Time for a change

An open letter from Zanick to all guild members:

Three things that I have been working on for a long time have each taken a major step forward just recently and the result is that we a need to change the leadership roles within our guild. Let me explain.

For many many months I have been trying to become established as a Scout within the Horde Army, I have also been trying to make more progress in learning about the ways of the Zandalari trolls, and I have continued to search for any clue to Warlord Snicka's disappearance.

This week Blood Guard Hini'wana has found me a long-term position amongst a group of irregular scouts and trackers who will support the Warsong Offensive in Northrend. Yesterday, after our latest guild expedition against the cursed Hakkari in Zul'Gurub, I was rewarded by the Zandalari trolls on Yojamba Isle with the first item of the Madcap's Outfit. This symbol of status amongst the Zandalari will allow me to learn more about their ways and so I hope to spend time with the Zandalari trolls that are living in Zul'Drak. Finally, I have a new lead on Warlord Snicka's disappearance to investigate in Northrend.

Collectively, these three things will require most of my attention and this means that I will have less time to spend on guild duties. This brings me to the subject of the leadership of the Heritage of Zandalar.

The leader of our guild has always been Warlord Snicka. After his disappearance, in suspicious circumstances, I took over the leadership of the guild because I was the Primal, the first officer of the guild. To help me with guild activities, I promoted Ryleen to the rank of Primal, to act as the first officer, while I took the title Steward. To my way of thinking, however, Snicka remains our Warlord and the leader of our guild. However, guild decisions have always been made collectively by the guild officers.

In recent weeks, I have been away pursuing these other tasks more than I would have wished. It is now clear that I will not have enough time to devote to guild activities for at least the next few months. So I have decided that a change is needed.

As long as the guild officers agree, I will remain as Steward. As first officer, Primal Ryleen will step forward to take over the day-to-day duties of leading the guild. I will continue to attend guild meetings if my military duties allow, but I may not be able to devote much other time to guild activities.

I ask the Officers, Veterans and Kindred of the guild to give their support and loyalty to Primal Ryleen so that our guild can grow in numbers and in strength. May the Loa grant her the wisdom to guide our guild to new glories.


~ Zanick ~
Steward of the Guild

The out-of-character explanation:

In recent weeks (maybe even months) my real-life commitments have meant that I've not been able to be on-line as often as I needed to be to effectively fulfil the role of Guild Leader. This has meant that some RP stories have ground to a halt, waiting for me to take the next step. Other RP stories have been acted out without any involvement from me, even though this may be unrealistic. For that I apologise.

My increased workload is likely to continue until at least October this year, so Ryleen and I have decided that it makes far more sense for her, as First Officer of the Guild, to take over the guild leader position. Ryleen is on-line far more often than I am and she also has more contacts in the other major role-playing guilds.

I have transferred the rank of Guild Leader to her, although our titles have remained the same. This means that she has all of the guild control features available to her to organise the membership, bank vault, ranks and privileges etc. I have no doubt that she will be an awesome Guild Leader.

I'm certainly not leaving the guild, though. I will still be taking as active a part in guild activities as my on-line time allows. But, as Steward, I will step down from the leadership role and Ryleen, as Primal, will step up. If, later in the year, I have more time to be on-line, we can review the situation. But for now, I'd like to thank Ryleen for volunteering to take on this responsibility, and to thank all the members in advance for the help and support that I'm sure they will show Ryleen in the coming months.

Nick
(aka Zanick)


A few statistics:
Zanick became a member of HoZ shortly before October 2007, when the Guild forum started.
Zanick began to regularly be in charge of guild meetings (during Snicka's temporary absences) from early June 2008.
Warlord Snicka disappeared after an alleged goblin airship crash on 12th October 2008.

I've talked about this with Ryleen before. I think you've done the guild leadership change in a clever way.
I always say, guild leadership is a big responsibility, so I think if you cannot be on-line enough, passing the leadership on is the wisest thing you can do. Even though you were an excellent leader.
I'd like to wish Ryleen good luck in taking the position of the guild leader. I'm sure she'll be an awesome boss.
And those statistics are very informative, Zanick.

I had been thinking about this for many weeks before bringing it up to Zanick.

We all know trolls are awesome. This guild could be just as awesome!

We've been sliding since Snicka left us, and I think it's time we pick things up again. I'm not going to try to keep secret that I'm planning changes. Nothing major though, and I will of course not to anything that the rest of you don't agree with.

