hey dude,
I co-lead my first team this ugc season, and although it's HL, I might be able to give you a couple of tips that helped us.
1) I've had success just going on the ugc page, looking at teams in our division and adding their leaders. Lots of teams are receptive to this at lower levels since many of them are always looking for scrims too. Then you can build up a relationship and play those teams consistently, which is pretty good. For finding short notice scrims, you might want to try the tf2scrim IRC channel, although I can't say much about that myself.
2) I'd advise against the Cali server even if it will be better for a couple of your players. Chicago/Dallas is the best way to go for everyone, otherwise you get people who are really screwed over and you'll have teams bitching about the ping on your server. Save yourself the headache.
3) Watch old matches on the maps if you can. Find demos or stvs to look at. Getting your team to run around for a bit in the map can really help. Mess around, make up names for map locations, and just look at all the architectural features you may have never really thought about mid-game. It's a great way to find hiding spots to both use and check.
As for strats, it's good to see what other teams do to flesh out a general plan, but the best thing you can do is just see what works for you in game and try to adapt when things don't work out the way you thought they would. Then you can go back over those stvs later and see why things happened the way they did, what your strengths are and what you need to work on.