RE: Club Fees? $$
people don't wanna here it but it cost money to maintain property, purchase and maintain equipment, pave runways and taxi ways, lawn maintenance, pay legal fees, and postage and dozens of other thing that keep a field/club going, those costs are not getting any cheaper. our costs last year topped 10 grand. Course we just repaved/ widened the runway. Between AMA site insurance, lawn mowing, mailings, permits for our three annual float flys and at least 3 fun flys I don'r know how we do it.
Our club takes the excess balance and holds BBQ's and what not if we happen to get an excess which is slim even with free property 100+ members at 50 bucks a head 100 for new members first year.
Being in a club of this type has huge benefits. A safe place to fly for you and the public. Flying alone is boring to me. I know some people have a problem flying in a crowd but I love it. We almost get full on wars going with all the big war bird that come out. Everyone is so eager to help out and lone stuff when you forget something, I always forget something, Nothing worse than going home from a perfect flying day because you left the igniter on the kitchen table. The people are some of the most interesting people to talk to. I used to be into the RC car club, that just sucked, any idiot can drive an rc car, usually punk rich kids. Luckily those kinda people don't last long in planes and move on so most of the people in the clubs are intelligent good people.
It probably doesn't matter if your flying electrics under 2 lbs or gliders but keep in mind if you hurt someone or break something and your not at an approved field your be in a world of hurt quicker than anything. If that 50 bucks is worth the risk to ya, more power to ya. If you are flying things any bigger than that the risk goes up exponentially. I alway find it humorous, the hundreds even thousands of dollars we spend on this stuff and people still bicker over club fees, hell I spend more on gas to and from the field than my club dues.