While I have expended many hours of effort and modest amounts of money to alert people to the formation of the club, there is definitely no profit or esteem associated with it. Just a simple desire to share the costs and benefits of aviating. However, I think hard sales pitches that entice members by brushing over the negative or cautionary aspects of joining will lead to some ugly recriminations and possibly worse sooner or later. So in no particular order, consider these cautionary notes:

• The club does not supply flight instruction nor can it advertise such. Companies such as Plane Flight Training at Rapid City Airport are perfectly fine flight instruction business. While members can hire flight instructors (who must either be members of the club or are with an existing airport training operator) for advanced training, such as for an instrument rating in club aircraft, such transactions are strictly between the member and the CFI.
• If you don’t or are unable to fly very often, again your best bet is someplace like Plane Flight Training. In the lowest cost club scenario if you don’t fly at least 20 hours per year you are better off renting at Plane Flight Training. In the more expensive club scenarios you need to fly in the neighborhood of 50 hours a year to make it worthwhile to join. Keep in mind that after they earn their certificate the average private pilot only flies about 35 hours a year. That includes those who are sole owners of their aircraft. They may fly more and bring the average up, but some will confess to not flying enough to make it fiscally sensible.
• The joining fee, monthly dues, and hourly cost to fly are used to pay past, present, and future bills. The club is not a bank, so with exception of the period in which members are being added don’t expect any refunds of your joining fee. It got spent. There are clubs that refund some or all of the joining fee when a member leaves. But they have to save some fraction of the initial fee to do that – and if they get a “run” on leaving members who demand more refunds than were set aside it can cause serious fiscal problems or even failure of the club. However, your joining fee entitles you to an even share of the club’s unclaimed assets in the event the club ever closes. In the case where a club leases its aircraft that claim amounts to essentially nothing. In the case where the club owns aircraft the value of your claim would be more substantial. When a member leaves the club they will have the option to sell their stake in the club to a new member. The new member acquires a claim on the club assets from the previous member.
• You’re signing a binding contract when you join. You’re legally bound by the terms. Make sure you can live by the obligations it requires. Can you really afford the monthly dues? Will you feel put upon for those months you are unable to fly enough to make the dues worthwhile? If you want to leave or are forced to leave because you can no longer afford the monthly dues are you willing to “lose” the joining fee if you can’t find someone to replace you as a member?

Those are some of the big gotchas that come to mind that I think many people are probably aware of, but sometimes our desires makes us get in over our heads and we don’t fully consider them.