Many clubs will allow a visitor a one day freebie with no AMA membership. Its not condoned by the AMA, as the beginner is potentially uninsured. IF the field has site insurance, the site OWNER is covered, but the club could be held lible for an accident.

You want someone to blame for this situation... look at the nearest lawyer. If it weren't for the extreme awards in minior injury cases ($$$ millions for spilling your own coffee on yourself...) Then we wouldn't need to be sticklers about the AMA membership.

There is a way around the AMA membership, that can go on INDEFINITELY. An AMA member giving FREE lessons using his own plane is covered. The AMA member has to be "pilot in command" And the only way to definitely say that is to have him holding the master TX in a buddy box setup.
I checked on this by contacting the AMA directly and asking about giving lessons at a local park, where AMA membership is not required. By using MY plane, the flight is covered. If we use the newbie's plane, and he's not an AMA member, and I'm not in the Intro Pilot Program... (I'm not... the clubs i work with don't use the IPP) the flight is NOT covered.

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www.modelaircraft.org has a link for locating local clubs. Its not perfect (they list the whole state.. find your local clubs by using the browser search and the first 3 digits of the Zip code) but it will list all AMA affliliated clubs near you.