We've had periods in the past when the guild bank has been nice and organised and 'useful', but recently it seems to be slipping back into becoming a bit messy and less useful. Therefore we are going to appoint a guild banker who's job it will be to manage the bank and oversee how members use it. Indicana / Sativana has kindly volunteered for the position.
She has asked me to set out a summary of her duties as guild banker, but rather than respond to her personally, I thought it would be a good idea to do that publicly in these forums so as to notify members of her promotion, and as a general reminder to all about how the guild bank is to be used.
Guild Banker Duties:
1. To remove unwanted items from the bank.
2. To keep the bank tabs clearly and appropriately organised.
3. To replenish stocks of key items which the guild needs (e.g. for raiding)
4. To make proposals to the officers for the use of guild funds.
5. To observe members' use of the bank to ensure compliance with guild bank rules.
Wanted / Unwanted Items
Guild members are often unsure what items to put in the guild bank. To address this issue I did go through some of the tabs, and fill every space with the items I thought we should be keeping in the bank. This meant there was deliberately no room for anything else, i.e. to prevent unwanted items from being posted. However this idea can only work if members do not remove the very last of item. So for example, I might have put 10 bruiseweed in one bank slot. This shows members that the bank will stock that item and designates which slot that item goes in. However, if someone removes all 10 bruiseweed the slot becomes empty, and so again members who later want to bruiseweed may be unsure if it is something we want in the bank. My idea was that when members withdraw items they need, they leave a single item behind, so the slot still has a 'marker'. So in my example a members should withdraw up to 9 bruiseweed, leaving one behind as a place holder for that bank slot.
Unfortunately, this was not adhered to, and I'm not sure all members ever will. I will now leave it to Indicana as to whether she wants to again try this method of 'place holders' for bank slots, or try something else. But somehow we need to let members know what we want in the bank and what we don't want in the bank, otherwise the guild banker will find themselves spending a lot of time clearing out unwanted items.
Unwanted Items
So what is wanted / unwanted. In general terms, if you can buy copious amounts of an item from the Auction House for very little, then we don't want it in the guild bank. There is simply no point taking up bank slots for say peacebloom, when you can buy 20 stacks of the stuff for about 5g.
Traditionally, we didn't want gear prior to TBC, unless it was particularly rare (epic). There was simply no point stocking low level gear in the guild bank, now that levelling is so quick (and easy). This policy however may need to be reviewed with the arrival of transmogrification. I’ll let that be one of Indicana’s early duties i.e. considering how the guild bank may help with stocking gear for transmogrification.
Wanted Items
Materials that is commonly used for levelling a profession, but not always that easy to come by. In my earlier examples this might include bruiseweed, firebloom, sungrass for alchemy and inscription, but not peacebloom or silverleaf which are simply too easy to farm (or cheap to buy on the AH).
Gear from TBC onwards (Indicana may want to change this), but with stats that are useful to at least one class. Some gear has simply useless combinations of stats i.e. Spirit and Agility for example, which is good for nothing other than DEing.
Gear that looks good for transmogrification. This is a tough one as what looks good is a matter of opinion. That’s why I’m going to pass the book and let Indicana consider how we might deal with this issue
Key Items / Raid Stocks
The guild banker needs to specify what stocks of items we keep for raiding i.e. flasks (or the materials used to make them), seafood magnifiques (or again stocks of fish needed to make them). The guild bank pays for this. If members contribute these items that is great (tyvm), but if the stocks get low, the bank should buy them, and the guild banker is in charge of managing these stocks.
This kind of leads me on to another idea I had, and whilst I will suggest the idea here, I’ll let Indicana chair the subsequent discussion. I wondered if we should offer a price to guildies for these stocks. If we are going to buy them from the AH, why not pay the guildies who deposit these key items. I’d suggest a subsidised price, rather than full AH value though, and I’d also suggest keeping it simple. So for example, if the various types of flask are on the AH for between 60g to 100g, it might be an idea if the guild bank offers to buy flasks of all types for say 50g. Members could send them COD to the guild banker, so that in the event of too many of an item being sent, they could easily be returned to the member rather than bought by the guild bank. Just an idea – but if popular – we’d need a short shopping list, with guild prices (over to you Indiciana).
Proposals for Guild Funds
At the moment the only regular outlay the guild bank has is guild repairs, and those limits are:
Militia – 30g per toon per day
Legionnaire - 50g per toon per day
Signifier / Prefect – 100g per toon per day
Centurions - 1000g per toon per day
The last of these is a glitch of the guild controls and the limit was intended as 100g. However centurions have gold withdrawal rights to fund guild events, or buy emergency raid supplies etc (I once spent 1,500g on Ödin in a mad dash to get sufficient numbers of flasks for a raid, when the supplies in the guild bank had been almost entirely depleted. However this gold limit is one and the same as the repair limit – so in effect Centurions have a 1000g repair limit, although I would ask that they try to keep this close to the agreed 100g per toon per day.
Monitoring Guild Bank Use
The guild banker is the one primarily responsible (although all officers should be on the look out) for inappropriate use of the guild bank. This may be as innocent as advising a member about having depositing unwanted items, or on occasions we do get an unsavoury character who helps themselves to things they are not entitled to. An example of this is taking stuff out of the guild bank to sell on the AH. This is strictly prohibited and will lead to removal from the guild. Thankfully this type of thing hardly ever happens.
Summary
Well that’s it for now. I’ll leave the thread now for members to post any ideas they may have, and for a few opening words from our new guild banker ‘Indicana’.
