Guild. Raid. Not synonyms.
Lots of blogs I read, they are. “Oh, we lost 3 of our core, we have to recruit new guildies”. “The officers decided on a new loot policy.” “The raid master scheduled my off tank for the other raid so now we’re in trouble”. Guilds that have two or three raids tend to have an A team and a B team. The B team wants very much to be the A team, but they aren’t and they know it. Some guild officer tries to make sure all the raids run nice but you know, the progression raid has to have the support it needs…
In Crits and Giggles, we have officers, but anybody can start an event, or a raid, if they want to. Rev and I got nothing but support from Troutwort when we started our raid. He even sat down and helped me brainstorm who to invite for my initial roster.
Right now we have two (three? Is Ado an actual officer?) officers raiding with us. The other raid has two as well I think; their raid leader and his wife are officers. It doesn’t matter, and there’s no difference between the officer lead raid and our raid.
Recruitment is up to the raid leaders. If newcomers ask officers about the raids, they’re told who the raid leaders are and what the raid times are and to talk to us about it. Maybe they’re surprised when they don’t see any raids on the schedule – but four evenings a week there’s at least one full raid going. We don’t recruit and we don’t have applications. If you want in, you convince Trout or someone else that you belong and they give you an invite.
For raids though, you get an invite. We had one new guildie a few months back announce to one of our officers that as soon as he was geared he was going to be raiding with my raid. She passed this news on to me. I was rather surprised since he’d never even spoken to me! Needless to say… he didn’t get invited. At the same time my raiders choose to raid with me. There’s a third guild run now, at the same time and nights as ours. It’s mostly the people from the Sunday/Monday run, on their alts, but there’s some other people who occasionally ran with us who have chosen to have a permanent slot with them. That’s their choice and I’m glad for them. The logistics of having another raid opposite mine give me headaches like you wouldn’t believe but – it’s the way things work. I don’t own Friday nights. If we decided to start running on Sundays, that group would have nothing to complain about either.
Since the raid and the guild aren’t the same thing, we can bring people in from other guilds without stepping on anyone’s toes. Most of our raid used to be other guilds, I think! Ado ran with Scrubs even though he’d been in Crits and Giggles before that, Grom and Jhudora (and Locklynn, one of our fill ins) from Apathy, Slice and now Sorak from off server. Heck of the people who run with us regularly, only Kerick, Falahla and Sharelore were in Crits when we arrived. I’m very pleased that there are people who have chosen to join us for our raids. It’s a lot of fun and we’ve got a great group.
Does that mean Reversion and I don’t have accountability? There’s no officers to call us on it if we start causing loot drama or personality issues? Well, the raid itself holds us accountable. Any time someone is annoyed with us, they are free to speak up, or to stop raiding. Nobody is forced to stay in the raid or get kicked from the guild. That’s not how it works, thank goodness.
But Troutwort works to make sure the guild runs along smoothly, so if there are personality issues, someone brings it up to him and he gets to deal with that crap. Sort of an executive level check on people’s behavior.
This setup wouldn’t work for everyone. But it’s a great way to have a couple slightly hardcore raids in a casual guild. Wouldn’t work as well the other way around! It also lets us have raids with very very different raid culture. One can use loot council, the other just rolls. One could enforce “PG 13 in Vent”, the other be more relaxed.
Or, with the same guild culture, someone could come and start a rated battleground team! They’d have to work from the ground up, just like Rev and I did with our raid, but in Crits and Giggles anyone who wants to try to start something is welcome to. I love that!
I have to say it’s the best raid I’ve run with, and the most fun, relaxed guild I’ve been in!
I never really thought about it but I suppose it us good that Trout is not in any specific raid. At least not regularly. If any issue comes up requiring his attention he can resolve it for the good of the guild without having any conflict of interest. That keeps the guild leader from putting a raid over the guild, or putting one raid over another. He can keep his focus on the good of the guild first and the success of raids in general second and the needs of any specific raid a distant third. That leaves it up to the raid leaders to work out things. And since both (all three?) raid groups have a similar policy. You get raid invites if you are capable and fit in with the crew. This eliminates conflict from a different angle. People are free raid where they want to (if they can get in). There are no issues like, “Oh you can’t make our Thursday run anymore? Gkick!” and “What do you mean you don’t want to raid on your shadow shaman anymore? Gkick!” or “What do you mean you want a ‘break from raiding’. I will give you a LONG break! *stab stab stab*” We don’t have any of that.
The issue we do get is a lack of people willing to have a character and a night set aside to be a regular alternate. But that could be a whole post in itself.
Thanks Rev. Not being in a specific raid does help maintain objectivity. I’ve always maintained that people can choose to lead their own raids and they should be able to run them as they wish, with minimal guidance from the guild.
Flexibility and ownership are key here. I’m more concerned with the guild in general and making sure we’re represented to the server as a group of people that are respectful and fair. Synergy with other guilds is a good thing!
I am always willing to support conflict resolution and recruiting as needed. I recognize we have raiders and the benefit they bring to the guild as a whole.
I’m proud of the success and progression of both the groups and in Crits there’s not A group or B group in my eyes. If we have to name them it’s usually done by the order in which that group came about.
Yes, Ado is an officer.
I thought so…. but it’s nice that I kind of have to stop and go, wait, who are the officers? There’s no big “we’re in charge” mentality. It’s very cool, I think.
I am an officer? News to me.
Well, you used to be. Are you not anymore?
I think original Ado was an officer, but now he’s a Troll? So probably not?
That should probably be fixed, then .. unless he doesn’t want to be.
Wait, that came out wrong didn’t it, especially since he’s Worgen.
If that system works for you, that’s great. I am currently raiding with another guild, and they didn’t force me to join their guild either – yet they have fully accepted me as member of their raid when it comes to a mood of “I don’t want pugs today”.
But for your system to work, you need enough people… which you seem to have, but Eligia doesn’t. Like many other guilds on my realm, especially horde side. There are less semi-hardcore 10-men raiding teams then we had 25-men guilds in WotLK, and not a single 25-men currently :O