Jeep clubs, what's your take?

Mandatory monthly meetings, membership dues, fees, it's all just a bunch of BS. I don't need a club to have fun, nor do I need them to access trails and race tracks.
In a lot of areas it's those BS clubs attending the meetings and doing the volunteer work that keep the trails open for you. Often its clubs building the punchons, clearing deadfall, and making repairs so you can play. And land use politics is a shitty never ending thing and offroaders are outnumbered. It's usually club members that attend the meetings looking out for your access rights. Did you know your access next year and the year after isn't necessarily a given? So maybe you do need those BS clubs and just dont know it.
 
In a lot of areas it's those BS clubs attending the meetings and doing the volunteer work that keep the trails open for you. Often its clubs building the punchons, clearing deadfall, and making repairs so you can play. And land use politics is a shitty never ending thing and offroaders are outnumbered. It's usually club members that attend the meetings looking out for your access rights. Did you know your access next year and the year after isn't necessarily a given? So maybe you do need those BS clubs and just dont know it.

Negative. If you saw the books of some of the clubs, you'd see most cash isn't going where you think it is.

And where I wheel access is a given, soooooooo...
 
I stay away from clubs that don't have a stripper pole and kegs. All kidding aside, a forum is as close to a group as I am likely to get. I'm a biker that doesn't hang with bikers, a shooter that doesn't hang with shooters. When on two wheels I rode alone or with my wife and daughter, and sometime with a friend or two. Jeeps and motorcycles for me are about freedom from the grind and masses. Traveling in a pack can end up with a pack mentality, often orchestrated by the lowest IQ in the group. I have a few friends who go out in the desert with me, three TJs and one JK. We also twist wrenches together. Any more than that would end up being us watching people get stuck and waiting in long lines to clear obstacles.
 
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I started my own group (not club) six years ago--no dues, officers, meetings, rules or club politics.
All I have is a email list and when I or anyone else wants to lead a run, I put out an email to everyone
telling them when & where we are going & where to meet. ([email protected]).
My biggest problem is getting others to lead trips.
That's a nice way to do things - a PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE email list, not facesuck or some other closed site.
 
They fight to keep trails open and organize volunteer trail maintenance and clean up efforts. Ya take the good with the bad sometimes.

Clubs and groups not involved with the pnw also organize trail maintenance and clean up runs also, like W.T.F. Does a lot down at Elbe, in fact they asked the pnw to keep out since they were trying to fuck up the place with stupid restrictions.
When I was a delegate for the pnw for 2 years I went to all the meetings, and a lot of the meetings with the DNR and forest services and at those meetings I found myself arguing with the pnw more than anyone. They kept trying to push for tire size limits and width and length restrictions everywhere. And not good ones either, basically stock flatfenders and CJ5’s with a 33” max tire. I even heard one lady say (PNW Representative) that all other jeeps don’t belong out on trails and we should all sell our jeeps and buy flatfenders and cj5’s, during a meeting with the forest service. She was speaking on behalf of the organization I belonged to and paid into effectively trying to kick me out of the woods.
The pnw4wda says they are there to help keep the 4x4 community keep trails open for everyone to enjoy but from what I’ve seen that’s total bullshit, they want to keep flatfenders and cj5’s on the trails and do their stupid fucking barrel racing.
 
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How long ago was that?
Back around 2010, same reason most of my family left the org in the mid 90’s. Maybe they’ve changed but fool me once....
Like I said I wouldn’t make a decision on joining or not joining a club based off their involvement in the pnw but I definitely won’t be one of their individual members.
 
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Also I do enjoy their PIck Up A Mountain event, it’s a way better event than their pathetic Operation Shore Patrol held on the same weekend. If fact I do go on some of their other trail maintenance runs to do my part, I have no problem paying in labor, just not my money
 
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Could be. Ive never heard anything about tire size restrictions or a bias toward flattys and CJs in the last three or four years. Maybe region 4 is different.
 
