John,
I am by far not the one to say how to run a club. I like your ideas though. I think you are onto something good and I hope it works out well for you.
If I may suggest, Keeping high school kids in terasted will be tough. Please make it fun and show them what can become of all this. Show the kids some droan videos, show them how you can add video cameras and such. The more you show them and what it can lead to the better your chances of success. Also, maybe robotics. There is a very big world of things that learning how to fly an r/c plane can lead to. Please make sure to show them that.
-Andrew
The idea is to get the students flying as soon as possible and to get them interested/excited about the physics/technology of rc flight.