Congrats on the growth of your club. Sure, happy to try to answer your question. Feel free to follow-up if I haven’t answered it below:
Mailing list: Anyone can join our mailing list, provided they agree to abide by rules of behavior (you know the drill). There are two big drivers of the size and continued growth of the list:
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Given the long history of the club (founded in '92), there are many former members that have “aged up” or moved out of the area that want to remain affiliated with the club for a variety of reasons.
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Given the club’s performance/skills orientation, our 4+ weekly club rides are very popular and routes are announced via the mailing list. The email distributions also include other resources, such as training, equipment sales, etc. (sort of a mini forum). As such, there is a large # of members of neighboring clubs and non-club oriented cyclists that join the mailing list.
Team: The club’s roots began as a mens and womans race teams, including one of the top U.S. pro continental womens team at that time (hence “racing club” is part of the official club name). As these early racers stopped racing, they wanted to remain with the club and hence started the non-racing component of the club (see below). The race team leads our Sunday A ride open to anyone (generally requires ~4WpKg to stay with the group), but also has its only training rides, and hosts its own Slack workspace for discussions, race planning, etc.
Club: The general club membership is open. As noted in my earlier response, members are required to agree to proper behavior and sign a liability waiver. While there are a small number of members that join just for the social component (e.g. annual banquet, picnic, social events, club meetings for education), the majority join the club for performance and/or bike handling skills improvement in a congenial environment (camaraderie ranks #1 in our annual user survey). Club membership fee (currently $100) includes the club jersey.
Note: 4 years ago, a fellow board member and I did a strategic analysis of ~25 cycling clubs in our area dividing them into 3 buckets: 1) pure racing teams, 2) pure recreational clubs, and 3) hybrid (race + non-race). The least expensive and easiest to operate are recreational clubs (by an order of magnitude). Pure racing teams can be costly financially (depending on the level) but are highly focused. Hybrid clubs, such as ours, take a lot people to do well due to the diverse needs required to support such a club.