Musings about affiliation

When I first decided to start a training group with my friends, I figured it would be a good idea to become affiliated with an established organization. The one we had heard about the most was ARMA. We sent in a group application and waited to be approved. In our group we have another martial artist with many years of kung fu experience who has been studying kenjutsu and kendo. Another member was a competition fencer (epee and saber) in college. I've got 40 years of martial arts and have taught for 25 years. We thought we'd be a good fit but after many months I recieved this note: "At this time we feel it in all our interests for you to proceed on your own path in your historical fencing pursuits. Please continue to enjoy our free online public materials and resources. Thanks for your interest. Best of luck to you in your endeavors." Their online stuff is very useful but I was hoping to be able to implament their youth program. Soooo, we kept training on our own, mostly working from the book "The Swordsman's Companion" by Guy Windsor. It's very well written and has helped us alot. We're still thinking of joining an organization, maybe The Tattershall School http://tattershall.discoperta.com// or Schola Saint George http://www.scholasaintgeorge.org/joomla_new/. In the meantime we're having fun training and learning. It's all good!