Diving clubs.
There are two ways to start. However, it depends on what you want. If you want minimum responsibility, get attached to a store, or if you want maximum independence go it alone.
Going it alone
The best thing to do is to start with a group of friends that are divers, and then slowly build it up. Don't try and start by offering classes etc.., but concentrate on getting people diving.
Good ideas to start with are Barbeques etc... for getting together, and then when you have enough people you then need a meeting location etc.. most community recreation centres can help.... a more common meeting place for UK diving clubs is a local pub!
To start with, if you have a group of say 10 people, it is very easy just to get a few together for a w/end diving. As you grow you can then start by forming a propper club. A good idea is to write a constitution, and actually have in writing what posts you are going to have in the club, who is responsible for that etc.. However, make sure that once you have done this, every time an official decision is made, make sure it is written down!
Once you have that you can then go to a local bank and start a club bank account - these are generally special ones requiring two signatures etc.. and can usually be put in a name like 'The Chairman, Nudi-branch bive club''. Certainly UK banks do that, and I am sure that US ones will to. It is a very good idea to have a bank account, simply because you then don't have money floating about, also, members can see bank statements etc.. so they know what is going on.
After you have done that, you then want to start thinking about other things, eg a small boat to go diving off - have a good read of
http://www.divernet.co.uk/clubs/grants1198.htm . In the UK almost every dive club has 2 or more RIB's - Zodiac type boats with rigid glass fibre hulls- they cost about £12K (about 20k$) There are a number of ways of raising this - charging decent membership fees (typically in the UK it can cost as much as £150 a year -$240) with 30 members you can buy a boat after 3 years. Or, you can fundraise, OR you can apply for the 1001 different government community sports grants. Certainly UK diving clubs have considerable success in getting government and lottery money. However, for this type of government money you need things like financial records to show that the club is active and actually exists!
The last thing to think about is training. Once you are established you can look for a pool, and an instructor.
One big word of caution is to avoid at all costs dive store involvment untill you are well set up. The problem with store involvment is that you will not be independant of the store. The store will almost certainly insist that you go on store trips etc.. Keeping it independant, you can organise whatever you want whenever you want - it doesn't take that much effort to phone somewhere, book diving, and accomodation for a w/end! Clubs like this grow by word of mouth, adverts at the local swimming pool etcetera...
To go it alone, you do need to find an experienced diver to keep an eye on what is going on, unless you only intend to dive with professional outfits!
Who does what
The typical UK dive club has 4 or 5 key people, however, to begin with you need 2 or 3
Diving officer - this is the person with the responsibility for diving. eg someone qualified to DM level that can make decisions about particular dives, conditions etc...
Chairman - 'nuff said - this is the mug that organises everything
Treasurer - 'nuff said - the money man
Once you get set-up then you can have people for training (an instructor), equipment etc....
What to do?
The simple way to start is with w/ends away. Personally I organised an inland dive site every w/end during the winter for my old university club, just because it keeps people busy, and the sea was too terrible to dive in. When it gets warmer w/ends away at the nearest bit of sea are easily organised.
Get togethers can be anything from beer / bowling to heavily theoretical stuff like a lecture from our own Dr Deco!
If you make any money then get the club to decide what it wants to use the money for... subsidising trips.. a club library of diving guides for when you organise trips.... buying bits of kit that can then be hired out (and making more money for the club).... saving for a RIB, the list is endless. However, before you organise 1000001 things you need to have a club, and then tailor things to what the club wants!
Getting a store involved
To do this you need a nice friendly dive store, and you literally organise regular meetings, and everything else (trips etc..) you just sell the dive store ones. - not my idea of fun, and what I would avoid at all cost.
I hope this helps, there will be thousands of opportunities for support from your local authorities, as they are quite keen on this type of community sport things. However, I don't know exactly what happens in the US!
If you have specific questions don't hesitate to ask!
Jon T
Been Chairman of 2 different clubs, Treasurer of 2, Diving officer of 1, Equipment officer of 1