Nobody likes being told that they are wrong!

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I joined a club and the club did not respect its members and most everyone quit. They went from being a vibrant club of almost 100 members to 35 in just two years.
Being in the field of radio, and those people not understanding the needs of their members. I tried to take it upon myself to explain how they had slighted me and what they needed to do to rectify the situation.
After several months of broken promises and lies, I decided that the only thing to do was to read the rules to them and show them the error in their ways.
I had 3 people from the club - physically try to attack me at the meeting.

My only other recourse was to quit the club.
I was driving 100 miles to attend the meetings, while the other club members was only driving across the street.
I was giving of myself both my time and my talents to try to make the club better. When it came time to vote on anything, all of the club members voted against my idea's.

When I tried to quit, they refused to accept my resignation and even said that they desperately needed my help and could I work with them.. I told them NO! I quit and that was final and that I wanted a refund of my dues, because I felt that I paid for something for two years and had not gotten one thing out of it.

They became abusive once again and even became physical - all over $20.00 and I had to threaten them with my lawyer - because they said that in order for me to get my money back, I had to attend a meeting and have the board vote on it.

There was nothing in their by laws that said this, they were just scratching in the dirt and making the rules as they went along.
The only way to embarrass them was to publicly announce over their local radio frequency what they had done and what my position was and why I had quit. It was a round table discussion between the President of the club and the accountant and myself.

I know from times past, growing up that when people entices you to go someplace that it usually involves some type of bully beat down - which I was not willing to participate in.

After this, I am not inclined to join anymore clubs or participate with other people in this type of affair.

I spent hours trying to explain to these people what they had done and why I quit, I think that their ego was damaged because they never had anyone quit in this fashion before.

It was something that had to be done.
When they collect dues and are even too cheap to buy doughnuts to consume after the meeting and they do not invite you to their homes and they do not offer you something to eat or drink and they feel that you owe them something - do you really owe them something?

So does anyone else feel the way that I feel or have any of you ever been treated that way before.
I know that most of you are not outgoing and you do not like social situations and you tend to shy away from people like that.

i've recently been in a sort of similar situation, I was teaching art at a club in the next county, it took me two hours to get there each thursday. But there was one guybthere who though not taking part in the classes was the club secretary, and he was constantly criticising the waybthat I taught. Basically I have the philosophy that no one should be left behind, they all pay the same so shouls all have thenopportunity to finishbtheir work. So I always work to the speed of the slowest student. This guy was constantly trying to bully me into leaving them behind and working to the speed the faster students, there were other criticisms too but I'm not going to waste my time explaining them all. One of the things he kept telling me was that he was simply passing on complaints made by members of the club, so in time it got that I didn't want to go anymore because I couldn't cope with all the criticism.

The final straw came when he sent me an email saying members wanted to know whatvthe subject was for the lesson the next day. I expressed surprise that he didn't know because he was there when we had decided the subject. He then proceeded to email the entire membership, saying that I'd said they should all know what the subject was and portraying me in a very snide and nasty manner. So I quit and refuse to go there anymore, making me look bad in front of the entire club by email was the final straw.

The big difference in my story, is that I didn't get all the bullying from the other members. In fact its now coming to light that he had in fact been bullying other members of the group, not just me.

It has also come to light that none of the members were criticising me at all, they all said I was the best art teacher they ever had, and were upset at my resignation, and none of them had heard anyone criticise me except this one guy. I suspect he was simply speaking for himself and using the 'members' as a shield to hide his obnoxious views behind, which makes him a coward as well as a bully.

Unfortunately because I don"t drive, I was relying on this man for the final leg of my journey to the club, so going back is not an option for me. However some of the members are now coming to my home for private lessons because they don't want to miss out because of this one bully.

I think that had I been exposed to physical violence like yourself though, I would have had the police in for sure and would not be letting them come to my house for private tuition!

I forgot to say that trying to explain why these people are wrong is a waste of time, they just don't listen. The guy who was bullying me countered every thing I said with clever counter arguments that simply made me look like some silly boy who was misunderstanding what he said, and that he was far too nice to be a bully. The more I tried to explain my situation the more he countered with reasonable sounding arguments that made even me start to doubt myself

Once the members started to tell me their own tales of bullying at his hands though I realised it wasn't me after all and it was just him manipulating everyone.

All you achieve by trying to make them see your point of view is to make yourself frustrated and angry. Sometimes its much better to just walk away and leave them to their own little worlds. They won't change so why waste energy trying to make them!

