Owning a Guild

SETTING UP

#1 Starting Out

When you're starting out, the first thing to look at is the purpose of your guild. What kind of guild do you want to own, or run? It can be anything from a stamp collector's guild, to an avatar collector's guild. If you're not entirely certain, then remember, it is perfectly okay to have a guild where the sole purpose is for chatting. After all, who doesn't like making new friends?

#2 Council and co-owners

You're probably breathing heavily. How will I do everything? What will I do? Well, that's why you're going to need some council members. Council can help you run, pages, and make sure the guild is running smoothly. But if you're still feeling a little frantic, then you can always ask someone to be a co-owner; that way the guild is run by two people. If you don't have any neofriends, for whatever reason, or you're sitting at home, like Malkus Vile, then it's absolutely fine to advertise!

#3 Advertising

Advertising is a major part of running a guild. After all, if you don't tell anyone about it, they'll never know. Unless you want to stay secret, you'll want to advertise your guild on the neoboards. Let everyone know in the title and first post what your guild's purpose is, and that it's new. It would also be a good idea to write a small description of what kind of members you are looking for.

#4 Website

One good way of letting others know about your guild is to create a webbie, or website. Make sure it's appropriate for Neopets, though! On your website you should have the following information:

Requirements: What are the requirements for joining the guild, if there are any? For example, some avatar collecting guilds require that you have a certain amount of avatars. Make sure that if there are exceptions, you put those as well.

Rules: What are the rules of your guild? Some good rules include being kind to everyone, and definitely making sure each and every guild member abides by the Neopets rules. You don't want them getting in trouble now, do you! Make sure you state clearly how people who don't follow them will be dealt with. Examples could include a warning, or even a suspension from the guild. Yikes!!

A Meet the Members Page: This can be a separate page, or part of your website. It should detail each member of your guild, with trivia about them. That way, when a new member arrives, they can go to the page and learn about the members of the guild before they chat with them!

Ranks Page: I think a Ranks Page is especially important in a guild. Everybody starts off with the same rank, and depending what rank they rise to, there may be some benefits. Ways of ranking up could include taking part in guild activities, which we will get to later, or chatting on the boards.

Points Page: Points are a good way of making sure that everyone participates. After all, the purpose of a guild should be to bring members with similar interests or goals together. Decide how you want points to be earned. Points in my own guild can be earned by chatting on the guild board, taking part in activities, making recruit boards, or contributing to the guild.

Specifically related to Avatar Guilds:

Lending Page: If your guild's focus is on gaining avatars, then it's a good idea to have a lending page. After all, it's nice to give back. By having this page, it shows new members what's available and who lends it within the guild, and also, what requirements there may be. For example, if I were lending the Chokato Trading Card, I'd want to make sure I knew who I was lending it to, in case of a problem.

Now that you've set up some guidelines, it's time to look at what else can help to make your guild, special and unique. A big way of doing this would be by creating some activities for your guild members to do. That way, they can work together, or against each other, to gain an avatar, or to solve a puzzle. So let's take a look at some activity ideas.

#1 Themed activities:

Finding a theme for your guild activities is important. Do you want your guild members to sweat and cry, or train with Judge Hog? All of those sound rather disastrous, but there's nothing like giving your guild members a particularly difficult activity and watching them work together to try and solve it. Themed activities, for example, could be related to site events currently happening. For example, if the Altador Cup is going on, then you can make an activity that relates directly to the Cup.

Some examples:

Altador Cup Commentary: Have your guild members write a silly commentary about a match happening within the guild, or with Neopia's worst super villains. How does a match starring Malkus Vile, and Dr. Sloth pay out, other than creating an increased level of vileness?

Christmas Cards: Around the time of the Advent Calendar, draw or create a template for a Christmas card and get your guild members to decorate them.

Vacation Themed Activity: Around summer time, get your guild members to draw their favorite Neopian villain on vacation. Get everybody to write a poem about summer or their favorite holiday and put them on a pet page for everyone to see.

Halloween Activity: Around Halloween, my guild always loves a good spooky activity. One year, we had a 'murder mystery' activity, with a classic whodunit puzzle, where everybody had to try and figure out answers to puzzles we thought were particularly difficult, in order to find the culprit.

#2 Writing and Drawing activities:

Art gallery: Set up a gallery for your guild members. This is especially good for those members who love to draw. And when a new member joins, they can have a look to see what your guild members have been creating.

Writing Gallery: A writing gallery is also a good way of getting your guild members to show their creativity. If their work is particularly good, then you might suggest entering it in the Neopian Times!

#3 Game-related activities:

Games are a good way of getting your guild members excited! Let's take a look at some game activities.

Key Quest Tournament: Set a date when a lot of your members will be online, and start up games of Key Quest between members. Whoever wins will be declared the winner. Please remember that giving away items as prizes is against the Neopet Rules, though!

Daily Dare: Set a challenge for your guild members. It can be to get a certain score in a game, or to try and beat a council member's score, much like Daily Dare.

#4 Pet-related activities:

Foster Pets: Encourage your guild members to adopt a poor, starved pet who has been living in squalor in the pound, and foster them. Fostering involves adopting and looking after abandoned pets. You can zap the pet and wait until it is a beautiful color before rehoming. That way, the pet has a chance at a new life!

Now that you've got some ideas about creating and running your guild, I hope it's been of some help, but before I go off to dream of Jelly and non-existent worlds, here are some more tips:

1. Don't get discouraged if an activity doesn't work out. Think about where you went wrong, and if you get stuck, don't be afraid to ask for help!

2. Try to send out a guild mailer every now and then, so the guild knows what is going on. If you need help running it, for example, then sending out the message lets your guild know how best to help you.

3. Recruit a lot on the neoboards. The more members who come in, the more lively your guild will be!

4. Try to run the activities over a week, or a month, so that everyone has a chance to participate.

And last of all, the most important rule is to have fun. After all, being part of a guild is all about making new friends, and should be fun, rather than stressful!