I am lucky enough to belong to an organized saber club that meets every Wednesday night at a local park in Orange County California. We call it the Orange County Saber Academy, it's a offshoot of the Orange County Fan Force/Star Wars Society. So, we were already a group of Star Wars geeks, some of us just got interested in starting a saber club and learning how to fight.
We have anywhere from 6 to 14 (sometimes even more) people show up on a regular basis.
Everyone must read and sign our Rules and Regulations. Since we are a part of a local Fan Force Club, we also have a Liability Waiver that everyone must read, fill out and sign before the are allowed to fight with us.
Once that formality is taken care of, an instructor will work with the new person to make sure they understand and can follow the rules, and know the basic moves and get a little training to make sure they are safe to fight with the others in class, then we let them join in.
We aren't just a bunch of people flailing around randomly at each other with lightsabers, we have a lot of organized team games that make the class a lot of fun. We've been doing this for 6 years now, so the Park Rangers are all used seeing us out there, and the police also know what we do.
We do a big choreographed show every year for a local Relay For Life event for the American Cancer Society and we are going to start trying to do more smaller shows for other Charity Events.
But mostly we are about actual fighting.
We have a lot of poor college students, and not everyone can afford a lightsaber, but most everyone can afford $25-30 for a Kendo shinai, so that's what we usually use. These also don't get dented when you drop them on the concrete basketball courts where we practice. ::)
We also have some members who build special weapons by disassembling and reusing the parts of shinais, usually combined with large dowels. We have great swords, pole arms, double bladed sabers and even padded mace like weapons we call "wompers". Each new weapon must be inspected for good construction and safety, tested and approved before it can be used in class.
These weapons are now available for anyone to use, if they are cleared on that weapon class. To get cleared, an instructor will have them use the weapon to fight all the different weapons we have, teaching them how to use it properly and the techniques that work against these various weapons.
To fight Florentine style (saber in each hand) you must also be cleared before you can fight this way in class.
Even though we only fight using 50% power, we still have a few injuries now and then. Often, it's caused by someone running into their opponents blade tip as the were moving forward to attack, or deflecting their opponents blade into their own face (I got a nasty black eye from that a few years back). But since we do hit each other, we have to expect to at least get bruises, I usually end up with a bruise or two every week. But I don't mind, it's to be expected. We're not doing basket weaving. ;)
But all-in-all, our class is a lot of fun and we have had a pretty good turn out every week for years. A lot of people have found out about our class through our Fan Force/Star Wars Society website, and sometimes people just see us at the park and get interested in joining in.