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1B: volunteer to ORGANISE a clinic, and arrange for a Big Dog with some credibility from outside your immediate area to come in and lead the clinic, or at least a big part of it.
My Assn is [relatively] small & rural, but the guys in charge [now] are pretty serious about trying to get everybody to "do it the right way" [or at least, OUR way]. Our training committee has used this tactic on several occasions. We have brought in several Big Dogs, including the top assigner/trainer for one of the most important College Assns on the East Coast [no, not HHH's from the DC area, but we've used some of their top guys, too]. It has never cost us more than a truly nominal honorarium & food. Big Dogs are often show-offs, who are really happy to have a bunch of lil' dogs listening with rapt attention.
Your offering to "put on the clinic" isn't likely to work, unless you have some credentials/ credibility you haven't mentioned: the "good ol' boys" will simply dismiss you as a newby smart-a$$ know-it-all. They may not change to follow the direction of even a certified Big Dog, but they'll have trouble convining anyone else with a desire to be a better umpire to stay in the dark ages with them.
Until you have a cadre of known, experienced and like-minded top umpires willing to go along with you, option 2 [form your own Assn] is a non-starter: once you do have the cadre, taking over the exising structure is less work; plus you can keep the hard core good ol' boys around for the horrible games nobody really wants to be assigned to, and for which they are "good enough".
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