Usually a group of quilters will form a group and call it a guild and they make the rules how they want their group to be. There is no set guild guidelines to be called a guild. I belong to a four guilds. One is very community minded. One is more for learning and holding workshops, one limits the amount of members, one is free for any one who wants to show up and several of us are forming a new group that will be for going on retreats only. I like them all and each one has pros and cons. To get to your question, all of the guilds I'm in, a newbie just shows up and says here I am.