Sackholders

This will be a huge wall o' text as there is a lot of content that needs to covered. Please read this post thoroughly before posting opinions.

Changes

It's hard to know how to begin a post like this because of the length of time involved prior to this change.

The success of this linkshell, or any linkshell for that matter, depends on two factors. The first is solid, steady leadership. The second and most important is a membership base that buys into what the leadership is selling. The purpose of this post is to discuss the first one as a major change is coming.

Over the course of the past 4.5 years, we've seen a lot of sackholders come and go. All the way back to guys like Suraph, Kittkatt, Fergsapunk, Epps, Kaelis etc. Some went w/o saying a word, others went out with a bang and others still do what they can, when they can (like Glacian), but real life often times prevents them from putting the time in that's necessary.

That time period encompassed a core of sacks starting around the beginning of 2006. Most already know guys like Geddoe, Gawayne and myself have been sacks here since day one. What most don't know is that sacks like Ludaca, Kay, Yot, and Brizzy have been sacks since not too long after that beginning. This 7-man core of sackholders have been what I considered to be a very solid group of steady leadership. This core has been together for that long with very few hiatuses or extended breaks of their choosing.

Being a sack here involves a lot of time outside of dynamis as well as inside of dynamis. We're often the focal point for anger and often the mediators of disputes. When one or two sackholders go down, it puts a strain on the rest of the team to pick up the slack. This strain has often times led me to gripe about sacks not doing their share. When I look at a team of leaders, I want to know that everyone is pulling their weight. If they aren't, I want to know why and if the reason is going to be a prolonged reason or just a temporary reason. I have no issue picking up the slack for sackholders having issues, I just expect a sack to be open and communicative about it so that the other sacks know ahead of time. This better prepares us to better prepare the members.

My latest gripe (which seems to happen every 4-6 months), used numbers this time and clearly showed a rather skewed balance towards 3 of us being heavily overworked. These numbers only quantified two specific administrative tasks of the four main ones we have and do not quantify time spent, number of applications dealt with, or LS bank dealings. Still, with numbers skewed that heavily, I needed to know where the sacks stood in their ability to give their free time to the shell to keep it organized and running smoothly.

As a result, we are saddened to announce that we will be demoting Ludaca and Brizzy.

This was not a vote that was taken as by all accounts, any of the sackholders you speak to want them to stay. This was a completely voluntary decision on their parts based on circumstances in their real lives and initiated based on numbers I provided.

A lot of members don't realize just how lucky they are to have a team of sackholders that have been together as long as they have. There are very few linkshells over the life of FFXI that can boast a 3.5 year period where the sackholder core didn't change at all. Even though I'm the type of person to never say never about a possible sackholder return for Brizzy and Lud (the door is left wide open for them), I want to be one of the first to simply say "Thank You" and encourage everyone else to do the same.

These two have put more hours into this shell than anyone who hasn't led a linkshell before can really fathom. I don't really have the words to describe the contributions they've made to the decision making process and the overall organization of this linkshell, only an understanding myself having gone through it with them. I really hope that real life gets out of the way soon and they decide to join the sack ranks again, but for the time being, thanks again for everything you two.


Sackholder Search

As a result of Ludaca's and Brizzy's demotion as well as circumstances like Kimille's pregnancy and Gawayne's 80hr/week job, the currently active sackholders we have are stretched rather thin. This means we are looking for other people to promote to sackholder status. I know we've made posts in the past detailing what is necessary, but I'll go over it again here.

- A lot of free time. Especially on Sunday and Wednesday. Generally needs to be available at least an hour before the run starts if not more.

- Method of communication other than forums. An instant messaging program works wonders as there's almost always 2-3 sacks sitting around on it.

- A lot of patience.

- An understanding that decision debates can get heated at times, but nothing more than that. No grudges, no hard feelings.

- A willingness to lose a lot of XP pulling and a willingness to learn how to pull. Any job can pull. Just need a ranged weapon and an understanding of what pops what and how it moves.

- Einherjar preparation. This one is partially optional. It won't break a decision to promote someone, but it will definitely help. I have specific guidelines that need to be followed for this to minimize the number of times we start late.

- As of now, we do not have a limit on how many people we're going to promote. There's one there somewhere, we just haven't defined it.

Promotions

Prior to the decision to demote Ludaca and Brizzy, we made the decision to re-promote Kreoss. Kreoss was demoted around December of last year due to inactivity caused by real life shenanigans. We're happy to have him back and helping in the capacity he can.



You can post your thank yous to Brizzy and Ludaca here as well as your interest in the sackholder positions. Each person that posts their interest here will be discussed by the sacks. Don't expect us to get an answer back within a short period of time as we're stretched in other directions. Feel free to follow up with a sack if you want though.