Officer Renewal Week

About every 6 months or at least once a year our guild leadership does a little thing called "Officer Renewal Week". During this time all the officers as well as some of the class leads get together to discuss strategy, up coming changes in the game or guild, and most importantly build our personal relationships with each other by just doing some "fun" activities. Whenever one of these is coming up we post it both on the website as well the in game calendar about a month in advance. The week before we will post a reminder in the message of the day so that individuals can plan.

We don't leave the guild COMPLETELY high and dry, we will still do at least one or maybe two guild sponsored 25 man runs but the majority of the week is focused just on the officers and class leads. Guild members can listen in on vent but are asked not to interrupt. If they have any questions about what they hear they can whisper one of the officers who will then either answer the question, relay it or invite the individual to pose it themselves. The instances we are running? 10 man Nax, Kara, heroics or old world stuff. Things you can easily do with 5 to 10 people while stopping a lot for games and discussion.

This year will be a little different in that we WILL actually go into current content in the form of Icc 10. This was at the suggestion of a guild member who noticed that one group of officers used different strategies than the other group and suggested we discuss why we do what each of us does. The problem is that our officers are generally divided between the two ten man teams. The only time we DO run together is in the 25 mans or when we do heroics. This makes it difficult to see what one team may be doing different than the other unless you float between the two.

Of course individuals who haven't been paying ANY attention have started screaming about the "exclusion". How DARE the officers do ANYTHING without other guild members? It is as if we suddenly went off to shoot kittens rather than play musical chairs in Kara. So each night one or more of us is explaining what is going on to the uninformed and inviting them to listen in. These times are always beneficial and in the end even the loudest detractors see that. At the same time it can be a bit draining because we are running something EVERY night this week rather than the usual three or four.

So what about all of you? Do any of you in leadership positions take time to JUST focus on your fellow leaders? If you are a guild member do you see your leadership doing anything like this? How do you feel about the whole idea? May I suggest you give it a try or at least suggest it, in this time of frequent burn out you might be surprised at the results.