What is an AMA chapter and what are its benefits?
Several years ago, we recognized that several local clubs had a common problem and I’m sure that they were not unique.
Each club had just a small group of members that were willing or able to do the lion’s share of the work to have a successful event.
We asked ourselves, what if we could get that small group from each club working together to share the burden? Bringing each of these volunteers together would then create a much larger pool of workers to share the work load.
With this in mind, we formed an AMA chapter with 5 AMA chartered clubs as members. It’s known as The Middle Tennessee Radio Clubs Association; AMA chapter 65.
A chapter must have at least two AMA chartered member clubs.
The leadership of the chapter is much the same as a chartered club having a president, Vice President, treasurer, secretary, and a safety officer. Our chapter has an additional officer - a turbine air boss.
A Chapter is afforded AMA's liability protection as an entity, including its officers.
With all five clubs pooling their resources, we could now be much more ambitious about the scale of our events. As an example of the pooling of resources, at our most recent event, our safety team was made up of volunteers from all five of our member clubs.
In addition to sharing the work load, we also share the benefits with the member clubs. Our by-laws require the Chapter to distribute all the funds in excess a fixed sum to all the member clubs at the end of the year. Over the course of its existence, more than $20,000 has been distributed.
The chapter has been very successful in achieving our goals and I suggest that you consider this approach as well.
-Dick Tonan, AMA club president
For more information about AMA Chapters, please contact l[email protected]