Mrs H wrote:......I'm waiting for you to proffer a flawless model! (or even a less flawed one!)
I'm not sure there is a holy grail single model.
I'm also a member of a tennis club locally. Drifted into it as the kids got offered lessons via the school. Its a 30min walk away in the village or about 5min in the car. The membership costs are a lot more than the orienteering club (probably by a factor of 10), but crucially for me I can go and play when I want, I have a regular game every Monday night, and I now have a group of around 8 or so mates who live locally who I didn't know before who I can go for a pint with or watch a band locally in the pub.
My orienteering club definitely hasn't been able to give me the same social opportunities or regular local activity. Our regular Friday night hill runs for example are a 90 min round trip for me in the car (or more accurately would be if I went). There are plenty of nice people and one or two I've had a pint with even, but mostly they live too far away to be regularly sociable and the clubs attempt at social evenings in peoples houses eventually ran out of steam. (it was never just social though anyway, always had to be an orienteering thing so someone has to do that, and tea and cakes isn't the same as going for a pint).