That's good you have a local club that is so active. I'm not so fortunate in this area.
I'm not lamenting the fact that there isn't much going on, just making an observation from my point of view.
One big issue I see is that a group of very vocal hams have held back amateur radio when the rest of the world was progressing. There are hams that love to lament the loss of the code requirements and how when "no code" came along ham radio went to heck. What really happened was that the old outdated requirements held back the hobby while the rest of the world was moving on. CW should have been dropped back in the late 70's, maybe even earlier. Requirements like understanding packet, APRS, digital modes and the like should be required now. Back in the late 80's I remember the Novice test I took still had questions in the pool about vacuum tubes when the rest of the world had long since moved on to transistors and IC's. Requiring CW proficiency was good back in the 40's, it shouldn't have been a requirement as long as it was for entry into amateur radio.
So many non-Hams have this image of ham radio operators as a bunch of old guys with old equipment talking to a bunch of similar people in other countries. What needs to happen is the image needs to change. That is being held back by old timers that like to lament the old days. Sure, it's a vocal minority and obviously doesn't represent guys like us, but that is what the general public sees.
Last time I saw a field day it wasn't something that I felt inspired people. It was a bunch of people using old technology to do something that anyone with a cell phone could have done, faster and cheaper. Yes, the amateur can do it without cell towers, big deal. Packet is an extremely slow speed out of date technology, again something that anyone with a computer/internet connection or cell phone can do faster and cheaper.
The attitude of some hams as well as the ARRL is that ham radio will save the day. Not true in most cases. Public Safety systems have long since bypassed the average 2 meter repeaters in reliability, capability and coverage. Public safety has access to a lot of simplex frequencies that can be put into use when those repeaters can't function. Satellite phones have replaced amateur HF nets for emergency response, again, cheaper and more capability that what us hams have, and most states have their own HF systems for handling emergency traffic.
Sure, Hams get involved in disasters, but more often than not, they are handling routine, non-life safety traffic to offload the important public safety networks.
The ARRL, ARES, RACES and the like have clung onto the idea that they are the only ones that can utilize this equipment and technology in an emergency, and like some superhero are going to swoop in with their minivans covered with magnet mount antennas to save the day. What this does is paints this hobby as a bunch of whackers, pure and simple.
A few years back a couple of major fiber cables were cut around here and my county was completely isolated from the rest of the world. No phone service outside the county, Cell phones didn't work because all the MSO's were on the other side of the cut No internet. Public Safety ran just fine. The VHF,UHF and other systems ran without interruption. The PSAP's were all talking together using simplex frequencies that were designed for this. A few hams were helping out at the hospital, but even the local hospital had their own radio systems linking them to the other hospital in the county, as well as others outside the area. We all got news via broadcast radio and TV. I used a satellite phone to contact the phone company to get an update. Life continued on.
Ham radio didn't save the day in that case. Amateurs provide a useful service, but we need to get off this attitude that the world depends on us. They don't. We need to change the image of amateur radio into something relevant. Sticking to CW and a handful of old guys in their wives minivans pretending to save the day isn't cutting it.
I know some will take offense to this, and I understand, but this is what I see, and this is what the dispatchers, police and fire guys I work with see. None of them see amateur radio as a valid option in an emergency. Sure, it is there as an option, but it isn't at the top of the list. A bunch of guys that get together ever Tuesday night and took a couple of FEMA IC-100 and related courses doesn't change that. All of their systems have been built up to be far more tolerant to interruptions, and systems and procedures have been put into place to work around failures. Often what causes problems in public safety communications is training or procedural issues, not equipment or or system faults.
Amateur radio needs to change its image pure and simple if it wants to survive and be taken seriously.