A club is about the people, its members and attitude.
They are. Unfortunately, a club that runs a business enterprise also has to be businesslike. There are clubs like surf lifesaving clubs where there's a social service supported by what's basically a pub, and clubs that don't really run businesses like gun clubs, where the members show up to use the premises and maybe buy a beer. Then there are clubs that rely on a business enterprise to survive and I suspect this is one of them.
In the last case, there are ever increasing costs and fully commercial competitors to deal with. Some of those competitors will be fly-by-nighters, but they are still competition while they last. There is a need to have people on the committee or on the payroll who understand these issues, but not always the means to pay them properly. The committee structure and longevity of such clubs also lends itself to infighting, backstabbing and simmering issues that should have been resolved in 1985 and weren't, along with people who are involved for suspicious personal motives and a bunch of well meaning but incompetent fruitbats.
As I said, I have not been involved in a flying club but have 15 years experience in a similar, committee controlled commercial NFP enterprise. The issues sound the same.
If you want the club to survive, you need to take care of the business that feeds it. To take care of the business you need people on the committee with small business experience in a similar area that understand the basic 'money in money out' concept. What you don't need is government or big business types that don't understand the hand-to-mouth principle that guides a successful small business. Fruitbats are also a problem and you need mitigation strategies to deal with them (task groups are a great diversion, they let members 'be involved', do some of the donkey work and occasionally stumble on good ideas by mistake
).
What you really don't need is in-fighting, distrust and backstabbing. Our club survived thanks to a president and several senior committee members that had the right amount of small business expertise, bull-headedness and lack of interest in in-fighting. They each put in a huge amount of personal effort (15+ hours a week) into the club to keep it going. They were also beyond suspicion when it came to personal interests, ie they had nothing to gain by being involved.
If you don't have that, you need it. If you can't find it, you are in trouble.
Apologies if this doesn't apply to your club/business enterprise, but I can't think that they're all that different. At the end of the day, if the business is not viable you need to find something that is, to support the Club and pay the bills associated with it owning its property. Otherwise, mathematics takes over and you will fold.