Posts with tag attendance

Hello Scott,

I'm the raid leader of a casual, family centered guild. We have always been on the lower end of the raiding curve, clearing raids only after they have become old content. However most recently we have been progressing remarkably well during Mists.

For the first time our guild has attempted the raid while still current. While only going 3/12 in Throne of Thunder is nothing to the guilds who are now farming heroic Ra-Den, it has greatly lifted the spirits of our guild and it's members; so much so that there is now talk of forming a second raid team.

I am an officer in my guild, and we have been re-evaluating our roles. I am considering becoming the Social Event Coordinator, and I am looking for some advice to get things started. ... My ideas include scheduling nights to do scenarios/dungeons for achievements, old school raids, and probably a pet battle league once people aren't as focused on gearing up for raids.

My questions are:
Do you have any suggestions on how to communicate to guildies that aren't around much that these events are being planned?
Do you have suggestions on how to determine interest before scheduling?
Do you have suggestions on how to encourage participation?
Do you have other event ideas that have worked for you?

To the esteemed druid Shapez:

The Guild of Heroes formally requests the honor of your presence to attend our martial gathering, to be commenced on the evening of October twenty-fourth, in the year of our lord two thousand eleven, for the purposes of assailing that fiendish realm the Firelands, forthwith to slaughter its inhabitants most precipitously and attire ourselves in the abundance of their worldly treasures. The horn heralding our advance shall be sounded precisely at seven o'clock.

Your humble servant and friend in all things,

Orcman

I have been the leader of a small, casual, friends-and-family guild for over three years. We have seen good times and bad together, including a LK kill before the end of Wrath. Cataclysm, however, just isn't working out. At any given time our roster is experiencing a great deal of churn, and despite the fact that several of our core members are rock solid, I just can't put a raid together any more. We customize the schedule, confirm it, re-confirm it and still have people not show up. Recruiting is a bit tough due to the atmosphere of the guild. If you're not casual enough to enjoy raiding with three generations of the same family, you probably won't stay, and that's okay. We usually wind up picking up entire clans, for at least a little while, but these affiliations just don't seem to be strong enough to keep the guild running.

I've read your book, and we've adapted a lot of our practices around your advice. Unfortunately, it hasn't been enough. A week ago we lacked enough players to field our regularly scheduled progression raid, even though I had confirmed we were raiding only the day prior. I was angry enough to hang it all up right then and there. I decided I'd give it a week, try harder on the organization and make sure to express how important it was that everyone be on time, etc. Same result this week.

I suspect that because my guild members know that I'll never actually remove them from participating -- because, after all they're all someone's family -- they just don't have any reason to uphold their agreements.

Every Monday Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership.

At one time, possibly for ten or even twenty minutes, Molten Core was an exciting challenge. But now, if I never see the featureless brown walls of that godforsaken cave for the rest of my life, it will be too soon. Most raiding guilds probably aren't at the point where running Karazhan or Gruul's Lair is the tedious chore that weekly MC runs became, but someday all of this shiny new Burning Crusade raid content is going to be old hat too. At that point, it's going to be harder and harder to convince people to go back to it to help alts and newer guild members gear up. One reader dealt with this issue prior to the expansion.

Hey,

Great column. Here's a situation I came upon many times while running with a raiding guild in summer 2006. I'm curious as to how you dealt with it. I spent 4 months in a progress guild . . . and we did a great job for the time that I was there (downed C'thun in June '06 . . . moderate progress in Naxx after). But I came into the guild later than most of the people, and I only got in because of skill. I was one of the rare exceptions that was allowed in the guild of AQ40 hardcore raiders, with cloth blues from DM . . . I was a resto shaman.

As time went on, we would get me the occasional piece of gear from a farm-status instance (I ended up with 5/8 Earthfury, but that's kinda necessary), but for the most part the guild was focused on progress, and we did not do MC or BWL very much anymore. The problem is, when Naxx hit, it got even worse. We were constantly wiping in Naxx, having issues with bosses that we shouldn't've, and I attributed it to the fact that everyone wasn't as geared out as possible. Some people needed pants off Rag, some people needed that one piece from Nef, . . . I was still using Finkle's Lava Dredger!