Ok folks, it’s time to pay those dues. We officially have a non-profit account at US Bank. After a fairly exhaustive search, they’re the ones I found who require no minimum balance, have no fees, and use Zelle.
As a fun little perk for being an early joiner, I’m designing (and I’m funding) a FOUNDING MEMBER club patch for the first 25 folks who join - because we’re basically the f’ing Cub Scouts and Girl Scouts on motorcycles. You have to pay your dues before the end of March to get this. Limited to 25, and never again. The way it’ll work: the first 25 join. In the new MEMBERS ONLY section I’ll post 3 design options and members will vote on the patch. Simple majority forces their taste on all other founding members.
NOTE: you HAVE to have been to a club meeting and on a ride with us to become a member. No exceptions. We need to know you. If you try to pay dues and you haven’t been to a meeting and on a ride, we’ll kindly send your money back to you until you show up in person, and are “voted” in.
How to pay your dues:
Zelle (preferred method):
Our Business Zelle tag is ‘bc-adv’. Make sure you are paying a business using the Zelle tag. You do not need a phone number or email address. If your bank is asking you for those things you are doing it wrong or your bank is using an outdated version of Zelle.
Don’t have Zelle via your bank? Ping @ChrisMunro or @RC_John and we’ll get it worked out.
Some housekeeping:
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@RC_John is going to maintain a spreadsheet of active members that will be shared by the Board.
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In the next few weeks, we’ll get the MEMBERS-ONLY section of this forum fully operational.
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We’ll maintain a bank account balance/statement that is viewable by active members in the Members section.
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Membership is on the calendar year. Going forward, due date for renewal is 1 January. Dues must be renewed before the March meeting (last Tuesday in March, so this year it’ll be at the last ADV 101 class at Revzilla). Any active member who has not renewed by the March meeting will be dropped from the club roster and access to the members only forum, but those will be reinstated when you square up. New members who join later in the year will pay a prorated amount. Dues are non-refundable.
For those who missed why we’ve chosen this path
I wrote about why we have become a 501(c)(7) non-profit in our State of the Union in January. Go read it if you haven’t. The Cliff Notes from that post:
Why would I pay dues to be a BCADV member?
There are a few reasons:
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BCADV is bigger than any individual at this point; there’s something like 150 active people in this forum as I type this, but more importantly, we’ve easily had >100 people come on rides with us in the past two years. We want to build this into a community with staying power that is here 20 years from now. To do that, the core operation and governance of the group can’t rely on one or two people because people move, burn out, pass away, have life changes, or lose interest, and we’ve all seen clubs/groups/communities die when they’re set up this way. We can do a better job of planning and future-proofing.
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It costs a little money to run the club. I (Gino) have currently paid for everything out of my own pocket to get things off the ground, which is totally fine. That said, the $55/mo for this forum and a soon-to-be website adds up over the long haul. I paid for the NorCal BDR film when we screened that in ’24. I paid for the tables we had at Rayback Collective (and John Venmo’d me for half after the fact), among other things along the way. I’m all good with it, and while you have to do things that don’t scale when you’re building a startup, we’re at a point where members who get value out of the club can pony up the equivalent of $2.50 a month for that value.
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We’re going to have a LOT more industry discounts, partnerships, invites to events in 2026 and beyond. We already have relationships with CMC, Rocky Talkie, Motorsport Masters, Mosko Moto, Colorado Motorcycle Adventures, and we’ve been working on several more that we’re excited to announce later this month. The more of us who participate, the better these discounts/relationships can be for active club members. And, going forward, they will only be available to active club members (folks who have paid their measly dues for the year).
If you don’t want to become a full member, you’ll still be able to use the forum and join most rides. You won’t have access to industry discounts/partnerships, or private rides and events, etc. We simply have to carve it this way so that folks are incentivized to be engaged, and to be a genuine part of shaping the things they want to see in the world. As a group, we can provide FAR more value to folks if we’re all engaged at some minimal level. And to be frank, if someone can’t see the reason to pony up $30 a year ($2.50/mo., which is a cup of shitty gas station coffee), they probably aren’t getting value from the club to begin with. 
Ok, that’s about it. Glad to have crossed this hurdle with all the administrative stuff. Looking forward to spending more time on ride plans and execution with y’all!
