I joined a group this year called CAMEO (Come and Meet Each Other), with my neighbor.They have various speakers, do charity quilting, we volunteered to go to a local museum village and quilted in the houses for visitors to see and learn from, they have refreshments and drawings. There is a schedulted retreat in April but I'm not able to attend. It does sound like a lot of fun. You should give it a try at least a couple of times before decidings. I did and truly enjoyed it. I did a BOM at a local mill and found people were not very friendly to newcomers.