This has been a very interesting thread.. with so many different opinions..
For anyone who hasn't been to a camera club... go... but give it a try for a few months before you chuck it in... I started going to my local club about 7 years ago, previously I had only ever shot Motocross for 5 years. There is such a wealth of knowledge at these clubs, so many images that will inspire you. The comps are great as they make you shoot subjects you wouldn't normally do. I am so thankful to the two clubs I now attend, its has improved my photography massively, leading me to now selling my nature work in a few galleries giving me an income. Through this work I also work for a lighting company & have written a couple of books, even give talks to local clubs on what I specialise in.... And made some great friends, so I am very grateful to club.
As for the workshops thingy, I agree in a way, if the whole thing has been set up, lighting, model, etc. But that final angle, pose, settings are all down to the photographer themselves, so it is their work. I see this at clubs, but then its down to me to shoot better and get better marks then those shots. I hire a lot of hides, not for the help, but because they have the nature I want to shoot, I don't ask for help or settings as I do shoot a slightly different way then the people that own the hides. One example, last year I went on a workshop to shoot the white horses in Camargue, Why? because it would be impossible to organise the horses myself, they have the leads, I went with a amazing photographer who actually got me selling my nature shots from a talk he gave at my camera club. We chatted about different types of shoots & ideas, like I would with any photographer, I had no help from him as I didn't need any.. I went in the view of using these to make sales in the galleries. Did I use them in a competition, hell yes and won every time, only 2 out of the 5500 I took. Was I wrong,? No. I had chose my position, did my own settings, my own processing, my own everything. Not all workshops are workshops if you get my meaning. These even went into a national comp & European comp, which I find out in two days where I came in the top 3.
We have a couple of members that enter some great images from Africa, the problem for me is that they haven't left the UK for 10 years, I don't agree with that. But if they wish to live out of an old hard drive rather then shoot new that's up to them, doesn't improve their photography, just stale & old. But it makes me push to improve my own photography to beat those images... That's a much better way to look at this whole thing...
Just my opinion..