anyone here do railings, gates and guards?

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im currently at the closing ceremony of nomma(national ornental miscellaneous metals association) and it got me thinking about whether anybody on this forum is a member or even knows what nomma is. for anybody who doesnt know, its trade organization of people who do ornamental metalwork. i have never been a part of a group that is as dedicated to sharing information as nomma. anyone who does, or wants to do ornamental metalwork should look into this organization, and would be foolish(in my humble opinion) not to join.  anyone looking for more information should look to www.nomma.org
Reply:How long have you been a member? How have you benefited?  They have great instructional videos online.  Free.  search the nomma site for the link.  They are on vimeo, though I have difficulty finding them searching through that site.  Thanks
Reply:ive been a member for five or six years, i forget exactly when i joined. to me the biggest benefit is having access to a group of people in my line of work that are willing to share information.  for example at metalfab conferences in the past ive attended classes about field measuring techniques, curved stair railing measuring and construstion techniques, patinas, new field measuring techniques using a hand held laser scanner, how to deal with customers who wont pay and many others. during metalfab at least on day is dedicated to doing shop tours.  usually three shops in the area will open there doors and people are free to roam, ask questions and poke around.  being able to see how other shops do things is always an eye opening experience. the information they have available on building codes alone has been well worth the price of membership. you have to log in to find that though. in fact there is a lot of technical information available to members.far and away the most useful part, to me anyway, is the listserv. its an email thing where anybody on the list can ask questions and it goes to everybody else on the list. its a very active group to.  the questions range from business questions, to code questions, to sourcing hard to find components and parts, to how to deal with difficult fabrication problems.   the hands down most beneficial aspect of the group is that it is a group of people all in pretty much the same industry that are emphatically dedicated to sharing information.