Originally Posted by Murphy
There are many guilds which accommodate working members and hold evening or weekend meetings. Look around for different guilds in your area.
Or, find retreats that you can register for without being in a guild. I do not belong to a guild here and there are many retreats and learning situations you can go to without membership. I would be concerned about a group that did not allow non-members to participate in retreats, etc. IMHO.
Why would you be concerned? In all of the guilds I've belonged to so far retreats and workshops are filled by members first and if there are spaces leftover they're opened to non members. I don't remember any retreat or workshop that wasn't filled by members though. If you're going to do the work of the guild then you deserve to get the benefits of the guild.
I personally don't feel like people that don't put anything in to the guild should benefit from other people's hard work. It takes work to put a retreat or a workshop together. Even just paying your membership each year is a benefit to the guild. Membership dues are what help pay for speakers and workshops.