Hi there.
Just thought I'd post my opinion on this and talk about what we do down here.
I guess the level of organisation depends on how many people you have in the club. If your going to have quite a few members then I guess it might pay to run it quite formally. The problem with formalised clubs IMO, is if you elect a commitee and run it as a fully organised club then you get a small number of people doing the work for the majority.
This can be ok, of couse these people voluntee to donate their time but I find the work they do often goes unrewarded and this can turn people away from the club-few people seem to know the work that goes on behind the scenes. This may or may not apply to your club and it depends how active it is but being a member of a different sports club down here I see this all too often. Can you tell I'm on the committee?
The way we run our informal brewing club down here is simply that-as informally as possible. No extra work for anyone and the load generally gets spread out. Given we only have about 7 people down here in the group so it's easy and managable-but it works.
My suggestion is, at least in the first instance, is to just construct a mailing list of peoples email addresses. Send group emails out to members about events, brew days or tasting with the guidelines to go with it-ie. BYO BBQ, Beer tasting on this day at this location-does that suit everyone-BYO beers for tasting etc.
This allows you to function as a group, make bulk purchases of malt, hops etc without all the unnecessary extras. It works well for smallish numbers.
Another idea is to contact the Canberra brewing club, Melbourne's Wort Hogs etc. Someone there might be able to help out as to what's involved and what they find works best.
Hope it helps.
Cheers, Justin
Edit: 1000 posts :super: Wow-I spend too much time here.
