Club vs Team Approach

[DaveL]

Hi All:
I'm conflicted between a club vs a team approach to running an FRC team.
By club, I mean no tryouts, easy to join, right after school and focused on education. By team, I mean dues and build hours are required. Week night and weekend meetings. Plus the focus is on constructing a robot.

During the Fall we get a ton of students and run more like a club.
We get a low turnout on the weekends. It doesn't matter if its a general build day, a workshop or an outreach event.

In the winter we morph into more of a team and lose a large number of students, but the students that remain are more committed to attending meetings and building a robot.

Does aiming to be a team and being more restrictive from the beginning help you compete and be able to deliver a more technical student education?

I would like to learn if other teams have had these issues, how they improved and how they would rate themselves on a club / team dimension.

Dave