ORIGINAL: thundervee
IMO joining the AMA came with getting in the hobby, ANY decent club you want to join will require an AMA membership, all in all it is your choice as what to do, but I think you should join if you want to be in that club,by the way which sounds like a pretty decent club!
Just my 2cent's
I would like to join the club but right now $$ is tight ( I own,maintain, and fly my own Cessna 172N a 1977 model with a lot of time on it so maintenance is high$$) I also like to fly teh R/C planes and don't want to wait to fly it. I eventually will get membership in the AMA and the local club but not for about a month maybe three weeks. In the mean time I want to fly.