt, but members are searching for a new location and a “less stodgy” way of doing business. “[The club] would have to radically change to attract young people,” said current President Mark Teed. “Younger people have told us exactly how they feel about the old Colony Club by not joining.”
Members of the now-closed Colony Club in Springfield, Mass. are still meeting, MassLive.com reported, to discuss searching for a new location with the hope of restarting the 103-year-old institution with a new and less stodgy way of doing business.
“We don’t want to let [the club] die without thinking if there is a next step,” Mark Teed, President of the club’s Board of Governors, told MassLive.com. “It would have to radically change in order to attract young people. Younger people have told us exactly how they feel about the old Colony Club by not joining.”
When the club shut down at the end of May, its members’ average age was close to 70, MassLive.com reported.
“That’s not a good sign for your long-term survival,” Teed said. “We need to get that average age down to 40, 45 or 50.”
The Colony Club Board decided to close in May out of fear that a lack of income during the slow summer season would put it in debt, MassLive.com reported. The club has since settled with the landlords at its current Tower Square location in Springfield and paid off its other debts, but there isn’t much capital to start a new venture.
By the time the club closed, it was down to 215 members from more than 300 in 2015, MassLive.com reported, despite a big 100th anniversary membership push that year.
Founded in 1915, the Colony Club began in the former home of Smith & Wesson co-founder Daniel B. Wesson—a grand, French-style chateau that took a decade to build at a cost of $1 million, and that burned down in 1966, MassLIve.com reported. After the fire, the club reopened in a new location in the early 1970s.
At its original location, MassLive.com reported, the Colony Club hosted six eventual Presidents who signed its guest register, including William Howard Taft, both Roosevelts, Herbert Hoover and John F. Kennedy (Franklin D. Roosevelt signed in 1918 while listing his occupation as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and his cousin, Theodore, as a former President, listed simply “Oyster Bay, N.Y.” when signing in the same year.)
A new version of the Colony Club wouldn’t have the elaborate meals and traditional service that the old one had, MassLive.com reported, and would likely be much more informal in presentation and dress. “No one dines in a jacket and tie anymore,” Teed noted.
A revived club wouldn’t have dues, either, as Teed said he’s been told that monthly dues are anathema to the younger professionals and business people the club needs to draw in, MassLive.com reported.
At the time the Colony Club closed, Teed told MassLive.com, he was paying $150 a month in dues and had a commitment to spend at least $150 a month on food and beverage charges.
But Teed still feels the club can serve a purpose, to improve what he called the “social capital” of Springfield and the region. Leaders in politics, business, medicine, education and in the nonprofit world need a place like the Colony Club to meet and swap ideas and perspectives, he told MassLive.com.
“At this time when everything seems to be drawn toward MGM, there needs to be a place for all those people to get to know each other, ” he said. “It has to be somewhat exclusive and it has to be somewhere where people con congregate comfortably.”
One solution, MassLive.com reported, may be to keep the organization going by hosting meetings and events at existing restaurants or country clubs, instead of maintaining its own venue. Or, the Colony Club might find space it can afford.
There are no set plans, Teed said, only talks. And if nothing comes to fruition by September, the 50-or-so members who have expressed an interest thus far will probably give up, MassLive.com reported.
“I think if you wait too long, it won’t work,” Teed said.
If the club doesn’t continue, Teed said the remaining Board will donate its memorabilia, including the guest register signed by the six Presidents, to The Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History.
“They have agreed to create an exhibit for us,” he said. “We think that might be the best place.”
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