That my friend, is mostly up to you (and your club mates, in accordance with your rules!).
Get a bank account
Most clubs will go about setting up a bank account. The Bank will want to see your certificate of Incorporation, probably your Rules, and will need the details of the club officers who will be accessing the club account. Make a point of asking various Banks what fees they charge for Incorporated Societies before you wed yourself to one bank or another.
Get an Income Tax exemption
Next, you’ll want to apply to the IRD for an income tax exemption. If you’ve done your homework in the Rules drafting stage, this part is straightforward. If not, you’ll need to ammend your Rules. (the process for ammending those Rules is within the Rules themselves!)
Join FMC
If you’re reading this far down, chances are you support what FMC has done and is doing for amateur, non-motorised mountain recreation, and want to join us!
By going through the process of becoming Incorporated FMC can be sure that your club will be established on a secure footing and will be around for a good while, which makes us much more likely to accept your application. There are 2 categories of club in FMC
- FULL Declaration: Minimum membership is 20
- PARTIAL Declaration: Minimum membership is 5 but the per head fee is higher.
FULL Declaration Clubs are required to declare and pay for every member to FMC. The expectation is that a club will pay FMC for every member in the club and newly formed clubs that wish to join FMC would be expected to do this.
PARTIAL Declaration clubs choose how many people they will declare to FMC . As a general rule PARTIAL membership is only available to groups that have been in existence for some years outside of FMC or for larger nationwide groups where it might not be realistic to expect every member to be declared to FMC.
Application forms are on FMC website but if you have any questions at all, feel free to contact us to chat about it before hand.
If you have any feedback, or additional wisdom to offer, please get in touch. Thank you to Phil Glasson who wrote this article and Dan Clearwater who adapted it for Wilderlife.
