Our guild does "pizza days" at a local church.... we each pay $10 and there's approx 30 of us..... after the rent, there's enough $$ to purchase pizzas for dinner. We arrive at about 9 and bring our own lunch..teas, coffees, etc. are provided. My favourite ones have been when one of our guild members has prepared "scrapbusters" for us. She has done samples of many blocks....asked us to precut certain sizes and colours and we each make blocks at the church....then lay them all out together to make a quilt. Sometimes this is sewn into a community(charity) quilt....sometimes the blocks are taken home for future reference. Of course you need a dedicated person to search out tons of scrappy blocks on the internet or in magazines, and willing to share her knowledge.

this sounds like fun...I am the internet savvy scrap busting queen...have been in charge of the guild BOM program with scrappy blocks for 3 years! I have a collection..ehhehe

There is a retreat like this in our area. She holds it at the local auditorium. The gal who plans it loves to cook so she provides a noon meal and everyone brings snacks. Everyone brings their own projects to work on. She usually plans one small project that everyone can do. It works great, started with about 6 people coming and last time there was 26.

Who is the target audience? If this is a community wide event, a mixer would be a good thing. A paper scavenger hunt (don't collect anything, just gather information) with a list of things people are apt to be making, or methods being used (DP9, string quilt, place mat, landscape, paper piecing, etc.) Leave a blank line and a few check blocks. Line for the name of the person doing the project; check boxes for, I'd like to learn this, I can do this, I could teach this, I learned from this person. I took a photo. Perhaps the next line down could have a place for info exchange, phone & e-mail. When their hunt is completed, they can show it to the hostess, who in turn will put their name in the hopper for the hunt prize. They can keep their paper.

I've been to events & never really got to know anyone other than the handful of guild regulars. Not everyone makes it to the meetings, so I like to wander about and peek, (or stare). Something like this would be better than tossing a beach ball and calling a name. Mixing with multiple end results, at a person's own time, throughout the weekend.

Speaking of hostess - volunteers who work for two or 4 hour shifts, so that everyone, including you, can enjoy time for sewing, and dyeing.

This is a very interesting idea. And not a lot to ask, nor time to give up.

I wanna come !!!! I would love to spend some 'me' time....

I have never been to a quilt retreat but would consider going since I live in Oklahoma.
I do have 1 little suggestion though and that is to make everyone turn off their cell phones and give everyone a phone number just for emergency calls.
Whenever my sister comes over to sew, her phone doesn't ring but she is constantly having to answer text messages from her family that are unneccessary. If they would leave her alone she might get some sewing done.

I've been to retreats like what you're hosting. We had 2-3 people sign up for each meal and they planned and prepared it. It worked out great.

It's kind of hard to prepare meals if we live 4 or 5 hours away though

We have done this type of retreat twice a year for several years at our quild in Calif. For meals everyone brings a pot luck and there is always way to much food for " 3 meals a day". Each retreat is 3 or 4 days long. We sew and share all day and then go home for the night and return the next morning.