The Importance of Being Smitty

He’s famous as the guy who can tell you what’s going on in Winston. But Jeff Smith’s efforts to help people connect with each other and the city go much deeper.

By Lisa Watts - Photos by Lee Adams

By the time the waiters start clearing the appetizers and serving the salad, Jeff Smith has a pretty good feeling about this evening.

By now his two dozen guests - among them a college president, a few professors, and a handful of business owners - have met each other over a cocktail, moved to tables of eight and introduced themselves again, and listened to a speaker. Now they’re off and running, interrupting each other to tell their stories, trading business cards, laughing easily.

Smith may be the host of this dinner party, but he is about the most relaxed guy in the room.
Dressed in business-casual polo shirt and khakis and smiling his toothy grin, he strolls among the four tables occasionally to check the temperature. He nods as guests report excitedly about some connection they just discovered between themselves or some project they’ve just learned about.

Since starting Evenings With Eight in 2001, Smith has watched this alchemy take place again and again, transforming strangers into acquaintances - and twice into bride and groom - over the course of a restaurant meal.

Another host might work to keep the spotlight on himself. He might dress the fanciest, talk the loudest, try to wield the most charm. But not Smith. His years of being Smitty - the guy who compiles a biweekly e-mail newsletter of nightlife and other happenings in Winston-Salem - has earned him celebrity status in town, but he’s happy to sit back and watch the action.

That’s all he meant to do, after all, back in 1997 when he started compiling e-mails from a dozen or so friends about what they should do on the weekends. He’d send out one master list, and he jokingly labeled it “Smitty’s Community Notes.” Friends would circulate his list still further. Then a Winston-Salem Journal reporter, Mary Giunca, mentioned his notes in her column, and suddenly Smith had sixty or so requests to be added to his circulation list. “Smitty’s Notes” has grown to include a Web site - www.smittysnotes.com; the free, bimonthly e-newsletter that goes out to about nine thousand subscribers; a column in the Journal’s weekly relish section, and a weekly show on WXIIcom

SMITH KNOWS THAT his Web site, notes, and dinners have made “Smitty” something of a local brand. But honestly, he says, he’d rather be known for the community work he has done. Smith has served on at least four boards at a time, including the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership, the Arts Council, the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA), the Millenium Fund, and the Winston-Salem Foundation.

All of that work, he’s proud to say, has contributed to a city that isn’t as insular to young people and newcomers as it was even ten years ago. That’s about the time city leaders paid serious attention to the census figures showing a steady stream of young people leaving town after short stays. The financial ramifications were clear: Companies were losing money training young people only to have them leave, or struggling to attract them in the first place.

A Winston-Salem native, Smith saw firsthand how exclusive the social scene was. If you were a young professional who wanted to get involved in the community, you had to be invited, he says. Rather than leave town himself, he chipped away at the issue. Smith was one of the first “urban pioneers” to move into a renovated tobacco warehouse, Albert Hall, downtown. He joined ACCES, a committee of young professionals at SECCA. A paralegal for much of his career, he networks constantly with other professionals. His love for the city and this area is infectious. “Young people often think they’re coming to a sleepy, boring community,” he says. “I encourage them to keep an open mind, check out things they’re interested in. After a year, I touch base and find out they’re pretty happy.

“You’ve got easy access to the airport, we’re halfway between the mountains and the beach, we’ve got hiking and sports. You’re just not far from all the things you’d enjoy living in a big city.”

Smith doesn’t wear rose-colored glasses, though. He sees plenty of room for improvement, especially around issues of diversity and race relations.

And while the addition of more residential developments downtown is sure to enliven the city, it also brings growing pains, as more people moving to town raises issues such as parking, pet owners not cleaning up after their dogs, and noise concerns.

Smitty isn’t a young buck anymore. At forty-two, he’s still single but grappling with some health issues that have slowed him down this year. When he saw how so many board meetings and “Smitty work” were draining him, on top of his day job at Syngenta in Greensboro, he started to scale back. He stepped down from every board except the Millennium Fund.

“I tell people I’m on the biscuit-and-gravy circuit now, meeting people (friends, business and civic leaders) for breakfast or after work for drinks,” he says. “It’s the best way I can stay connected with the community.”

Sometimes his newsletter starts to feel like a chore, one that he could pass on to someone else.

“But every time I think about quitting, I get an unsolicited e-mail from someone saying ‘Thank you for what you do.’”

SURFING THE WEB six years ago, Smith came across a program in Washington, D.C., where people could sign up at a Web site and meet at a restaurant. The organizer bought the group the first round of drinks, then left the folks on their own. Smith wasn’t sure how well that would fly in Winston, so he devised his “Evenings With Eight - Plus Smitty.” Guests sign up online, meet at Bistro 420 on Fourth Street, enjoy cocktails, hear a speaker (anyone from the mayor or other civic leaders to experts on wine and music), then a full-course dinner (the dinner tab’s on you, along with a $25 administrative fee).

The idea is simple, but the impact is impressive. More than eight hundred people have attended the dinners since 2001. Initially Smith thought the evenings would help twenty- and thirty-somethings meet each other, but the appeal has proved far broader. “We’ve become a society of individuals,” he says, citing Robert Putnam’s 2000 book, Bowling Alone, which studies the decline of social groups and community engagement. When everyone from college students to retirees began signing up for his dinners, Smith knew he was feeding a larger hunger.

“People are really wanting to meet each other, to find people to widen their circles, and they were seeing this as a networking opportunity,” he says. “We’ve helped people get jobs and make connections.” He can claim two engagements and two weddings that grew out of Evenings with Eight.

Not that the focus is on dating. Friends and couples can sign up for the dinners, but Smith won’t seat you at the same table. The point is to meet and connect with others. “When guests come out of Bistro 420 laughing and joking, and they only met two hours ago, that blows me away.” This city that he has poured so much of his time and energy into also takes his breath away.

“Looking out my window sometimes, I’m just amazed by what a beautiful city it is,” Smith says. “An old girlfriend once called Winston-Salem my mistress. I guess it’s true - I’ve always had a love affair with the city.”

Reprinted with permission from Winston-Salem Monthly, October 2006.