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ORGANIZING YOUR SECTION

Once you have enough people interested in forming a club, you must hold an organizational meeting. This meeting will be the formal kickoff for your NAR Section. Here you will put up a formal structure for the club and write its bylaws, the rules for conducting club operations and business.

Planning Your First Meeting

You should publicize the organizational meeting, using the same methods described under Publicity. If you used posters, flyers, or the demonstration launch prior to forming the club, you may have already advertised this meeting. If not, it's time to put up the posters and print up the flyers telling everyone about your meeting.

If your publicity methods got the names and addresses of rocketeers in your area, touch base with these folks. Give them a call, see if they're still interested -- shoot the breeze about rockets, and remind them of the meeting. You can also get ideas about your club from those interested before the meeting as well. If you only have an address and can't find a phone number in the book, try a mailing. A postcard with the date, time, and place of the meeting, plus a person and phone number to contact will work well. It's also cheaper than a letter.

Next, do the "posters and flyers" bit again. There may be modelers who missed your first run of publicity. Don't deny them the chance to get involved. There will be a lot of work and a lot of fun for them to participate in, so get the publicity machine working again. It's also a good time to touch base with the hobby shop owner. Let him know how things are progressing. He may have ideas that will help.

If your club is mostly youngsters, choose an adult leader to run the first meeting. An adult is more likely to keep things under control, and often has experience getting things organized. He or she will be able to keep the meeting moving toward its objectives. It's all too easy to fall into shooting the breeze about rockets instead of getting the club organized!

Set an agenda to cover the following topics:

Name of the club
Purpose of the club
Membership -- i.e., who can join
Dues and payment schedule
Schedule of regular meetings
Officers needed
Schedule of elections
Regular committees
How to amend the bylaws

Name

You need a name for your club. While important, don't take too much time on this. Many clubs use acronyms, like the "Centreville Rocket Society" being referred to as "CRS." Also clubs often include the name of their town or locality in their title. You are certain to have lots of fun coming up with a name you all like. Take suggestions from those present, conduct a straw vote, and put the top two or three names up for consideration at the next meeting.

Purpose

A father helps attach his daughter's parachute.

The official purpose of the club is important to you and to outsiders. Outsiders, like park districts and local authorities, want to know that you will provide community benefits. By mentioning safety education, and community service in your bylaws, the community leader will see you as an asset. Besides, conducting classes or demos can be fun for your members.

If your members simply want to compete, make that the sole purpose of the club and state that in the bylaws -- but your club may miss out on the sport modelers, the newsletters editors, and demo flyers! Don't be overly restrictive as to the purpose of the club.

Membership

Membership is critical. Will you accept only rocketeers from your town? Your county? Only NAR members? Will there be an age limit? All these questions need consideration. Most NAR Sections allow any NAR members in good standing to be members. Some larger Sections allow non-NAR members as well -- but remember that you can't count non-NAR members against the minimum required to charter.

Dues

Dues provide revenue for your Section and should be collected from all members. The amount must be set to satisfy two conflicting requirements. First, you need funds to operate a range store, build range equipment, or print a newsletter. On the other hand, you need to keep dues low enough so that as many interested people as possible can afford to join. Some clubs put regular dues in their bylaws, and allow for special assessments for special projects. Some clubs have innovative sources of revenue other than dues, such as range store sales, food sales at launches, income from commercial demonstrations, and so on.

Meetings

Set a regular meeting period and a quorum. Most clubs meet monthly. The quorum limit is important, and establishes the legality of any action taken by the club. You should also include provisions to ensure that all club members have had adequate notification of the meeting. These are standard provisions in non-profit organizations' bylaws and good, common sense. Include such provisions in your bylaws, too.

Officers

Officers are the chief administrators of any club. Their duties should be spelled out in the bylaws. Most clubs have a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer. Some clubs have a single person serve as secretary-treasurer.

The president runs the meetings and is the chief administrative officer of the club.
The vice-president assists the president and serves in his stead when the president cannot function for any reason.
The secretary keeps membership lists, meeting minutes, and handles correspondence and official paperwork.
The treasurer collects dues and other fees and pays bills.

By spreading the work out over several people, no one gets overloaded.

Elections

Regular elections should be established in the by-laws. Due to turnover and simplicity, one-year terms are virtually universal among rocket clubs. Making the first meeting of the year the election meeting keeps the interest up during the winter months.

A competition committee at work.

Committees

Committees are a club's means of getting work done. Different clubs choose to define and staff different types of committees. Here are some common ones many clubs use:

An Equipment committee keeps track of the club launcher, PA system, trackers, etc., ensures that it is available at club functions, and ensures that it is maintained properly.
A Public Relations committee is charged with promoting the club, usually using techniques already discussed.
A Newsletter committee is in charge of the club's newsletter and makes sure the publication is put out on time with interesting and sufficient articles and news.
A Competition committee establishes rocket contests, secures awards and prizes and makes sure all contestants are informed of the results.

The people most interested in a particular committee's activity are the best choice to put in charge of that committee. When they're interested, they do a better job. Their enthusiasm can be catching! When you see a committee person having fun doing work for the club, your members can't help but have fun along with him.

When you set up your committees, make sure they meet your needs -- you should choose committees that make sense for your club.

You must provide some means to change or "amend" the by-laws. What seemed like a good idea at the start may not work out once you get started. Change the by-laws by a regular procedure to fix these minor mistakes and adjust to changing circumstances.

Schedule a second meeting about two weeks after the first to review, vote on and accepting the by-laws. You don't want to spend too much time getting things going, but you need this important organizational structure. Otherwise, your club turns into an unruly mob.

Clubs usually vote to accept bylaws by section, e.g., "Name" and "Purpose" each get voted on separately. Have someone appointed temporary secretary and have that secretary keep track of the changes that are made in the sample bylaws as the meeting progresses. After the meeting, you'll have one and only one source of information on the "official" bylaws.

Congratulations! You now have an "official" operating rocket club!