Pauline wrote (in the "Fixing Tricia" thread): > Re the Guild. It took me awhile to get to know people when I joined the > Guild. You have to understand that most everyone there knows everyone else > or they have their special friends. I agree whole-heartedly. Give the guild a little more time. Participate in show and tell & make sure you introduce yourself when you do show something. Volunteer for something; if you have refreshments, offer to help serve and/or clean up. If there is a newsletter, offer to help fold it some month. Be on the lookout for things that have to be done. I have been a member of my guild (a large one) for at least 7 or 8 years. I'm not a real outgoing person and I wasn't brought by a friend (as many new members are) and knew few, if any, people there. But I kept going and I showed a lot at show and tell so eventually I started to get to know people. I took a few guild workshops and that helped. Last fall I was asked to be the secretary (a pretty easy job in our guild because it mainly consists of taking minutes); then no one else had been willing to do the newsletter, so I volunteered to do that too.
Guilds don't always make it easy to get to know others. Ours does introduce new members and visitors at each meeting, and we do wear name tags, but we have both a day and an evening meeting (usually the same program) with over 100 at each meeting, so it's not always easy to recognize newbies. We also have small quilt groups of about 6 that meet whenever it suits them. Find out if the guild has something like that that you could join because it's easier to get to know people there. Occasionally at a meeting the president will ask everyone to stand up and introduce themselves to anyone sitting around them that they don't know. I think I'm going to suggest that once in awhile, she ask all the people who have been members less than 3 months to stand, then all the people who have been members 3-6 months, then 6 months to a year, etc. That should also help oldtimers identify newbies.
I just thought of something I could do as newsletter editor. I think I will take my digital camera to the meeting and ask new members to meet me at the break. I will take their photo and get a bit of info for the newsletter. Or I could just ask the membership people to give the new people a form to return to me.
Julia in MN