Could be. Ive never heard anything about tire size restrictions or a bias toward flattys and CJs in the last three or four years. Maybe region 4 is different.
This I believe, region 1 and 2 bring the suck. Region 4 has good relations with the FS and they seem to have a good understanding on what’s realistic. I know Micky(sp) in Cle Elum and Marrick (again sp?) in Naches were great to work with, not sure if they are still there or not. That’s another reason I like the Pick up a Mountain trail cleanup and the Liberty work parties best.
 
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With just about ZERO public wheeling lands, and only 2 pay to play parks that are 3hrs away, clubs are the only way to get out on the trails here in the NE pretty much. There are 2 public trails in Mass. They are great trails, but short. Other then that, Vermont, NH and Maine have Class 6 and Class 4 roads which are dirt, and some are unmaintained and can get challenging from what I hear.

But for closer to home, clubs are the way to go. Clubs maintain relationships with landowners, and then usually share access and do land swaps with other clubs within their parent organizations. My club have access to private property with 2500 acres. Camping and trail riding from greens to reds. We wheel monthly, sometimes 2x, at different properties we have access to. We have stable leadership, a great 101 program for newbies, and a relationship with an I4WDTA Offroad driving school that we can get our newbies some professional level training if they so desire. We range from stock to extreme rigs and our wheeling days are rated for whatever difficulty level the property is. We run a monthly meeting and in good weather hold various classes in the lot before we head into the meeting and dinner. Once or twice a year, we get a few guys the run long distance trips to places like MOAB, and other well known wheeling locations in the country. We’ve been established since 1993.

Between the 2 larger organizations, there’s probably close to 45 clubs. And about half of them have private properties for swap. So, despite little to no public trails, clubs are the way to go up here.
 
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You guys are going to the wrong Jeep clubs.

topless jeep club faceless.jpg
 
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Also I do enjoy their PIck Up A Mountain event, it’s a way better event than their pathetic Operation Shore Patrol held on the same weekend. If fact I do go on some of their other trail maintenance runs to do my part, I have no problem paying in labor, just not my money
I remember OSP, :ROFLMAO: and Reiter (Pit) Trails work parties, as well as Elbe Hills trial maintenance when I was involved in the club scene back in the early 2000s. As others have stated clubs and organizations have done their part to help not just maintain trails but also open some previously closed off areas back up. That's traditionally what the dues are "supposed" to go towards. I do remember that the PNW4WDA along with organizations like the Blue Ribbon Coalition (equestrian) and others have, or at least had connections in DC that lobbied for opening access back up, and on some levels it worked. Elbe and Reiter were both in danger of being closed to public access back then and thanks to groups and individuals alike, coming together with a common goal both of those areas and many more got to stay open.

I enjoyed the club that I was in, we had a great bunch of members, and yes it's not much different than a big family, when you get them all together there's bound to be some drama. We had monthly meetings and tried to schedule at least one monthly club run and depending on who wanted to go we tailored it to those vehicles. Usually you could find at least 3 different runs each month with varying levels of difficulty.
 
I'm thinking about trying out the local "Drop Top 7 Slots" Jeep club near here. I joined them on Facebook, but haven't been to any rides of get together's yet.

I don't like clubs as a general rule, but it might be fun to have some folks that know the trails around here and to have some support when out in the boonies.
 
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I was in a club when I lived in Wyoming. Basically an email list and one or two events a year that weren't small group wheeling trips. 5 or 6 wheeling trips throughout the year. I thought it was pretty nice. I usually went out on my own but I did a couple runs with them and they were pretty fun.

When I moved to Chicago I joined a lot of the facebook groups. I went out with one a few years back. I knew from the meetup at the parking lot it wasn't going to be that fun. Some guy had a giant flag on the back of his Jeep that said the clubs name. Felt like a jabroni heading down the highway behind that. Then we did some very mild wheeling and they spent the entire afternoon taking photos of their jeeps parked on some rocks.

I would say whether or not clubs are good depends on the club. Having a closer group of friends to go trailing with is always the better solution.
 
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