Thanks for the reply.

Its hard to believe that there isn't more people who have experienced a similar situation.

My problem was - one family was running the club
( THEY HAD 3 PEOPLE ON THE BOARD / INCLUDING THE PRESIDENT, AND THE FATHER WAS SITTING IN THE PEANUT GALLERY - CALLING ALL THE SHOTS.), / amateur radio does not pay anything.
About the only things that amateur radio operators does anymore besides contesting and rag chewing is participate in Field Days or special event stations or public service events - parades, marathons etc.

I tried to explain to them that the ARRL has certain rules which has to be followed and that they were not going by the rules and were not a legal station as per the rules. If they wanted to do other things, the rules were set up in such a way that if you did what they said to do, you could make as many or more points by turning it into a public demonstration as opposed to just making contacts and being all for yourself.

Because the other club members were more established in the club, they had reserved certain bands for themselves and they would not let the new hams operate on their bands or use their equipment. The purpose of field days is to expose new amateurs to amateur radio in a positive light and do it in a public place - a neutral place - not at someones camp - where they dictate like Hitler or Stalin - what you can and cannot do.

And, when a person pulls out a pistol and says that if you do not like it, you can leave and points the gun towards you - that is not a neutral site.. They didn't pull the pistol on me, but they bragged about doing it several times previous, and I have no reason not to believe them when they said that they did it.

We worked things out in the meeting, and then when they went to set up the field, they did the same thing they did the year before and said if you don't like it you can leave. Which I did!
That happened the last weekend of last June ( 2012 )..

I bided my time and waited to see what would happen this year and if they would change as promised. We even had two visitors at the last club meeting that were new hams and the one club member said he did not tell me that I could not operate the year before and they would not admit to their wrong doings two years ago.

As long as the other club members were getting what they wanted, they did not care what happened to anyone else.
So many people were being screwed, that they all quietly quit the club and did not return. I didn't like what I had saw previously and so I suggested that we move the field days site to a neutral location such as a parking lot or a park or a field someplace.

The one club member - who suggested that the club buy a book ( $55 ) and give it to a local library as a memorial to a ham who had died and was not a member of the club for more then 10 years - said that we could not afford $70 rental on a park or $60 for a porta potty. The club has several thousand dollars in their account - actually invested in CD's and they do not realize that the money in the accounts belongs to all of the club members - since the club is incorporated, and not just to them, because they had been there the longest.

The only thing they ever did was collect dues, which tells me that they never spent the money that they collected.. $12 a person or $20 a family. And, come to think of it, the family that ran the club - had 4 family members that belonged to the club, so my $12 is equal to about $5 that they had paid as members....

The club didn't seem to be designed to be anything more then just a buddy club - where they could go and hang out and do as they pleased and run off anyone that did not agree with their views and opinions.

Nothing like this has specifically happened to me, but I can relate to the social aggression, which is of course a liabiltiy that a lot of us face.
I have dealt with a lot of abuse and now I can handle almost any one. I can identify personality types within minutes.
That's helped me the most, but I've been abused so much I'm scared of getting too close
I try to avoid unhealthy and unsafe personalities in my personal life as much as possible.
I would recommend reading Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.
Bullies, abuser are like a chess game, once their pattern is figured out it's actually very easy, and sometimes amusing to interact with them (so long as it's not physical aggression.)
Wow, they attacked you over $20. I hopeyour able to file a case against them.

Yup, here's one of my experiences: I had a weird situation, only yesterday. I am one of two mature students on a degree course, with the rest of the students being about half our age. The course is shockingly bad and thankfully is nearly over. Throughout the last year, I have have advised students and been an advocate for them, as they are pretty naive about how to deal with the poor service the're getting. There has been quite a lot of camaraderie amongst us, in face of this adversity, (after all, we have to get our degrees, whether the staff are incompetent or not).

There is one young man, who is a bit of a smart-arse (' thinks he knows better than me - ' not likely, since I have twice his life experience, have been through a lot, and have a well above the average IQ, ' just a fact).

Anyway this kid, was empowering the staff by encouraging the students to follow suit, and effectively brown-nose the staff. I called him out on this, without labouring the point, but he could not take it. He started name calling, and some of the more confused students, that look up to him, chimed in.

I felt stabbed in the back and disrespected. I shall certainly, be looking out for number one from now on, with this lot. Sadly, many maturer NTs aren't much better, I shall stick with the few that I find loyal and respectful.