info for starting a new club

[cruzrfan]

I'm thinking of trying to start a new wheeling club with some friends for a start what do I need to get this going????
any info would be a help

[Chef]

Is your question "How do I start a sanctioned TLCA Chapter club," or "how do I start a local club with some of my buddies?"

The short answer to the second question is...just do it! Get together with you group of friends that I assume you alredy do stuff with once and a while, and pitch the idea. Get together once a month at your favorite restaurant, and put together a prgram, and set some goals that everyone can get behind. Make them easily achievable at first. Stuff like :lets go camping that place we all like to go and take our 4x4's," or "let's go run that trail we all like next month," or "let's talk about adopting a trail to clean up, and tell newspapers and radio and tv affiliates when we'll be there doing it. Have group maintanance weekends, go on float trips, have club bbq's-whatever y'all like!

After doing this for a year or so, getting your proven core of 5-10 guys and galls, at least 5 of whom are tlca members, then you can start thinking about becoming a tlca chapter. That's really just a matter of filling out some paperwork, which I'll be glad to help you thru.

Any other q's?

[cruzrfan]

as we would become a more an organized "real" club what are the legal responiblities is declaimer that I need to filled out or any insurances that I need so as anybody join us I don't need to worry about. As do want to end up a TLCA charpter club and have some larger runs one day as we need more here in S Ca. I know all takes time and I know that I will start out with just some friends but look to future and see what happens
Thanks Phil

[ginericLC]

Some clubs make folks sign releases on runs. NW Cruisers adopted the policy of signing releases for every run yet we never do it. At all the events I've been to they have the releases to sign and they get an insurance rider through TLCA. You determine the restrictions on your club. Go to www.tlca.org and read through the bylaws and SOPs and see what the TLCA requirements are. A TLCA club does not have to be all Toyotas which is something I think some folks thought.