I am a intermediate chess played who has been playing since I was 7 years old and I am thinking of starting a chess association but I'm not sure what I want it to do. I know I want to have members and send out monthly newsletters, but that's about as far as I have got in the ideas category. Does anyone have any suggestions?
May I recomend starting with joining a clan here, as it is very much a small association within RHP. Of course you would need to suscribe to membership here. Examine how this works with a small group of 20 players. then build your own clan from there, recruiting members, creating a web page, to keep your members up to date on any and everything you wish to. Listening to input from them on changes and ideas to improve the clan. then see about starting your own association. with your own game site. Be ready though to put in effect safeguards against cheating early on as it will become a problem higher ranked players. From there you can host your own tournaments, and so on.
In the real world, you're probably best to look for an existing chess club locally.
If one exists, you should join and offer to help out. If its anything like here, they'll be all too pleased to see someone who is willing to contribute.
If one doesn't exist, then you need to think about setting up one of your own. That's a whole lot harder. You'll need to find (and fund) premises, equipment and hopefully enough other players to make it viable.