Guild Management

I take a screenshot for every compliment the guild gets. Not to show off, or brag, but when eventually when warcraft has its last day, i can look back on my guild slideshow and reflect back on some good times, and some brilliant achievements "they" made.
It's also a morale boost for myself, as sometimes, you get that doom feeling. And you need a good kick up the arse to put you back on track sometimes. Last night after the raid (25man) there was almost a debrief not just of the raid, but of the guild.
To keep you up with current affairs, Realm (Our co-operative raiding guild) split into 2 halves, their guild leader came over to TDD, and with him brought who he considered his friends. We are delighted with this, as it has been something we have been waiting for, for almost a year. We know them, and they know us, and..we have raided together, and know we all work together well.
Our 25 man looting rule was going to be daunting. We had full members, Switched main members (Considered on 4 week trial), New members (on 4 trial) , and Ex-Realm members (on 3 week trial). And on top of that...offspec.
How do you make a simple rule for that?, so after consulting with the officers int he raid, i decided to announce to the guild, 1 Main roll (main spec and full member), followed by an open roll if no full member rolled. That was now simplified, and easy to maintain and importantly - efficently quick, and also vocally prompting fairness. My officers did really well to poke any obstructions, questions and debates out of raid chat, to keep the raid running smoothly.

For 25 man, for me, you really need a team behind you supporting your raid leading to take care of the "fussy" details you could do without being distracted from. And more voices backing your decisions, help everyone toe the line. This blog by Pwnwear is at the heart of what needs to be done, and i kept reminding myself of it last night. This *mindset as a team* got us, for the first time, through 2 wings of Naxx25, with laughter, (with tears sometimes), and a great sense of guild teamwork, regardless of membership level. We've done it before in TBC, however i think during that, time we forgot how to work in a larger scale raid.

Expectations - It is very easy to get swept away with the momentum of progress. I find it myself..thinking "gogo go while the rythmn is good, book another day's raid" The fall-out from that is, your loosing your guilds focus as a "casual guild that raids" We're a grounded guild, that raids 3 nights a week, and fills the rest with supporting each other, and making those 3 days *count* Consistancy being the paramount. If your away from home for a while, you will know that TDD will be raiding Mon/Tues and Wed and Thurs no matter what..
What we also felt was, raiding (offically) more that 3 nights per week turned us from a "casual guild", to a "raiding guild" even if that meant 4 nights a week....that leaves 3 days to have a social life...or even just a life! Remember remember, theres 7 days to a week!
And with children, babies, and homework etc etc, thats just not a reality, ....we learned it before, and we'll learn from it again and we'll aviod the inevitable burn-out.

Guild Leadership - One thing i will always remember from an old friend Tem, was his encouragement in /w regarding guild leadership. He had a heir of roll play in his conversations, and would always re-assure me on my choices. Now Tem, was a much older man than myself, he was a healing paladin and a mighty one at that, with such a great personality. He had no ambitions to be an officer or GM. And was probably "one of" the most loyal members of my guild/s, over 4 guilds in 4 years.

It was that people expected a strong leader, but a subtle one. A confident leader, but a humble one. And a generous leader to thought of his guild first, before himself.

And if all those things where accomplished in a leader, he would follow, no matter where it lead to. As long as the guild leader believed in him, he would return the loyalty for it . I think the same can be said of officers too, as a team doesnt just depend on its leader.

Its knowning what is good for the guild, and what will break it (by your learning experiences) and apologise for any bad choices you do decide to make. Your human, not immortal, and your allowed to make mistakes to learn from, we all wernt born GM's or raid leaders. But its in those moments you realise who should be in your guild, and who needs to move on.