Oh.

That bites...

/UNderail

I don't know how other guilds handle it. I speak with my Secretaries, they manage the Undersecretaries, WHEN NEEDED. Otherwise, I do all the work that is required, handle novices, and such. I have been the admin for about a decade, and the leaders have gotten together ONCE. Right after I was elected, Ethelon and Revan wanted to meet to see if I would be a willing managable puppet. Since then, they let me do what I want, Revan just goes out bashing, Ethelon at the time went out bashing Celestians, I pretty much took care of guild morale/contests/promotions/scrolls/everything else.

Nocht doesn't seem to suffer from that problem.

Er, Nocht's being pretty good about how He does things so far, but we've only had him for half a day so I'm just giving Him the benefit of the doubt here. He's asked us what we'll be doing, we didn't have an answer so He made a suggestion. Don't worry too much about His interactions, I get the feeling He's just trying to help us out. We've all been without Patron's on and off for a good amount of time now.

As for reports. Hun, really don't do them. They can really hurt you, it's like Communism. Great idea! Poor in working stage.

And uh.. as for Marina being supposedly dead... She's um.. a Dark Spirit! Yeah! Sure. That'll work to chase off the masses.

Nocht is fun. I visited his Fulcrux today and talked to him for a bit.

Slag. Derailing again. Ah....

Yeah. Did you have any other ideas on what you'd like to do with the guild? I mean, you can still implement this plan, but I don't know how well it'll be received.

After some experimentation, we learned to kill the baby on time and resurrected Marina.

We truely are the Forest of No Mercy.

To me with an undersecretary character it looks like a lot of work, unnecessary work too, for everyone. I think there should be more communication in the guilds I'm aware of (in both directions), but this seems overkill.


Yep, I have to say that for my novice alt that is the most important thing. And if it was my first character then it would even be more important.

Sorry to be... some fancy word here, but really secretaries and undersecretaries are generally appointed because there is a need for someone with said powers. (I.e someone to advance/take care of novices, someone to edit helps and manage shops) For some people their goals would simply be "Train novices" or "Keep the shop stocked". Some are also appointed so they can be differentiated from normal guild members (for example path heads for guild advancement)

Goals outside that, such as promoting rp, are kinda awkward to add in. You might be able to start some projects but you'd need to keep in mind that people are donating their free time to helping out so if you start making them account for their time they're not garunteed to respond positively.

It can also lead to frustration such as "Oh no I don't have any ideas but I need something to put in this report"


Every one is different, but having something interesting to do every now and then is nice (and no hunting groups do not count, interesting things to do that everyone can join in on and that promote what you want for the guild like... organise with some compliant seren oocly to kidnap them and perform some dark ritual to honour mother night using their defenseless body)

It is time for some necromancy.

*Cast raise dead*

Isn't it darkchant raisedead?

Maybe I play too much DnD

Estarra doesn't have you all chained in a basement somewhere working eternally for the glory of lusternia...

Elostian, due to his incorporeal form, is able to slip in and out. And, due to his dual personalities (MPD!), is able to work efficiently while still playing AD&D.

Not all of us have this luxury of being a loon.

(Love Elo)

Psst. Raise Dead was changed to Conjuration (healing) after the last cataclysmic catastrophe.

There is also the old point that numbers begets numbers. If you have a large group of active guildmates - you're going to attract more far more easily than in smaller guilds. Shadowdancers have also been fairly big at this, a good intake of novices from the portal etc.

That's not to say small guilds can't break the trend and become big, the Harbingers have had a nice influx of people recently. If that's due to an active leadership in Eliron, Druken and Dae, change in requirements for advancement, generally nice and active undersecs, the fact we have Arel or that there is a dashing GR 10 secretary/security faeling secretly running everything behind the scenes I couldn't say

I did away with the reports earlier last night. Before I could say anything more, Valonah hurrayed and you could hear the tension flow out of the guild like a bad case of last night's nachos and chili.

On that note, though, I've really taken into consideration how I can be open.

And for that person who said, "What are you doing?" Let me put it this way. My reports to Nocht, which I will be continuing to do, are three pages long on Microsoft Word.

I'm also really pushing for a mentorship program. I implemented it earlier, asking that all Undersecs, Secs, Champion, and Administrator gently encourage the young to take a mentor. When I became Queen, our numbers were seriously down at 7% intake with less than 2% retention of that original 7%. Right now, we're up from 7% to wobbling between 15% and 16%. I really owe Chhaya and Valonah a HUGE thank you for their part in making our young feel secure and looked-after.

The only thing that I'm finding challenging in this program is that a lot of our young are alts who already know how to play the game. The mentorship just isn't about that. I'd like to have it more for introducing the young into the Night Coven, our roleplay, our culture, and our beliefs. I also believed that this would also create a more tightly-knit guild, where we come to depend on one another and trust one another. I think these are very big factors in whether or not someone will stay in a guild. On top of that, if you paired a young with just took, for instance, Astrology and paired them with Leiliadhe or Urazial as a mentor, they could really learn the ropes for the skill and develop a close bond IG with that said character.

One more program I'm really trying to implement and strongly considering is a step program for those who want to surpass the three Circles (i.e., paths) that we already have for a more interesting and indepth roleplay. For instance, for our Wisdom Circle (which was reformatted to stress more ritual work, spiritual growth and nurturing of the Night Coven, as well as keepers of our histories and lore) would have a sub-path, for lack of better words, where someone can actually create books upon books of rituals, invoke Mother Night, so forth and so on. The only thing that has me at a crossroads is that I don't want this to seem like an overburdening amount of work. I'd make it voluntarily, of course, but as Ryleth said, when people see the word "work", they turn around and run for the hills.

I hope I'm not out of line in saying this, but unless Nocht asks you for reports like that, it's probably better to send a quick summary. Gods are typically pretty busy, and three pages of reports for just one of the multiple guilds they patron may not necessarily be welcome. I don't have a lot of experience with Nocht and I wouldn't presume to speak for him, but it's entirely possible that most of these reports will either be skimmed, unread, or forgotten completely. I really do understand your desire for organization and thoroughness, but you might want to keep the lengthy ones for your own records, so that when he asks, or it's relevant, you have the info on hand and his inbox doesn't explode.

Also: fixating on percentages is going to drive you nuts. The statistical sample is pretty small. Variation is massive.

When I was a goddess on another mud, I'd have hated getting three pages unsolicited like this, even once a RL month, let alone more often.

I'm with Amarysse here. Unless Nocht is asking you for three page long reports, don't send them. Spend that time interacting with your guildmates instead. It'll go a whole lot further.