I have truly enjoyed my guild. When I joined it was about 30 women, meets once a month and we have a once a month work day where we can bring what ever project, quilting or not to work on. Something about all being together for the day makes the work go faster. We do have two retreats, Spring and Fall.
Pros: I have gotten so much help with sticky problems and lots of opinions when I needed them on arrangement, quilting new skills etc. We are a casual bunch with a wide range of skills and we like it that way. No competitions or challenges. We have grown to 50 (This is a pro and a con). What is happening is sub groups are forming naturally without any particular organization from our guild leader. Her word is if you want to get together to do some specific quilting task, go for it. We have a quilt of valor group, a knitting group and a paper piece subgroup. Best of all I have a new group of friends. It took some time to be "friends" but they were never unfriendly. I was just the new kid.
Cons: We only meet for one hour monthly and sometimes feel rushed when introduced to new techniques. We have grown to 50 which can be too many for our meeting space.
My recommendation is to visit, attend any special meeting and see how friendly the members are and if you like their focus. Are meetings open to all, are retreats or special events open to all or are they limited to members only. Choose the guild that fits YOU! Try it, like it or graciously back out if the organization does not fit. I just thought of another thing to consider, cost. One guild in my area brings in national speakers and the yearly fee is high. My guild is $22 per year.