I am a longtime member of SCBWI. Get to know your local chapter, volunteering at events is always fun. You meet people, make local friends that you can team together with for critiques or cheering up, and have the perks of often getting to chat with the faculty. In the beginning I did a lot of the webinars, because they are affordable and got a lot of the agent and editor critiques. I found those really helpful in figuring out how I was doing and which way to develop my work. They also have free webinar series, that come in between the big conferences. So keep an eye out for those. If you are getting ready to query, check out the Handbook. It is updated multiple times a year, and has great advice, best practices, agencies, and publishers listed.
Make sure you are getting your regional emails, to know whats happening in your area, and if you are close to an edge of a region, you could see what the neighboring region is doing too.