Motorcycle clubs are institutions whose members commit to lifelong sororities united by a shared passion for motorcycle culture and belonging to an all-encompassing outer family.
The local environment in which various MC nations frequent is known as MC Set. The Set included all the clubhouses, bars, parks, meeting places and other areas of operations where these clubs meet, greet and associate.
MC nations are loosely governed by a universally accepted set of spoken, but largely unwritten, laws known as MC protocol. This protocol unites all clubs to freely associate as disparate organizations in peaceful coexistence. This peace is maintained because MC protocol requires mutual respect and common courtesy to be shown to all MCs and their members. Generally, if the MC protocol is followed, it works and the peace stays well.
Internally, MCs operate by a set of laws called statutes. Unlike MC, the protocol bylaws are almost always written. The bylaws are the contract between the MC guild, full-patch brothers, prospects, and club associates. The bylaws generally follow the same unwritten MC protocol that governs the Set, but they also define operations, traditions, rights, responsibilities, and privileges within the brotherhood specifically. These topics can vary dramatically from club to club. For example, unwritten MC protocol requires that all MC officers be elected to office by club vote and stand for reelection annually. But the statutes of an MC may allow such elections to be held more or less frequently.
Where MC bylaws follow the lines of MC protocol, siblings are generally satisfied and enjoy prosperous and successful careers within MC. However, when MC bylaws conflict with accepted MC protocol, internal issues often arise to the point where clubs experience conflict, civil wars, and ultimately club divisions.
Such is the case when the founders of today’s emerging MCs create bylaws that advance their agendas and not necessarily the agendas of their clubs. This has become a repeated symptom, often seen by the explosion of new clubs on the Set in recent times. Many new would-be founders have abandoned the spirit of the bylaws projecting MC’s greatness, to try instead to hold on to their status, titles, and privileges forever, rather than only as long as the club continues to vote for them. office. They often surprise unsuspecting potential siblings who are unfamiliar with basic MC protocol when they join these new clubs and are not smart enough to thoroughly examine the bylaws or ask the kinds of questions that would expose this nonsense prior to join.
One of the tactics employed by these defamatory founders is to surreptitiously register the MC’s name and logos under their names and not in the name of the MC corporation. Then when they conflict with the members, who may choose to remove them from power, they run to court and prevent the brothers from removing them or legally force the brothers to change their colors and kick them out of the club instead! In this way they try to hold on to the kidneys of power within the MC to lie.
Please understand that this is not the MC protocol form. Protocol dictates that the club is run by democratic vote and all business must be brought before the voting brothers. It doesn’t really matter if a brother was one of the founders, “First Nine”, “Original 7” or something like that. Those are headlines for the front of the cut. They should only be recognized as what the brothers could have done to help the MC prosper. Those patches will never match the back patch colors that signify what the club stands for and who its members are. Unless the MC considers that there are no “Presidents for Life” and the MC never “belongs” to the founder, even if he put it all together, designed the patches, and made it all happen. When the founder (s) offers the MC to others, it becomes the property of the collective and no longer belongs to one. The founders must realize that their “baby” became our “baby” when they included us in the club.
So yes, founders are subject to discipline. Yes, the founder (s) are subject to removal from the club and no, the founder (s) does not have the right to remove the MC from the members. This may not be true legally, but it is true within the MC protocol. Prospects would do well to do their research to find out how their potential clubs are set up before joining, and brethren who are in set up clubs should push leaders to change these bylaws until they are changed to reflect what is correct, as per MC Set protocol.