I belong to a small group here in the town where I live. New members must be invited and voted on by secret ballot. If even one person votes "no", they are not invited to join. They do not even know that they are considered before being voted on, thus no hurt feelings. Our membership is limited to 20 members so no cliques. At first it seems like a pretty stringent group, but all of our members have had bad experiences in the past with large guilds, cliques, drama and trauma. This works. We are all aages, all experience levels and all have different strengths. We all learn a lot and we are all very close. I really love this group.