Leadership Meeting Notes

[Martok]

The guild leadership had a meeting tonight to talk about some guild concerns and issues. The following were in attendance:

Maube

Kytae

Smedlock

Verissi

Vrugz

Grawuulf

Volonazra

Baracko

Raeda

Some topics of discussion were:

Enforcing RP in guild chat. This has been improving over the last two weeks or so. Keep up the good work all! We realize that we want a general socializing channel, so I will work on getting a CS out of character channel created that is password protected. We will continue to give private messages to people that constantly OOC in guild chat.

In addition, we discussed the impression that guild members are having about cliques forming among the guild leadership. We have committed to ask in guild chat when we form a group, but at the same time we won't wait for one to occur! You have the power to start something yourselves! Baracko will be making an additional post regarding this.

There was discussion brought forward to change the current guild admission guidelines. Vrugz will make a proposition to the rest of the elders for review. It is my opinion that we should have peons admitted to the guild upon acceptance of their application, and then their FULL membership be granted at the council of honor with the status of GRUNT and the good old pee tub cleaning. More details to come.

We are also going to make some changes to the website regarding the rules/policies/procedures. Many people seem to be lacking a "who we are" and "what we're about". Grawuulf has volunteered to assist us in this and propose it within the next week. Upon acceptance of this it will be updated to the website.

Leadership roles- Elders and Warmongers wanted further clarification on their duties/roles/responsibilities. We hammered those out a bit...although it was at the end of the meeting and my notes are pretty sketchy on that.

Who we are: many members have been asking about the direction of the clan and what we are about. We have affirmed we are the following:

1/3 RP guild. Having RP events, RP in guild chat, and overall RP FUN!

1/3 Grouping/questing/family events. Helping each other and fostering a team environment.

1/3 Raiding guild. Self explanitory.

Our direction? Well, that is hard to say as a MMORPG has no "END". But our overall direction is to continue our third, third, and a third principle. Baracko will comment more on what our Raid progression is looking like.

Communication- we wish to give more direction to the clan with thoughts to communication. It is too difficult to do this in game as we only have 2 guild meetings a month, and we have decided to make more use of the forums to convey the leaderships ideas/agenda etc... When an important post is made, we will change the MOTD to let everyone know to read the forums (as i did with this post)

If you have any questions please feel free to message me. Over the next week as everyone finishes their assignments given from the leadership meeting, we will post the more "final details"

Dat iz all. Dabu!

[Volonazra]

I want encourage anyone with questions/concerns about these things to contact myself or another leader. We want to keep communication as open as possible.

I want to thank everyone that gave their time and concern to the guild maintenance and improvement.

[Tainish]

First, I love the irony of Vrugz writing the notes from the meeting.

Second, this sounds about right to me:

Who we are: many members have been asking about the direction of the clan and what we are about. We have affirmed we are the following:

1/3 RP guild. Having RP events, RP in guild chat, and overall RP FUN!

1/3 Grouping/questing/family events. Helping each other and fostering a team environment.

1/3 Raiding guild. Self explanitory.

And last, thanks for the update. We know the elders are working hard on the issues that the Crushers face, but it's good to see a summary of the efforts.

[Bula]

Where do dah Clan Ogres fit into all ub dis?

BULA

Ogre Warlord

[Qiris]

Ah heard dey take dat stuff called Rogaine.

((good post, thanks for keeping us updated))

((Charlotte NC is warm hurrah, and pretty too!))

[Waldonnis]

I'd also like to add a few things that were mentioned as well. Although not main talking points, I felt they were important to note.

First, I want to encourage more forum use by everyone...not just reading, but also contributing. We have sections for so many aspects of what we are guild-wise (RP story lines, raiding information, PvP, crafting, etc.) and I'd love to see more material added to each section. I sometimes try to approach our forums as an new member or non-Crusher would, trying to get a feel for the Clan and where I fit in. I've been very pleased (and entertained) by the RP stories being posted and would love to see other sections fill in as well....it all adds to the flavour and substance of the guild. The more quality info/stories/fun threads we can add to our corner of webspace, the better we get to know each other and work together.

On a side note, the forums can be a great way to organise instances or events. I notice that some people (myself included at times) have been frustrated lately when they log in and can't find anyone to help or run an instance with, so I'd urge everyone to start trying to use out-of-game communications (a.k.a. RIGHT HERE) to help you get groups going or events put together. For some smaller stuff, it's not a big deal to throw something together for on the fly (single elite quests, etc), but for events like Dreadsteed quests or even some instances...some of those take some prep work and it's best to get those posted and planned in advance. Basically, use the forums...they're here for all of us.

Consideration and timing of whispers. I didn't say much to this in the meeting, but we all seemed to agree that we get whispers often at the worst possible times (mid-fight in an instance, in battlegrounds, etc)....and this isn't only the leadership saying this. Please be considerate to your Clanmates and look before you whisper. If it's an emergency, don't hesitate at all to contact us, but if it can wait, it's probably best to hold off or just send "Let me know when you're done in there...I have something to talk with you about" whisper instead (also, PMs work well for contacting the elders...we all check the forums frequently).

Guildchat. Vrugz's notes were excellent on this point and I want to stress how much improvement I've seen over the past few weeks. I know it's been chaotic post-BC and everyone has so many questions and things they'd like to do...so much so that it's sometimes easy to forget the RP flavour that we like to maintain in guildchat. Please be mindful of our RP tradition and tone in guildchat and I'd urge everyone to participate in-character more often (it's really good fun, so don't be shy).

I'd also like to stress that guildchat is not an extension for LFG and, while I'm not saying don't try to organise groups there, I do want people to use guildchat for more than just that (toss a Vrugz' odor or Verissi hair joke in here and there if you can't think of anything else...that material writes itself ). Having a common chat channel is not only a way to say to each other what we want to do/organise, but also a way to get to know each other a bit better and have some in-character interaction with others.

Also, a pet peeve of mine lately is race-specific language use, most frequently by blood elves...I know it's in-character, but it's also more than a bit exclusionary and, bluntly, pretty rude to those of us who are trying to play along with the conversation. For me, once I see another language, I immediately tune out since my participation is obviously not desired, so you've thrown up a big red STOP sign for me and others. If you really need to tune out others, please take it to whispers.

In all, it was a good meeting and I hope what we've posted is helping to clear a few things up and answer some questions that many of the leadership have been asked lately. I've always been and continue to be very proud of being in a guild that does so many things well (PvP, raiding, RP, etc). Let's keep up the good work on all of those fronts and ensure that we keep that third/third/third balance.