Originally Posted by betsy35
Do you belong to a guild? How much are your dues and how are they used? Is there a committee to make decisions or all members involved in decision making?
I belong to several local guilds. The guild here in Idaho Falls,
Snake River Valley Quilt Guild, has annual membership dues of $20. It is valuable because they have a
very extensive library and only members can check out a book, DVD, or templates/patterns. Members also receive first dibs at the classes and we have amazing national instructors come in. Just last month Sally Collins taught a couple of classes. (AMAZING!!!) There are about 150 members and a decent Board that runs it all, but any main decisions are voted on by the members as a whole. This guild is very active in charity, donating several thousand dollars every other year to a charity from the sales of our quilt raffle as well as being active in handing out hundreds of quilts a year to various needy organizations. We have the largest show in southeastern Idaho, coming up next year, which takes an amazing amount of structure and organization. There is even a group that are working on getting a quilt museum up and running. Several of our members teach nationally or have books & patterns out on the market for sale. Right now probably our most popular national teacher is Kim Diehl.
The second guild I belong to is only $5 a year. This guild is run much more like a club and usually there are only 30-40 people at the meetings. There is a Board but I haven't served on it so I don't know how involved it is. They do have local teachers come in but it seems to be more of a get-together than an actual classroom type setting. This guild is a lot of fun & it's easy to see the gals love visiting and quilting and having fun. Every year they make a quilt and raffle it off to charity, drawing in about $1500 to a local charity. These ladies are very generous and just fun to hang around! And I'd say a good quarter of them belong to the Idaho Falls guild.
The third guild's dues are $15 a year. This guild is very small, only about 40-50 ladies, and while there is a Board, most everything is decided by a majority vote by the members. Once a year the group gets together and creates several charity quilts, which are donated to needy families, those who have had home fires, and to the Veteran's Center.
The guild I belonged to in California was very similar to my guild in Idaho Falls, except it had probably half the people. Besides that it was remarkably similar. I get the impression most guilds are run with a Board, at least those with 30-50+ people in it. Once it grows beyond someone's livingroom or small classroom, I think structure becomes necessary or chaos takes over.