[mabrungard]

This is a bit of a Necro thread, but I'll add.

State laws do impact what some clubs can do for meeting places. Having a comfortable and quiet place so that members and guests can gather and get some value and information is important. A noisy bar or restaurant isn't ideal since its difficult to have a conversation in the group. But it is important to have meetings in an open and public place if you hope to get guests to stop by and check your club out. Who would want to go to someone's house that you don't know???

So meeting at a homebrew shop, back room of some restaurant or bar, or club house is a reasonable goal. The reality is that they are hard to come by.

I also find that not all meetings should be educational, nor should every meeting be a social or party time. A mix of meetings is OK.

[James K]

I think talking to your lhbs is one of the best ideas. That is where our club meets. We had met at two breweries before but one kicked us out because they didn’t want our club taking up space for their guests, and the other brewery was in production when we were there so it was hard to hear our club meetings.

We got around meeting at one of those breweries by saying we were a tasting panel (should the dept of liquor show up) because those panels are legal in my state. The brewery also wasn’t open for business though.

After switching to the lhbs we have been there about a year, grown in size, had many new people come and just check our club out, and, I would say our club and shop have grown in the past year.

I was filling in at the lhbs last week and it was really easy to tell people there was a club, and when I go to club meeting sometimes I can buy things I need almost last minute.

Try to talk to a shop owner.

[schubrew]

Some outside the box ideas for club meetings

Churches - specifically Catholic Churches - usually have great meeting rooms with kitchens and don't mind beer. Great place to recruit potential new members also especially if they have a knights of Columbus group

VFW, Rotary Club, American Legion, Union Halls - local organizations that usually have great meeting location already and can make great partners for events in the future

Banks - Most local banks have a meeting room that they usually allow local organizations to use for free.

Event spaces are a little harder but if there are days where they get no business might be willing to work with you.

My biggest recommendation is to work to get your club 503c nonprofit status from the beginning it will open up a lot of opportunities and more places will be willing to work with you.