The Life and Times of a Guild Leader by cookiepm41 | |
Ah, the life of a Guild Leader, to be the one everyone
looks to for help, guidance, mentoring. Rewind... the position of guild
leader is not all glamour, it is long hard hours to see your dream come true. First, there is the reason you made your guild. Myself? Well, there
was not a guild out there that I liked, and like all others I had the great
idea of creating the perfect guild. You have an idea of what you like,
but will others like it? Next, you need some help with your guild, could
it be a second in command that has some great ideas too? For our guild,
it was the great overwhelming need for a member that knew HTML and could
help setup our Neocircle of shops. My skills in this area is very lacking
and members like a nice guild homepage to look at, banners/logos and
a site off NeoPets with all kinds of information that is related to the
guild and the site.
Then you get to thinking you need more help because maybe
a few more members would be good, so you find yourself a person who is
interested in building up membership. So then comes the contest part,
you need some NP's for the guild treasury but you also need some more
members because you still need some more help in different areas related
to your guild. So you go with the "membership drive" and think next contest
we will try to raise some NPs. After all, you need to give out some good
prizes to keep the members you have and get some new members. You spend
countless hours playing all the games you can to raise the NP's and give
away all the cool rare stuff from when you got in a random event.
However, you still have two council positions that are
unfilled or have had high turn over in (because they left and made their
own guild). What duties do they have, doctor or nurse, librarian, weapons
keeper, NP raiser, quest helper, welcoming committee, or giver of birthday
gifts, person in charge of the contests, a wishing well, pound pets rescuer,
just what should they do? However, is that not what you were doing in
the beginning when it was just you and your best friend (who was your
first Neofriend) when the guild first started? Back in the days of giving
away anything you had saved up to new members as a welcome gift. Therefore,
you decide that the Guild needs it's own Faerie, great one "person" who
can do it all. Then you come to the realisation that this one person can't
do it all. It is the reason you needed more members and wished for a bigger
council, so then you get some guild 'helpers' that can do just one job
for you so you have one less to do.
You are burned out by now, with over a few hundred members
and not sure if you know them all, but when the guild had less than 50
you did! -and by their real names and not a screen name. You have given
away all your stuff, grabbing omelettes every day just to feed your pets,
which are always hungry, because you are so busy with the guild. Your
NeoHome has not been worked on in endless days or weeks and has not a
stick of furniture in it. Remember you gave it all way in a contest, or
sold it for better stuff for the prizes.
So you think by now is all this worth it? The answer
is yes--it is not the leader but those that have the faith to follow you
and your dreams. Treating your members well will get you an active guild
with a great set of council members. It is all about teamwork the basic
idea behind the perfect guild!! |