Wow, I agree with Jan, how sad it would be to be told, I'm sorry you can't join us because we already have enough members, YUK.
Some very large qwuilds have many smaller groups that get together for specific projects or specialities. NW Quilters alternates between a morning and evening meeting.

Yes, how sad it would be not to be part of a guild because it limited its membership. People like me would never get a spot because work issues come up and I cannot attend everything every time. People like me who are new to quilting would never be part of something that can be a rewarding experience.

Our guild has 200+ members and only meet once a month, at 6P.M. to 9P.M. At each meeting we have committe reports, This includes everythng from our Quilt show to the Sunshine report. We pass a blessing basket, recognise birthdays for the month, welcome new members, and guest. Have a drawing for the block of the month, also usually a suprise drawing for something useful ( if you wear your name tag your entered) always a guest speaker or demo, a show and tell for all to show off our newest quilt. We have a break mid way through for coffee and cookies. we have round robbins but that is something members set up and do on there own. We know before we start the meeting that we are on a tight time line, and we have to stay focased to get everything done. but we usually have plenty of time after the meeting to just sit and chat for a few min. Members of our guild are spread over a large area, I have one of the longest trips, 2 hrs. one way. So we will meet in groups of 2-? to work on charty quilts, round robins, challenges, ect then report on what we are doing or have finished at the next meeting. It works for us and we have never turned anyone away.

As far as a guild being to large in part as to do not so much with to many members but how they can accomodate the amount of people they have at one setting and also fire codes and laws in place in an area. The only negative I've seen with limited members is not even that problem but a social group that think they are better than you because you don't meet there standards or live on the right side of the track or are not of the right ethnic group.

With us it would be being able to find a venue that could accomodate say more than 50 or so folks at such a meeting I believe. We however have no such limits on how many members can join a guild so it will be interesting to see how we solve the problem of needing more room once we hit 100 or more members.

We have over 300 members in our guild. Because we are a large guild, we are able to bring in Nationally known speakers. We donate over 300 quilts twice a year to our charities and can put on a pretty nice quilt show. We are near the maximum for the room that we meet in.
There are dozens of "small groups" that get together weekly, or bi-weekly to work on different themes or projects. The guild itself meets once a month for meeting and the next day is usually a work-shop put on by the speaker we had at the mtg. We have a huge "lending library" of quilts books and patterns and lots of people on the board. I love the guild I am in.

I belong to two guilds. The larger of the two limits the number of people who can join based on the certificate of occupancy of the room we use. This guild only meets in the evening (even though at least half of the members are retired). We also only have programs, etc. in the evenings or on a Saturday so that everyone who is interested can attend.

When I joined my guild. We only had 30 members. Im still a member(25yrs later), were up to 80-85 now.

:) Boy, did that ever strike a chord with me. I don't belong to a guild but I'm on the board (bored!!) of a club I belong to and I can hardly wait for my term to be over so I don't have to attend any more of those meetings.

Jan of Va said it right I also belong to a group that got to large for a meeting place so we divided a night group for working or people that just prefered meeting in evenings ad a day group we have seperate offices but do stay in touch if we do something like bring in a teacher let both groups sign up if enough have 2 classes if not we still have enough for one class can do more things and works very good and no one is left out

The one here meets at the library, only about 25-30 people.