People were asking about examples of these at the discussion during the conference. Here is the link to the Barons. There is a PDF that can be downloaded at the bottom of the page. When you incorporate don’t forget the non-discrimination clause!
And this is the one for the Falcons. (mentioned earlier, but keeping it together)
Here’s the ones for CARBOY, but they are not quite up to date. We recently did a minor revision to the calendar year.
http://www.carboyclub.com/by-laws.htm
Here’s the Cascade Brewers Society…
http://www.cascade-brewers.com/media/docs/CBS.theshortform.pdf
Whales of Central NJ:
http://www.whalesbrewclub.com/bylaws
We went something like 11 years before we had official bylaws and wrote them out of necessity. Admittedly it contains far more detail than likely necessary.
There’s something important here. The Falcons are one something like the 3rd rev of the by-laws. This was largely driven by the need to pull more and more things out of the by-laws, like how much the dues were. With them in the by-laws it takes an act of congress to raise them, etc.
So, be careful how much you put in the by laws.
We are the other way, we kept forgetting to set the dues so we put a clause in the bylaws they will be $15 unless set otherwise by the officers. This year we had a good treasury at year end and set the dues at $10 for 2011, so our strategy worked out well. If we have to change them for good, we can do it within a two month window…no problemo.
our local homebrew club basically just broke up because we have by-laws and have set meeting times and follow robert’s rules of order.
If you don’t mind me asking - how did that happen?
Was it a case of someone(s) acting like “Rule Cop” and making everything about sticking to the letter of what’s written?
we had a private thread on our forum for the by-law committee and the board to discuss by-law changes and the board members couldn’t agree on a couple of the changes, so we decided to present them all to the general memebrship for a vote and let things fall where they may. a couple of the board members thought that didn’t go far enough, so at the meeting, three of them resigned and they started a facebook group, “non-club” club and registered with the AHA.
in their new “by-laws” on the face book group, they decided…
1. we have no by-laws.
2. we have no scheduled monthly meetings.
3. we do not collect dues.
4. all decisions will be made by all memebers.
5. we are here to have fun, and spread the enjoyment of the hobby!
we will or will not add to this list as we feel necessary.
being such a small club, we can’t really “compete” with a non-club…
to be fair, we did stick to robert’s rules of order regarding club matters, but only because we thought that was best for the well-being of the club.
we are going to have our regularly scheduled monthly meeting to see what members we have left, but expectations are not high.
i wish them luck, but then again, how can you really fail when all you have to do is click “like” on facebook to join.
It takes more than a virtual like to make a club actually function. They need to actually make things happen for real!
Our club is going through growing pains as well. It’s been a bunch of dudes hanging out and drinking beer for a number of years. Now we’ve gotten a lot of new members (including myself) who want to organize and participate in comps, have booths at festivals and events, and so on.
A few of the original members aren’t too keen on that, but I’m not really sure why they need a “homebrewing club” to sit around and drink beer. We just adopted a consitution and bylaws last night, and I anticipate a few people won’t want to be a part of the meetings, even though in practical terms we have barely any more structure to the meetings than before.
The only real change is we now set an agenda each meeting to try the beers in a reasonable order (lightly flavored to heavily flavored).
If this is for the purpose of incorporation, which will limit liability to the club and its officers, laws vary in each state. Consult someone who knows the laws for your state.
Otherwise any of the above is fine.
Here’s a link to the Albany Brew Crafters Bylaws. We relied on looking at other clubs’ bylaws, and putting our own spin on things. The Falcons’ bylaws were especially helpful (I think we even have the same font)-- thanks for sharing guys!
We’re a young club, and still figuring a lot out. We just incorporated this week, and have about 20 or so members, but most are very enthusiastic, and we’re seeing new faces at each meeting. This club has a much different “flavor” than others that I have been a part of in the past, and its been fun hearing where members want it to go.
Here’s a link to the Rock Hoppers Brew Club By-Laws.
We haven’t incorporated as yet, but the by-laws were put into place early last year just in case.
in the ultimate bit of irony…the new club actually literally STOLE our by-laws! they changed the title of the club and added a sgt. at arms and absentee voting and the whole document is the same!
here is the link to “their” by-laws…
http://gulfcoastbrewersleague.com/forums/download/file.php?id=11
i’ll just post the first page of ours for comparison…
Hopefully this gets found by all you original posters! Our club is going through a similar transition that some of you described in that we generally a drinking/sharing social once a month with the occasional competition or speaker. A few of us are putting some bylaws together and will definitely be looking through the posted ones. I’m curious how the transition went for you all and what your group looks like now. At this point we are just going to have a more organized calendar and leadership time. We are going to have a formal training/speaker/peer review at the beginning of each meeting as well as the social aspect. Do any of you have advice or were surprised at how well or poorly something went? Anything you can provide would be great as we are starting to put this in place over the next 3-4 months. Thanks all and cheers!
My club the Manty Malters (of Manitowoc, WI) basically plagiarized the Falcons’ constitution and bylaws a couple of years ago. Since we were already doing most of the stuff in it, the club didn’t change all that much as a result. If you are newly adopting some things within it then things will change more. For the good or bad, who’s to say. Personally, I prefer social aspects and think we have way too much business at our meetings – it takes friggin 90 minutes to get through all the business. I’d prefer to have a 20-minute business meeting and set committees to work on the finer details. But I’m not the Pres and I never want to be, so I guess it is what it is. Each club has its own dynamic and quirks, and that’s fine. It’s always a great idea to visit neighboring clubs to see what ideas you can steal from them, including ways to improve or maybe even to scale back if your club is overly social or business or whatever.
Is your club collecting dues, incorporating as a formal entity, or so large that having designated leadership is necessary? If none of those apply you probably only need a basic framework for electing leadership and their responsibilities. Anything beyond that might be creating solutions for problems that don’t exist.
If you need bylaws for one of the reasons above then you really need to think about how little needs to be in the bylaws. The bylaws should contain what is legally required in your jurisdiction, what minimal architecture is necessary to administer the organization and any other rules that need to be durable enough that it takes a large membership vote to change them. Anything else can be administered through separate policy documents more easily changed as needed.