The main theme of what I want is increased activity and enthusiasm.

I will start to make demands on activity, but in return I hope to make some great rp for us, both in the guild and with our allies in other guilds. I hope to give people greater ic responsibilities, and in return I hope people will step up to make this into something great.

How does that sound to you?

Ryleen wrote: I'm not going to try to keep secret that I'm planning changes.

You remind me of Barack Obama, promising changes.

This is pretty hip so far

And congratulations to Ryleen, also even not as member of the HoZ I was always impressed how Zanick was leading all this. In many ways you inspired me how I should lead my own guild and mostly guild forums.

I hope this grows big and better with everyday, best of luck.

Your sincerely enemy - Shadowtroll.

So.. I thought I'd write down some of what my thoughts on things to do.

• More relaxed rp within the guild.
  When we moved our guild meetings to the hut by the river, we said that we'd still be hanging out in Valley of Spirits. So far that has not been happening. Nice as our meetings are, it's a somewhat strict environment. We would do great with just hanging out and getting to act out our characters more and get to know eachother better.
  
  
• Better contact with our allies.
  Nice as if find guild politics and meetings with other leaders, it's not much fun for the members who follow and get to watch. To build really strong bonds to our allies, I believe the normal members should get the chance to hang out and become friends. I have some plans for at least one event where we could invite our friends.
  
  
• Ooc responsibility for officers.
  I would like to see that by accepting a promotion to veteran, or something higher, you accept a responsibility to help the guild ooc. I'm a little afraid of the thought that I'll end up running things alone and forcefeeding events and rp to the guild. I've seen other fall into that trap, and I won't have it. By accepting a promotion you accept not only an ic title, but also that you will help out with events, encouraging rp and helping out the new ones.
  
  
• Clear routines for recruitment.
  Since all veterans and higher officers can invite new members, I think it would be a good idea to set up a guide for how recruitment should be done. What questions are good to ask? What info should you remember to give the new one? What will you have to explain? What questions should be asked OOC? And also, when should you say no and suggest that this is not the guild the person is looking for? I want us to no longer be the place where you dump your troll alt, simply because it's the only troll guild.

There was something more, but it is late and I don't remember.

And for those who haven't heard yet, I will be gone from thursday morning to late monday evening. (Incredibly bad timing, isn't it?) IC, Ry has gone off to tie up some loose threads before the official handover of leadership.

These are good and reach-able goals, Ryleen. I think if you can manage these, this guild will be even better.
But these are typically things that Ry cannot do alone. There has to be a change in the guild's other members' mentality too. If you are willing to accept the things Ryleen offers, then this will work, but if you don't, it won't.

Though I have not been around of late, due to computer issues (should be back on Sat..YAY!) I think this is a good way to move forward..
I for one wish for a more involved group, but you guys have been together for so long, I always feel i'm stepping on peoples toes. I'm totally new to Rping and WoW in general...only been playing since after christmas really.
My status as an outsider is how i actually feel, so its rather fitting. Nevertheless I look forward to the changes Ry has listed, and thank Nick for doing such a great job up until now.

I would just quickly like to thank Zanick for all the help she's given me since I joined da Heritage.

Looking forward now to seeing Ryleen's masterplan underway
I will certainly help wherever I can- if we want to do more varied raids together for example. The recent Zul'Gurub runs have been great fun, but there are other places we trolls might like to visit for achievements, quests, rare items or what-have-you.
I will help anyone who asks, and hopefully will soon be Prot spec again.
Thanks to you all, see you soon

Even if I'm still outsider, I'd be glad to help if I'm needed. And congratulations Ryleen!

Firstly, i'm sorry its taken so long for me to make comment on all this. Its been a hell of a week!

Secondly, i'm glad to say it looks like you guys have done a great job of making sure this happened smoothly. As Snicka said, if you don't have the time to put into a guild as leader, the best thing to do is hand over for a while. Lack of leadership makes a guild loose its focus and before long people drift away. Luckily, it seems Ryleen has her plans for us firmly in place already


Again, thanks to Nick for everything he has done for the thus far and good luck Ryleen. I'm always contactable if you need me for anything (either via msn or the wal chatbox) even if only to bounce ideas off

Congratulations for a quiet hand over of leadership, thanks are due to Zanick and best wishes to Ryleen.

Moving the Monday meetings to the Valley of Spirits is a good idea, it makes us visible to the whole community on our server. Any troll can come along and RP with us and if they like us and we like them then they will join us. I agree that we don't want numbers for the sake of numbers but if we can get a bit bigger we will have more people to interact with and fresh ideas.

