Now, that's the way a guild should behave toward visitors and new members!

Ours has a mentor program so each new member is matched to a longer term member for a year. And we have a new member luncheon, just for the board, the mentors and the new members, each spring.

Jan in VA

Aw, sounds like a great group!

sounds like it went really well!

Congrats,sounds like you found a new home!Happy for you. pab

This sounds like the sort of guild I would LOVE to belong to-soo bad you're so far away!

Thanks for all your kind words of encouragement everyone. If nothing else, I hope those of you who belong to guilds take something from all this and make a point of being friendly to visitors and new members, and maybe even bring it up to your presidents to implement some type of welcome program like many of the guilds already are doing. I know if I were an existing member for a while, I would certainly make it a point to make them feel welcome. It is such a small thing to do and unless the guild doesn't want new members or care of they get new ones, this would be an important step to gain them.