The AMA has stated several times that it is not interested in telling a club how it has to organize. There are a couple of specific legal issues that must be addressed in a clubs by-laws. The main one is the way that disciplining and/or expulsion of a club member takes place. A law suit where a club ignored their own by-laws and violated due process is at the root of the new requirement for by-laws. As with most of the rules AMA makes, this one is driven by legal actions that have been taken.

At the direction of Carl Maroney, in an effort to help clubs with the new by-law requirement, a number of documents where prepared to help clubs to comply. Those documents are guidelines and appear in the list of documents on the AMA web site. The are within the 500 series of documents.

Document number 560 addresses the club that wants to run it's business with a board of directors that is vested with the power to run the club. All of these documents are set up as templates, so that the work of the club is minimized when it comes to making their new by-laws. Your club need not use any of them. They are there to ease the burden.

Once the club's by-laws are received by the AMA, they will be reviewed by a legal staff. If there are problems, additional time will be given to the club to bring it's by-laws into compliance.

Any club that is having problems or questions should call or write Carl Maroney at AMA HQ.