Groups not showing in display blocks

I have a new site I have just set up.  I started four groups with my admin account.  These don't show up anywhere except "my groups" - they don't show on "recent public groups" or on "latest featured groups" - in fact the don't show on any of the menu item blocks that I can find.  I am perplexed.   Could someone point me in the right direction.

access mod !

Do you mean the "member's only" mod?   Nope - not unless the change is somewhere other than the groups module - I just removed it to test - still not there.   I "featured" all the groups as a partial workaround, but I would like to know what is wrong.