It's true that the meetings can sometimes be too formal. At the Valley of Spirits it could be more like the guild hanging out together along the stepping stones; playing ball, fishing, cooking and eating, troll fist fighting, swimming and chatting.

Formal business and ceremonial promotions can be done in the large circular room of the priest trainers hut. Meetings should last for between half an hour and one hour, then if people want to form groups and do a patrol or a dungeon then we have the chance for the guild to do more things together. We also have our monthly run to ZG which should be continued. If people begin to get bored with that then the meeting can easily decide upon a different instance for that particular day.

It would be nice if people speak in guild chat RP a bit more, especially when they log on and off, and we should all make the effort to reply. We can group with each other even if we are miles away from each other because it increases the sociability of our time online.

We can all be proud that this is a good guild and that we are making steady progress and have a good reputation on SSL.

I have now returned from my trip. I'm very tired, but I had a wonderful weekend that renewed both energy, confidence and inspiration. I've read all your responses and I'm happy you're all so positive.

(Also, Djinja, read my post again. I like our meetings where they are, I didn't suggest a move but instead more rp, on other evenings than mondays =P )

welcome back. glad you had a good time

I think the first thing to work on is troll mains rather than alts. With that comes increased activity, and thus will make us a more visible Guild. It really is a worrying sigh to look at the roster and realise half of them have not once been to a meeting, and if they have, it was probably the day they joined. I'd like to think how Lyranne dealt with Rokalm and our new troll shaman are the most logical ways to syphon out those with a less hardy constitution (even if the latter was already a member, I think it made sense for her to push him, and request he refrain from doing anything questionable).

Alas, I'm not having the best luck with plotlines (what's new) so currently my shadow story arc will most likely be sidelined a little, or at least until I can find someone who RPs shadow on the Horde side.

On a side-note: For any who knew him, Whraenyyr has passed away. He was in Northrend and contracted an illness. He died peacefully in his sleep (not everyone dies a hero ).

I have made a concerted effort to make sure chabat in online more since christmas and it worries me that many times, aside form Ry and Deyy, i'm the only guild member online. (* see edit): i should note that this too has been better in recent weeks but again, we need to up the momentum )

Its difficult for me because i rp on almost all my alts and so i want them to be involved in things but to be an active member of a guild as small as the heritage takes a fair bit of time as any inactivity as immediately noticeable, hence why i've devoted much more to chabat.

That said, while coming to meetings isn't compulsory, being online kinda should be. Once again we have members who were last online upto 3 months ago and unless they told us that they were going to be, i think its time to get the kicking boots on again.

Things have been going well, and everybody that has contributed to the ongiong development of the guild gets a from me but we can't rest now. We need to continue the momentum. Now, i know i said meeting attendance isn't compulsory, but once a month would be nice just to show your face and say hi IC.

If you really can't make it, try and atleast stay upto date with whats going on in the guild and read the minutes that Zanick (and whoever may take over) posts every week. It gives us something to actually talk about when we do happen to meet up with you

(* edit: i should note that this too has been better in recent weeks but again, we need to up the momentum )

I was thinking about all the alts that never are online.. Originally, I thought I'd set a one month limit of unannounced offline time.

But now I thought of something else... The guild itself really is nothing but a game mechanic. What makes us a guild ic is the spirit link and our meetings. I'd say that if we haven't heard from someone ic for long enough, they should be kicked. That is, logging in once a week to check your mail will not count as activity. The only problem with this is that it's harder to keep track of.

The only ones I know of that do actually contribute when they can be online are Heldra and Bersekeger. The latter being ill has a very valid reason for not being online, and the other is one of many alts of a very good RPer (and I think we can all agree that a Guild Meeting with Heldra is always worth attending ^^). Other than that, it appears many are people testing the waters and then deciding to no longer bother, and with so many never about, it makes the guild look smaller than it really is. But then all I'm really doing is reiterating that which I've already stated, and is agreed upon: Less alts, more mains.

I'd say a major difficulty is that so few actualy RP troll mains, and when they do, they tend to gravitate towards more inclusive guilds, such as The Warsong Blades, and the Ashen Order. The latter certainly has a high number of excellent troll RPers, and as such it's a shame we can't really compete with them for that. We need to make it known we're a serious RP Guild, and not there as a place-holder for an alt you'll never use.