I've not been a member of an independent camera club*, but have been a member of a car club. I was even on the committee as I was editor of the quarterly (physical) magazine.
There's always discord. Having been on the committee, you have to be guarded about everything you say. A personal opinion will be taken as a Club Policy. Someone, somewhere, will take it the wrong way. You have to deal with egos - both big egos and fragile ones. You spend an extraordinary amount of time and effort producing something that most people will slag off.
And I'd like to think that our club was one of the better ones. Certainly a friend of mine who was a member of a Porsche Club said they were dreadful. Seeming to fall foul of everything people are saying here about (certain) Camera Clubs. Hierarchical and full of one-upmanship. And he had a very rare Porsche too. I can't remember the reason why it was rare, but at the same time as revering his car, when he turned up at a Club Event they tried to force him to display his car on the Club Stand (which he didn't want to do and hadn't signed up for) and got incredibly shirty with him when he said 'No'.
Forums can often follow a similar pattern. And for me it is far more enjoyable to sit back in the relative anonymity of membership and moan about it all from the sidelines.
I take my hat off to anyone that still puts in the time and effort to run them. It's a thankless task that's rarely appreciated.
And today is different to 10 years ago. Which was different to 20 years ago. Pre-internet, pre-digital camera clubs had to fulfil a different agenda and satisfy a different demographic. I'd have been rubbish in one as I do rely on LR to make some post improvements. Having said that, I did study photography at college and do know that many of the LightRoom tools are simply Darkroom techniques updated for the modern age. it's just much quicker (and less expensive) to view the results.
*Edited to add, I did join a photography club at work. It was much like the TP52 with weekly themes (and gatherings) to discuss output. What I found VERY odd about that one was that we had to show SOOC RAWs (or JPEGS - depending on camera) but were asked to do Post Processing on other people's shots. I didn't see any point in doing that that way. I could see some merit in doing an exercise where you're given someone's RAW and processing it differently, but to ask the shot taker to not process it seemed pointless.
So I'm not currently a member, but do think about trying to find a club to help me improve. But then so much more information is available online these days.