I can't believe you never heard of the Guild before Ian!!
The Guild was setup in April 2008 and last year membership numbers exceeded 200, mostly forum members here!
The Guild is not a trade association, but we do have many of the same aims. We hope to help our members by increasing awareness of safety issues (We are licensed by the HSE to distribute electronic copies of their publications on our member CD), we hope to raise standards within the industry (all members agree to a code of conduct when they sign up), and also help our members to build their business with marketing logos for the van/website/stationary as well as a listing on the website which ranks very well in google.
We are much smaller than other organisations like the FED, so obviously don't have the resources to do the kind of work they do,.. but we aim to be more inclusive by being an international association & offering member fees that are more attractive to the sole trader. We also make a point of listening to what our members want, and adjusting our setup to best suit their needs when possible.
We are also a non-profit organisation,.. what little is left at the end of each year from the member fees is given back to the community in competition prizes etc. Jan 2009 we gave away a HXTEL, Jan 2010 an SLX, and this year there is a £500 cash prize for the video competition.
More info can be found on our Facebook page here:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/The-Master-Guild-of-Window-Cleaners/135520808057