My guild is definitely not like the one Tessagin has described. We do have 140 members and have a general monthly meeting with guest speakers, Show and Share, demos, lending library etc. These meetings are informative and interesting but if you really want to know the members better, you need to join one or several of the sub groups and any guild member is welcome at any of the smaller groups. We have a couple of different weekly Stitch and Share afternoons, Community Quilt stitching group, Modern Quilt group, Monthly technique or new pattern group to name just a few all working under the larger guild umbrella. Most of these smaller groups have a core group with other members coming and going. It is such a friendly guild (we're known widely for this) that it all works very well. In my opinion there just shouldn't be snotty nasty guilds who won't welcome newcomers.