We celebrate our own growth, then take offence at someone else’s. Before turning that irritation into club business, we should be clear about what actually concerns us.

Consider a familiar kind of announcement: an MC has opened another chapter. Members congratulate the people who made it happen. Supporters see momentum. The club presents its growth as evidence that its name means something and its future looks strong. The work behind the announcement may justify that pride.

Now imagine another club making the same announcement. The enthusiasm disappears. Suddenly there are concerns about too many chapters, the wrong location or people getting ahead of themselves. Expansion has become a problem, and the first club has its nose out of joint.

Different circumstances can justify different reactions. But when comparable conduct receives opposite judgments because of whose colours are involved, the standard has changed to suit the observer. That is the issue worth examining: how a club can celebrate its own expansion while treating somebody else’s growth as an offence against the scene.

Before taking a position, we should be able to answer a more basic question: when did their business become ours? Another club’s announcement does not automatically create a responsibility for our club. An unfamiliar patch, a new chapter or a decision we dislike needs a clearer connection to us than simply getting under our skin.

The interests involved help explain the reaction. For the club expanding, another chapter may mean more people, stronger connections and a wider presence. An established club looking at the same development may see competition for attention, friendships or local influence. What one organization welcomes as an opportunity, another may experience as a loss of advantage.

Those interests are understandable. A club can care about its position and prefer to strengthen it. The difficulty begins when that preference is presented as a principle everyone else must obey. Wanting less competition does not, by itself, explain why another organization’s conduct is wrong.

Staying informed is sensible. Taking charge of somebody else’s affairs is another decision entirely. We can notice an announcement without judging it publicly, demanding an explanation or assigning our members an opinion. Knowing about something does not oblige us to make it part of our business.

Research on collective psychological ownership offers a useful parallel. Tom Nijs, Borja Martinovic and Maykel Verkuyten found that feelings of collective ownership could support both perceived rights to determine what happens in a place and responsibility for looking after it. Those routes were associated with exclusion and stewardship, respectively. Their studies concerned Dutch adults and shared places, including an imagined park; applying the distinction to MC relationships is an editorial interpretation, not a finding about clubs.

The distinction matters because caring for a place and expecting to control everyone in it are different claims. A long-established club may have built meaningful relationships and contributed years of effort to a local community. That history deserves acknowledgment. It also needs to be explained how that history becomes a basis for deciding what another independent club may do.

Protocol deserves the same clarity. Clubs may have made specific commitments to consult one another, coordinate activities or respect agreed arrangements. Those commitments should be kept. If an expansion breaks one, the objection has substance. The people involved should be able to identify what was agreed, how it applies and what needs to be addressed.

Where no such agreement exists, an expectation of courtesy still deserves to be explained honestly. Informing another club, listening to a concern and asking permission are distinct acts. Treating a conversation as an automatic acknowledgment of authority can make straightforward communication harder. People need to know what they are being asked to accept.

None of this makes expansion an automatic achievement. A chapter announcement tells us that a club has grown; it tells us much less about whether that growth can be sustained. The club still needs capable leadership, workable finances and people who understand the responsibilities they have accepted. Distance can make supervision harder. More members can increase the work long before they increase the capacity to handle it.

Members of a club celebrating its expansion should be able to ask serious questions about readiness. If a new chapter depends on a few exhausted people, unclear authority or expectations nobody has properly discussed, enthusiasm will not resolve those weaknesses. Calling the announcement a success is premature until the organization can support what it has created.

Those weaknesses are primarily that club’s responsibility. They become a concern for others when they cause harm, misrepresent a relationship or break a commitment involving them. An objection should identify that connection. Disapproving of how another club runs itself gives us no automatic responsibility to supervise it, particularly while our own house needs attention.

The same boundary applies to the people we call posers. Someone dresses the part, talks bigger than they can back up or builds an impressive image online. We may find it embarrassing. That does not mean a 1% MC has been appointed to manage their performance. Disliking the act does not make it our responsibility.

