I just went to my first guild meeting last night. I just showed up and they greeted me warmly. Got someone to show me around and sat with me to answer any questions that I had. This particular meeting was a pot luck so I got dinner too. LOL. This guild's membership goes from June to June so it was the last meeting for the year. So there was no speaker but lots of celebrations with presenting the President with a quilt made by all members, etc. I think that if you found a guild that did not want to have visitors show up may be because they can only accomodate so many members in their meeting place and they are already full. Nice for them I guess. The one I went to consider themselves small and their was probably 35 people there. This guild is only $25 dollars a year too and I knew that they charge $3 for visitors but because it was the last meeting, I got to attend for free.