I was thinking this for weeks now and I could not find any answers for this questions. I took the first step in starting a club by looking for an affordable and rentable office space I recently found a great location in Indianapolis, IN for lease near HobbytownUSA near Castleton Mall (13 minutes from the location to HobbytownUSA), but this time I could not find any interested modelers. Seeing how the economy is and nearing Christmas, I know there will not be a lot of people having time and or money to start and operate a model train club.
The prefer building I have looked at is owned by Conrad Offices and the office space is only 155 square foot. The rent is only $238 per month which is a lot better than renting for an entire year for the same office space and the agent for the office space is fine with model train club operating within one of the open buildings. The location has a huge parking lot so modelers will not have to park in nearby lots.
That being said, if no one is interested in starting a NP model train club would it be possible to start a NP model train club with only one member?
Only if you are able to have a group photo taken of yourself [swg]
On the serious side, in my country it requires a minimum of 7 persons to form a club. Now this might be different in your country, but I am sure you need more than just one.
Some clubs that I have spoken to have no fewer than 5 and some are older 10 members. I know it would be a stretch for one person to operate and maintain a model layout club alone, but not everything is impossible. Hopefully, interested modelers at this local event today are looking for a club.
I’m not sure that you’ve thought this through. First a club is a group of individuals organized to share ideas and tasks. With one person you don’t have this exchange - you have a “lone wolf” operation. Do you need the office space to build your own layout or are you looking for space for a shared layout? Are you willing to spend the monthly rent to have meetings by yourself? I think that you have found the answer. There does not appear to be the interest in the community to form a club just now so it would be better to wait until the interest develops. If you are interested in club activities why not find one to join and see if you like it.
I know a model club has members, i’m just wondering if “push come to shove” would it still be ok for someone to operate a layout alone. The layout i am hoping will be large enough that each member (hopefully only 5) has their own territory to operate and when they want to pull a freight or passenger train into another member’s area they will cross an interchange. Now if there are more than five members, hopefully there will be enough space for each member to operate and if not, there might have to be two people to an area. If i cannot find any interested modelers, I would consider operating by myself paying the rent and the light/gas bill alone which I do get paid every week instead of every other week.
I have contacted a local club who are mostly HO, but they are building a N scale layout. I have no problem in joining a club, but it has to be freelance or close to freelance because I like to be creative and allow to be something unique to the group.
I call it a club because I want to start a club with a few local modelers instead of just operating my own layout where no one can see or at least help operate. My personal finances have nothing to do with starting a club, I would just like to be in a model club to be around other modelers who enjoy modeling and operating a railroad that we planned and built. A corporation might cause the club to form a board, have many rules n laws, and probably pay a lot of stuff. I just want a small club that’s all.
There is a legal notion to the word “club”. If I understand you correctly, you are not looking for a club, but you want to have some friends sharing your interest, with whom you can meet, operate your layout, chat, work on projects etc.
Maybe you´ll find folks in your area through this forum.
yes you are right. I would love to be in a small club where members can share ideas, operate a layout, talk, and projects. I always wanted to have a small railroad museums of past railroads if we should allow visitors, but that would be put to a vote. the small museum will only have a few locomotives, a small description about the fallen railroads, and how it impacted us to becoming a modeler.
There have been many here on this forum asking about forming, joining, or maintaining a club.
Do a “search our community” with key word “club”, and you will turn up vast number of threads on this subject.
I would say it sounds more like you want a situation where you can have fun, and if others want to join, fine, but not necessary.
A club, especially if set up as non-profit, will need to have at least 3 officers: 1} president, 2} secretary and 3} treasurer. An outside accounting organization should also keep tabs on what is going on. You will need should want to carry insurance and the like as well as the maintenance bills {heat, lights, etc}. You will need to have a Rule book {constitution} and hold proper Organizational meetings and collect dues and the like to pay those bills, not have you foot them all.
You should check with your area government as to what the rules for a non-profit actually are, before making up a “club” that purports to be “non-profit”.
If you wnat to set up a club and pay all expenses and hope others will join you, that is fine, but would not be non-profit status. Do you not have a space for a layout at home? Do you really need to rent space?
Really think about it as you could get stuck with a lease on a property you can’t maintain after all by your self, weekly pay or not.
EDIT: running a “small museum” is a whole 'nother matter! And don’t expect it will make any money… not even ot cover costs…ask the existing museums who are struggling with public funding to back them up!!!
