Hi Okkin,
I haven't personally had first hand experience starting a new group, but here's some of the things I know from observing over the years:
First, get together and play. That strikes me as the most important thing. Sounds like you guys are already on the road to that if not doing it. Regardless, just get everyone together with rulebooks to share, go over the rules and start playing. This builds the group. All the rest is just formalizing the group within the greater organization.
When you're ready to formalize the group (which you might already be since you were asking specifically about the contracts) you first submit a contract to the company that holds all the legal rights to Amtgard. That would be "Amtgard: Kingdom of the Burning Lands, Inc.." You can find the contract you will need on the "
Starting a Chapter" page of the
Amtgard.com website. The email address you will need (
contracts@amtgardinc.com) to send a scanned copy of the contract with your information completed to is on that page as well.
Once you have sent in the contract and taken care of any follow-up from Burning Lands that they feel are necessary, you'll be given the official word. Congratulations, you're an Amtgard chapter!
After that you can worry about petitioning us, Kingdom of Westmarch, for sponsorship. It's not a necessary course of action, but it does help to increase your park's visibility in some regards and might lead to more cross-group traffic to and from your park. It also has the benefit of allowing your membership to gain higher level of awards for their various deeds and services within the game as your park grows and gains higher status and higher visibility for awards from the Kingdom herself. The contract for that is found at the end of the Kingdom Corpora, which you can find on the
Important Documents page of this website. You can come back and ask for our President of the Board of Director's contact info when you're ready to submit the Westmarch contract. You can not submit to us before you get recognized as a legal group by the Burning Lands.
Speaking of cross-group traffic, you mentioned not seeing any groups north of Sacramento. I just so happen to know there's a group in the process of starting up in Yuba City, CA. You can find them on their
Facebook group. That's what, a two hour drive in the best conditions? But when you're both up and running, try to visit and vice-versa. Bonds between groups tend to help both groups grow.
Hope this was the info you were looking for.