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Was involved in a couple clubs in Colorado but when the leadership changed so did attitudes. You had to but their recommended planes and they HAD to look perfect!! No sport planes or scratch builds. ONLY scale planes. If it didn't look like the real thing you couldn't fly. Being a snob in this hobby is no way to grow the fun!
That makes NO sense to me that the clubs are that snobby. I get that they might suggest to you a good beginner plane if you've never flown before (I personally like the Apprentice and the Timber for beginner flight - just don't use the flaps on the Timber when you're first learning!) to get you a good idea, but to tell you that you HAVE to fly scale, and it MUST be pristine? How many of those guys actually FLY, then?!?
I get that some places may not allow gassers due to noise restrictions, or have a restriction on what times of day they can fly (our field doesn't allow gas planes to fly until a certain time of day due to neighbors that complain about someone running a weedwhacker too early in the morning), or not allowing things like turbines (our field doesn't allow turbines due to fire hazards, and for good reason - we've got a lot of dry grass and brush around that if a fire broke out, it'd grow pretty quickly out of control). Things like that, I can understand having limitations. It's not to be jerks, it's to be nice to the flying environment and neighbors around you.
I had a club that I wanted to join because their flying field was much closer to me than my current club. But, the owner of the land where that club flies does not allow anyone to fly rotary wing aircraft - no quads, no helicopters, no autogyros. Apparently, he thought they were spy devices, no matter how much education the club tried to give him. Arguing just got him more upset, and at risk from the club to not have a flying site anymore, they opted to bend.
I know of other sites around San Diego that only allow electric planes to fly, due to noise restrictions, and at least 2 different sites that ONLY allow gliders (one being the Torrey Pines Glider Port; you can actually fly an RC glider right next to a full size, 1:1 scale glider, which is really cool!) due to local government restrictions for those areas. Sometimes, you just need to play by the rules, as it's less headache for everyone.