Last week we SWS gained a lot of new members. I would like to personally welcome them all and briefly explain how this guild operates and what they can expect now that they have joined.

My name is mrhuttball, formally known as anger, and before that i was ovaltine. I have had a few name changes, some of you may have seen my character on our old server the twin spears. Our guild was created on September 5th 2010. Some of the members of the guild that are here now have been here since the beginning, and many others joined after the game launched.
 
When the guild began, before I invited the first member, I wrote down our "manifesto". It was an outline I created for myself to help organize what I really wanted for this guild. In it are the core ideas and the basic goals and organizational concepts. It can be found in the visitors section of our forum. I have not edited it in awhile, and I think I will just leave it the way it is. it is part of the guild history, and I don't want to alter it too much.

I will paraphrase some of the major guild structures in this article since the manifesto is quite large.

The guild structure consists of members(scum), dark council members, and officers. Members are the most important component in this guild, without members, you don't have a guild. The input of members and how members of the guild are treated by the leadership is my main concern all the time. Because I feel this way, we have the dark council. The dark council is five members that are elected to represent the entire member base of the guild. When there are big guild decisions, I look to their opinions as the voice of the guild members. Dark council elections are held every three months. The next election is on the 15th of August.

Think of the dark council as lobbyists and the officers as the senators. The officers create guild policies and lead the guild. Dark council members do not create policy but there collective opinions are looked at by the officers as the official voice of the membership and that can be very influential in an officers decision making process. I go into further detail about all of this in the manifesto.

My responsibility in the guild is to assign officers and ensure that they are following the guiding principles laid out in the manifesto. I do not interfere with their leadership unless they are straying too far away from the ideas and concepts of the guild.

Some of the basic ideas for leadership are this.

Maintain a fun and drama free atmosphere. Be organized in everything we do. Remain focused on what this guild is doing and not what other guilds are doing. Focus on the positive. Treat every member with respect.

Again, I go into much greater detail in the manifesto.

That is the guild in a nutshell. Going forward, your contributions to the guild will shape our future. Some of you will most definitely become dark council members, and I am sure that some may even become officers in the guild someday. You will will help write the history of Star Wars Scum from this day forward. I hope your time spent here is a great experience.

When the game launched we started out with two raid groups. At first it seemed like it might work out and there were some successes. As time went on, the earlier raid ran into personnel issues. Many of the pre launch members we picked up were not as active or as reliable as they said they would be. After much debate we decided to end the early raid and focus on late night operations.

Recently I was contacted by the guild leader of "Menagerie of Badassery" and he brought up the subject of a guild merge. He has been raiding with us for some time now and I have gotten to know him. Because he seemed like a pretty cool guy I felt more comfortable discussing this with our guild officers.

We came to the conclusion that a merge could be a very good thing for star wars scum. It would open up a lot more PVE and PVP possibilities. Menagerie of Badassery has been a guild since launch. They were on the twin spears server with us. They would be bringing 7-15 members with them that have been active and raiding in this game for as long as we have. Their guild leader shares many of the same opinions of how life in a guild should be. Low stress, have fun, no drama atmosphere while at the same time trying to progress through endgame.

How the merge would work if it happened. Each of their members would join the guild the same way you joined. They would fill out a guild application and would join as a member first. None of them would enter as officers. They would still have the same opportunity to eventually become officers in the guild at some point.

Winks would work with their current raid leader to see how we can organize the earlier raid. Star Wars Scum raid policies and loot systems will not differ in the earlier raid. Each raid would be organized the same way. I won't get too much into detail beyond that as Winks is the senior Operations officer in the guild. I am sure he will let everyone know what's going on when the time is right.

When will this occur? I wanted the guild members to know what was going on before this change happened and answer any questions or concerns from the members. The same is true for the guild leader of Menagerie of  Badassery. He will want to make sure all of his members are wanting to do this before he is fully committed.

This is a big change for the guild, and this is your guild as much as it is mine. Now is the time to voice your concerns. I will not go ahead with this if their is major guild opposition. I have spoken to three of the four officers in the guild, and they are on board with the idea. I haven't yet spoken to Ta'ral about it.

The atmosphere in the guild and the low level of drama will not change with this merge. Many of you who have been here awhile know that I will do whatever I have to do to make sure our guild has no drama. With a larger member base the possibility of personality conflicts increases, but I am confident that there is enough maturity in this guild and in the members of MOB that we can keep that problem from arising.

If this merge were to happen, it could be as early as this weekend or early next week. I am only waiting to hear the opinions of our guild members and theirs. If there are no objections, expect there to be a lot of new scum in the guild very soon.

We will be performing an unscheduled maintenance this Wednesday, July 4th, 2012. This maintenance will increase server stability. After the maintenance, there will be not be a new patch to download.

We will be bringing down the game servers and SWTOR.com for a brief maintenance period for two hours from 2AM CDT (12AM PDT/3AM EDT/8 AM BST/9AM CEST/5PM AEST) until 4AM CDT (2AM PDT/5AM EDT/10AM BST/11AM CEST/7PM AEST). All game servers and SWTOR.com will be offline during this period. This maintenance is expected to take no more than two hours, but could be extended.

Thank you for your patience as we maintain service for Star Wars™: The Old Republic™.

Every month I offer two months of game time to the member who donates the most credits to our guild bank. This month Ta'ral won with over 1.2 million donated. Next month it could be you.

Guild funds go toward raiding supplies and eventually will help us obtain a guild capital ship.

Congratulations Ta'ral!

It is basically a giant scavenger hunt. Rewards included are a variety of social pets, mount, and BOWCASTERS! Make sure your logging in to the game during the week, there is no telling when this world event will start. (The last one started on the Sunday following patch 1.2)