Country Club seniors' dues dispute (major whine warning!).

[DemoTex]

Senior country club members take battle over dues to court
Lifetime-free membership status at issue

Passions have been running high around the Greenville (SC) Country Club lately, and it's not just over golf balls slicing into the rough.

Some of the longtime members are miffed at the club's leadership for canceling their lifetime-free membership status.

The club, which lost $1 million between 1998 and 2002 but says it's now on solid financial footing, says the move to restructure membership dues in May 2004 was necessary because of long-range cash problems, declining membership and morale of members.

More than a dozen senior members, several of them lawyers, sued. The case was heard in Greenville County court Monday. (more at link)

http://greenvilleonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050920/NEWS01/509200322

What a hardship! How dare the posh GCC ask these poor guys (and they are all rich white males) to pony up $4000 per year to keep their under-taxed golf and tennis bastion solvent? How dare they? This is an egregious bait-and-switch. It is only justified with airline employee pension plans and Enron-esque scandals. What a whiny pack of old, bitter boozers. Screw them and their precious "lifetime free membership."

Now they are getting a dose of reality. Life is not always fair even for those who have caught every break imaginable during their sorry, sheltered lives. Suck it up MoFos, and just go play golf in a thunderstorm.

[eyesroll]

1. I suppose it depends on the contracts.

Like it or not, even rich people have the right to have a contract enforced.

If the "senior members" signed something that said they were entitled to free membership -- and there wasn't a provision to change the contract terms by bylaw vote or something -- then that's what theyr'e entitled to, at least as I understand it.

[DemoTex]

2. Yeah. I had a labor contract which covered my airline pension.

But my pension was terminated on 3/31/2003. These club guys' dues-free-status was changed by an overwhelming vote of the country club membership to amend the bylaws and do away with the "lifetime membership status."