Are Writer's Groups Good?

Over the past several months I've joined the Blank Page Writer's Group based out of Marietta, Georgia (and hosted by The Blank Stage).  It is a bi-monthly group in which screenwriters get together to not only discuss their screenplays but to also discuss the business and craft and screenwriting.  In the last couple months the Blank Stage, through the Blank Page Writer's Group, have started to actually produce some of the short films written by some of the group members.

Although I cannot discuss the specific screenplays being written by the members of the group I do want to address that some of the writter's (through the group) are writing their fisrt screenplay while others are old pros at it.  I took my screenplay THE NOCTURNAL inmto the group to try and help me fix some of the problems I was having with the story.  In this regards, the group has helped me tremendously.

The format of the group's take on reading screenplays is that we will read pages from 2 different screenplays each meeting and then address what problems or potential problems the screenplay might have.  Although I am not partial to this format of reading a screenplay (I prefer reading the whole thing in one sitting and then allow the time for discussion),

Regardless, this is a small price to pay in terms of the tremendous support and atmosphere of the group which has helped the group expand and become a very group atmosphere for writers.

The group has helped me see some of the problems in THE NOCTURNAL which is a good thing considering I needed that feedback in order to help the re-write process and hopefully get the screenplay into a better selling (or perhaps filmable) place.

Now all I have to do is get the re-writers done using the notes generated from the writer's group.