A few years ago, the free flight club here in Colorado lost the auditorium that we held our annual "Ceiling Climb" at, and with that, several out-of-state flyers who, understandably, don't want to travel long distances to fly in the small high school gym that we were forced to accept.
Last year, I helped officiate the State Science Olympiad Tournament with some club members. The Tournament was held in Gallogly Events Center at my future alma mater, University of Colorado Colorado Springs. The event center is significantly larger and has a higher ceiling; a better site than the auditorium was. The problem was money: UCCS wanted $250/hour and that price tag, to put on a 9-hour contest, is about out of any club's financial reach.
I turned to UCCSs chapter of the Aeronautical and Astronautical Institute of America. AAIA holds a nationwide annual competition for undergraduate students to design, build and fly fixed wing UAS. After much discussion over the course of the winter between UCCS, AAIA and myself on behalf of the free flight club, we were able secure Gallogly Events Center at no cost, with the AAIA chapter co-sponsoring the contest. The FF club only had to pay a $75 fee (to pay the event guy to come in on the weekend and open the doors), and to host a building session with the AAIA club to build rubber-powered models that they could, in turn, fly in the contest. Additionally, many FF club members offered to make private donations to the AAIA club, to help fund their trip down to Arizona for their competition next month.
The point that I'm trying to make is that what you are describing is club individual/club business. If it's strictly an R/C field, it's their decision and the AMA can't/won't come down, waive their finger at the RC guys and say "now you two play nice together.". I totally agree with your assessment--consolidation in areas where participation is dwindling is a good idea--but if the club doesn't see it that way, it's an unfortunate loss to both parties. The key is getting the other side to see that it is beneficial. Yeah, that usually involves money and that can be tough, but creativity is the key. UCCS prohibits ANY kind of money transaction during or even involving events. To us, that meant no entry fee, no donations before, during or after the contest. That kept me up at night for awhile. In the end, we're putting on a free contest without entry fee. After some critical thinking we realized that, while we aren't collecting revenue, we aren't spending it on site fees either and the rest of the cost to put on the contest, we can make up elsewhere. So get creative. While we can agree that the AMA sucks in many areas, deconflicting site usage really isn't in their scope of responsibility.