If someone falsely claims to represent our club or uses our name to mislead people, there is a specific issue to address. Someone playing a part who has nothing to do with us creates no automatic obligation to intervene. We can leave their performance with them without endorsing it.

A useful test is to remove the club names from the situation. Describe the proposed expansion, the relevant commitments and the conduct causing concern. Then consider whether the judgment would change if the clubs exchanged positions. If a concern survives that exercise, it may rest on a consistent standard. If it disappears, the leadership needs to examine what it is protecting.

That examination belongs inside the club as well. Members should be able to understand why their own growth was responsible while another club’s comparable plans are unacceptable. Leadership weakens its credibility when the explanation amounts to an exception for its own colours. Loyalty becomes a demand to overlook the inconsistency rather than a commitment to uphold a shared standard.

A 1% MC already has its own relationships and disagreements to manage. Members have responsibilities, families and limited time. Every evening spent arguing over somebody else’s image or internal problems is time unavailable for our own people. Before accepting more drama, we should be honest about what it costs and whose interests it serves.

Being absorbed in another club’s shortcomings can also be a convenient distraction. It is easier to agree that somebody else looks foolish than to address a problem among our own members. If everyone knows the latest gossip but nobody can get an internal concern resolved, the attention is going to the wrong place.

There is a practical cost to leaving these matters unresolved. If leaders turn an objection into a general expectation of hostility, ordinary members can be left guessing which friendships or visits will be treated as disloyal. A disagreement about one decision can spread into relationships that had nothing to do with it. Leaders should be specific about the concern and careful about the obligations they place on others.

Public posturing can make that work more difficult. A vague accusation online invites people outside the discussion to invent the missing details. Once supporters begin defending competing versions of events, resolving the original issue can become entangled with saving face. When a matter genuinely involves us, direct communication gives the people responsible a better chance to establish what happened and what, if anything, was agreed.

Independent clubs do not have to become friends. They can decline an alliance, keep their distance and disagree about decisions. Respecting another club’s authority over its own affairs does not require endorsing its leadership or celebrating its growth. It requires being accurate about the authority one claims over it and consistent about the conduct one criticizes.

That is where A Nuestro Modo places solidarity alongside sovereignty. Genuine friendship rests on freely made commitments and reciprocal respect. Each club retains its identity, colours, traditions and responsibility for its own affairs. An alliance has value because independent organizations choose to keep it. That choice loses meaning if cooperation becomes an expectation of obedience.

Friendship also deserves clearer boundaries than inheriting every grievance. Supporting another club should follow the commitments actually made. It should not quietly turn every irritation between individual members into a dispute between whole organizations. Keeping a promise matters; so does establishing what was promised before expecting others to carry it.

The responsibility runs both ways. A growing club cannot invoke independence to dismiss commitments it willingly made or avoid addressing harm caused by its members. An established club cannot invoke tradition as a complete answer to every challenge to its preferences. Both should explain their expectations and accept scrutiny of their own decisions.

For leadership, the first task is to establish whether the matter actually involves the club. Identify the conduct, the people affected and any commitment that applies. If there is something to resolve, address it directly and proportionately. If there is no meaningful connection, explain why members are being asked to spend their time and loyalty on it.

Expansion should be assessed consistently, including our own. Respect for independence also requires accepting that another club may make choices we would not make. Our responsibilities remain with our members and the commitments we have accepted. Another club’s growing numbers, awkward image or internal drama should not become ours merely because somebody finds it difficult to leave them alone.

Sources referenced

Nijs, Tom, Borja Martinovic and Maykel Verkuyten. “The Two Routes of Collective Psychological Ownership: Rights and Responsibilities Explain Intentions to Exclude Outsiders and Engage in Stewardship Behavior.” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 50(2), 270–284, February 2024; first published online Oct. 26, 2022. DOI: 10.1177/01461672221129757.