Guild organizationFollow

Ok, my guild has had some recent problems with organization and leaders having too much responsibility placed upon their shoulders. Does anyone have some good tips on how to organize a guild (officers, positions, and duties to be given out) that they could offer me. Please respond to this post with any ideas or experiences you have. Any help is very much so appreciated.

Thanks that will definately put me on the right track to organizing this guild better.

Depends on what sort of thing you're talking about, really. What's not getting done that's becoming a problem?

Delegation aside, there are some things a guild leader just should not be expected to do. Members have to take some responsibility for things like gearing themselves up (to a degree), finding experience groups, making a reasonable effort to find or research their own spells, working out personal conflicts.

If you find that certain tasks can be taken on by non-officers, don't be afraid to delegate that stuff as well. Muling off trade skill items, recruiting, researching spells for guild mates (and muling those components as well) are examples of things we have non-officers do - although our main recruiter has a quasi-officer status, but no other duties to distract her.

Officers handle finding and calling raid targets, dealing with other guilds and with complaints about guild members, developing and explaining strategies, loot calls (or tracking DPS in that system), organizing groups within the raid, etc.

I'll deal with interpersonal conflicts in the guild if I have to but (and I swear I hear my mother's voice when I say this) if it ends up on my plate I can pretty much guarantee no one is going to like the result, so people are motivated to work things out for themselves. We try very hard to recruit good, low-drama people, which helps with that.

First things first, being an officer of a guild is not so much a privilege but damn hard work. Select people to do roles who are willing to put the work in, rather than people who are self-important and want to see an "O" next to their name in the guild manager. In my opinion there are 3 major jobs, that need to be done right:

Raid Officer

Responsible for choosing what to raid to balance the conflicting goals of progression, variety, back-flagging, and gear farming. Responsible for researching strategies where they exist, and formulating strategies where they do not. Raid success hinges on this officer above any other member - a very challenging and stressful job (one small mistake can = wipe and loss of 3 hours raiding), but very rewarding when we get the big win. Our raid officer is outstanding.

Recuitment Officer

Very important role. Primarily responsible for administering the recruitment process - making sure recruits meet requirements, that sponsors do their jobs properly, and that committee members vote in a timely manner. This person should not (in my opinion) be held responsible for the number of people in the guild manager. Recruiting too quickly is just as bad as recruiting too slowly. The policy itself, and the guilds reputation are the key factors in getting the right quality of recruits at the right pace. The worst example of a recruitment officer doing their job incorrectly is spamming PoK / sending tells to unflagged people.

Loot Officer / Guild Bank

Time consuming and very important to get right. Loot going missing, or being distributed unfairly can be a major cause of drama in a guild. Work involves managing the loot policy (such as dkp tracking), distribution after raids (however it is done), keeping an up to date and historic record of all loot transactions, and detailing the contents of the guild bank. In our guild we have two officers for this, as it is a big job, one who manages dkp, and one who manages the loot and the bank. Real life accountants are perfect for this job.

This post assumes a raiding guild of course.

There are other possible positions, that can also be useful:

Public Relations Officer

Deals with conflicts with other guilds, or drama on the server boards - ideally someone very friendly, wise and even tempered.

Morale Officer

Responsible for resolving internal conflict within the guild amicably. Needs to be someone diplomatic and who doesn't take sides, but can also be firm, should be well respected by all. Even tempered.

If your current system isn't working give people a get out of jail free card. They can step down as an officer with no hard feelings. EQ is a game but running a guild can be a job sometimes. Tell them there will be changes that will need active people carrying their own weight. That is not why some people play but it is needed to run a guild so give them a no hard feelings way out. You may need to tell people as a friend they should take this option.

You should really have strong second in command that is pretty much a second guild leader in everything but rank and title. The key here is they need to know they aren't the leader. As this person in my guild it allows me to focus my officer time on guild operations at a leadership capacity. The leader does the other stuff and knowing somebody else has gear/flags/loot/raids etc covered is a huge help because this is the bulk of running a guild.

The other posts were good. I'll close by saying don't be afraid to make the hard choices. You want your guild to survive. Good luck with everything. I hope it will just take a little cold water to wake people up.

As a newly appointed Raid Officer that has limited game time under my belt, I was wondering if there are any specific boards that help in this area?