I’m having trouble visualizing what you mean by all this.
But, unless I’ve read your other post incorrectly, your proposed space of 155 square feet translates into a room approximately 12 feet by 13 feet, or maybe 15 feet by 10 feet if the room is more rectangular I don’t see how you fit a track plan into that space that would accommodate 5 people and that allows each member to have “their own territory to operate”.
Thank you for the advices. I will search on here and if they are in the same area that’ would be great. I would want others to be involved in the process of creating, operating, and having fun, but if no one should want to start a club then I will go “lone wolf” and just room my layout out of my room and into the office space. Now that I know there are a minimum of three members, I am hoping to find and start a club with five people to share the load and responsibility of the club to everyone. I never thought of insurance until now and thank you for that suggestion and the owner of the building I found stated the only thing the club would have to pay is rent and the gas n light bill so that’s good. My local government stated that a model train club can registered for non profit since it falls under the recreational//social club category.
I have a decent amount of space for my own layout, but I would like to also have a large layout for a club where guys do no have to operate their own in their homes alone and actually be around other modelers who will be open and talk about railroading.
I have spent months on this idea and I have done my financial research enough to know that I could afford to rent a 100sf or less space if I should want to put my home layout into a building to have more room. However, I will not do that because that will stretch my pocket and it will also be really pointless driving X miles just to get to my layout. I respect your opinion, but I have done my research before posting this and I’m sure my weekly pay would be good enough to rent n maintain a space outside of my home if I chose to go that route.
the mini museum will only be a small display nothing huge. Just a small case with locos painted in colors of fallen railroads that the club members remember working on or loving, but that idea will be put to a vote
I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t play one, either at work or on TV. There is no substitute for honest-to-God actual legal advice. My first, and most important advice to you, is to go get some, and don’t listen to the parlor-car lawyers on this forum.
That said, my experience is that, in order to qualify for non-profit status, your organization has to be just that: an organization. For an individual to be a non-profit, you have to incorporate as a corporation of one by paying your state the appropriate licensing fee to become an LLC. This has an advantage in that it separates the assets of the corporation from those of the individual, limiting any potential liability to the corporation as well. The trick is, you have to account for the use of any “shared” assets. For a club, which does not need to be a “non-profit” unless you are planning to actually create cash flows and revenue streams beyond the simple payment of dues, you need membership and governance.
So, if you have this great idea (and maybe opportunity – although 155 sq ft, while a great size for a home layout, won’t be sufficient for an operating or modelling session with 10 participants) and can fund it out of your pocket, go ahead and do it, but don’t lock yourself into anything long term. You can worry about the club later. If you have some doubts about your ability to cover the funding for more than a month or so, then run like the wind in the other direction. These kinds of things take a lot of time and effort to set up, and are not to be undertaken lightly.
After seeing your responses and thinking about them I wonder if your first action would be to see if you can interest a few folks to come and operate on your layout and perhaps theirs. This sort of “round robin” approach might get things rolling and spark enough interest that you could form a small club. That way you could see if you all could get along and put up with each others ideas.
I did that exactly today posting an ad on Craiglist, but if there are any other Classified ad sites I will surely post on there as well. I know it wouldn’t hurt posting an ad in the local newspaper, but that could be risky since many people do not read the newspaper or care about the news but theres more risk then reward.
I know that up here in the Great White North, rules and regulations on everything from building codes to how many hockey sticks one is allowed to own, is all available online from government websites at all levels. Make a few clicks and do a bit of reading and you will know where you stand. And as a word of caution “be careful what you wish for”.
155 sq feet is the room space and just a proposal location if the club should get off the ground with only 3 or 4 members. The final votes will come if or when a location is chosen. The layout will not be huge like an O or HO layout, but N scale which will allow more room in a small amount of space. The layout will not pour into the aisle so there will or shouldn’t be any crowding in the aisle way for people to walk back and forth.
The space I found is the winning location and there are only 3 or 4 of us, the layout will go around the walls so there will be more space in the middle of the room for people to walk around. The members will get a certain amount of space and to indicate where their territory ends, each member will have a little sign at the end of their territory so when or if another member wants to pull a train into or needs to get thought another member area, they will have to talk to that member. If that member should not allow any passage through their area, then at the next operation we will have a chat about why that member wouldn’t allow anyone through.