Just wondering who your guild is booking for programs for 2011 and 2012? How many nationally known speakers does your guild book for year and how do you pay for them?

I don't know yet cause I just join a couple months ago.

I really enjoy my guild, I have made some great friends there but....the charter members are elderly now and they shoot down most inquiries about having many of the programs and speakers mostly because of the cost. They have the mindset of have to save money. For what? It's a guild that will never see a rainy day. LOL. It's an on going battle and sadly I think my guild will be losing many of the newer members because of the old set in stone by laws written by....the charter members.

my guild has had two well known quilters per year. This year it's Vikki Pignatelli and Kathy Kansier. Vikki's rates are $1300 for a two day class for members and $150 for non=members. No prices on Kathy's classes yet. We make every effort to keep prices down, and since we have so many events thru the year (retreat, guest teachers, etc.) we're thinking of changing to one out of state guest teacher and one in state guest teacher. He have lot of talent in Alaska so I think we wouldn't be losing anything but making the change. Not sure about plans for 2012, but we recently did a survey of members to see who we wanted to bring in and what type of techniques we wanted to learn.

We have a spot in the budget for speakers, but the cost is supplemented by those who attend.