Smith River Community Bank, We Thank You

In case you haven't seen it over at the Blogs United website, one of my compatriots has posted a well deserved thank you to Smith River Community Bank. A more formal letter of thanks will be going out to the bank in tomorrow's mail. For now this will suffice.

The scattered reports that have come in so far on the conference have been overwhelmingly positive. While the people who put this together--primarily Alton, Anne, and Mary--deserve all the kudos coming their way, they were fortunate to have what might be the first ever direct corporate sponsor of a blog conference.

Smith River Community Bank sponsored the Blogs United in Martinsville for Free Speech Blog Conference. The sponsorship came with absolutely no strings attached.

It's hard to underestimate the good that community-based banks do in predominantly rural areas of Virginia. Smith River Community Bank obviously saw the blog conference as a wonderful way to showcase the area they serve to an audience that otherwise might not see the opportunities that abound in Southside.

Thanks to a forward-looking corporate citizen, this blog conference venue benefited the attendees and the host communities, Martinsville-Henry County.

Several people have remarked on what a value this conference was for the $50 registration fee. Our final accounting is incomplete at this time, but I can truthfully say that this would never have been possible without the support of Smith River Community Bank. In order to provide the same level of accommodations, our registration fee would have easily doubled without their involvement.

In the interest of full disclosure I will be posting an Excel spreadsheet of the final accounting when it's completed sometime later this week.

Once again I thank the Smith River Community Bank and look forward to a long relationship with them.