citruscountyquilter

The guild I belong to is reaching our maximum capacity for the room we have met in for the last 29 years. It is a good place to meet for both location and amenities and we don't want to relocate which means we have to cap the membership at 100 members. A waiting list has been proposed if more want to join after we reach our max. I'm looking for suggestions from other guilds that have faced this situation. Do you have a waiting list? How do you determine when a slot opens if membership is paid for a year at a time? What things should we consider is developing a policy to cover this?
It's nice to be in demand but it does have its challenges as well.

Jennifer23

Would it be possible to split into two sections: maybe an afternoon group and an evening group? Then you could meet at the same place, just at different times. The logistics of this would depend on what you do at your meetings, but it would give more people a chance to get involved.

If I was put on a waiting list at a guild, I would feel rejected, and go looking for a different group to join. A waiting list also sounds like a management/policy headache.

Onebyone

My guild is facing the same thing. We decided to find a larger meeting place and raise our dues $5 more. While we are finding many great meeting places to lease, non have a private large storage area for us. That is the biggest issue.
I guess you would have to have a waiting list and first on the list gets the chance to join when an opening is available. We have some paid members that seldom come to meetings and that is a problem when having a limited member list.

One more thing. If the membership stays the same it becomes stagnant and stuck. New members bring new ideas.

bearisgray

How many people actually show up at one time?

I suppose you could do like (some of) the airlines. Figure out the maximum space available and have your membership at 110 - 115% of that.

GingerK

Good point Bear. But what about those 'special' meetings like Christmas or end of year pot luck, when 'most' of the members seem to attend? It would be just like the airlines--overbooked and refused entry at the door.

bearisgray

I know that at the Church Christmas programs back in the 1950s and 1960s - the latecomers were seated on folding chairs in the aisles and in the very front - which probably would be against some capacity rules now.

toverly

Go for a larger space or you may become stagnant. Changing locations creates conflict but it sometimes is a good thing. We previously met in a church fellowship hall for free and when it became unavailable looked to no avail for another church to sponsor our Guild meetings. Now our Guild meets at a Senior Center and we have two meetings a month. One during the day and one during the night. We do have to pay for the larger space but they were happy to provide a closet for our library. It was overall a great move.

dunster

When a guild grows very large it changes. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it does happen. Strangely it can be harder to find people willing to serve as officers, because it's more work managing a large guild. If your guild is still functioning well (and you must be, because you're not losing members), I think it is okay to limit your membership. I've heard of several groups that limited membership based on space, or even because they just didn't want to grow beyond a certain size. Also if you do move to a new location and accept new members you may lose some of the old members and wind up being the same size, but in a less desirable location.

I did belong to a very large guild in Oregon. It had a morning meeting and an evening meeting and two sets of officers, who met as one board. The morning meeting was very crowded in a huge room, and the evening meeting was sparsely attended. It seemed that only those who worked during the day preferred the evening meeting. Having the two meetings didn't really solve the space problem, but it did give those who couldn't attend during the day a chance to be guild members.

Jan in VA

I've only been in one guild that had problem, over 20 years ago, and thankfully we made the (hard!) decision to move to a much larger space. Within a couple years we were regularly having national speaker nearly 6-7 times a year, more interesting programs, better attendance, more volunteers, and MUCH more fun!! The year that it took to make and implement the move decision was so hard on members waiting to join that some of us elected to withdraw for one year to give them a membership spot until we could be in a larger space. We never regretted doing that because it really improved our guild and never made "outsider" quilters feel rejected! The guild was kind enough to keep us on the newsletter list and we were listed as "member" for the purpose of entering our quilts in the show that one year. This was in Texas, where the word itself means 'friend'.

Jan in VA

quiltingshorttimer

I'm in a guild of 190 quilters--it's a county-wide guild. We have 2 meetings--one in the daytime, repeated in the evening--even the program,even when it's a paid outside presenter. Most months there is little space problem--the day meeting usually draws about 75-80 members and the evening about 35-40. when we do have special dinners or meeting that draw many more it can be a squeeze. When you do have 2 different meeting times, you will find that there is a different feel to each, even with the same officers or agenda.

when my machine quilters guild "outgrew" our meeting space, we did move our meeting location and benefited by it. I think if we had developed a wait list, it would have a real turn off.