Guild Vs guild - Aka Opps!

There is a GM I have had the pleasure of chatting to recently. It appears that he knew of me long before I knew of him. Unbeknown to me he hated me with a vengence (Following a couple of his guildies leaving guild and joining MTR) This seems to have occured around February/March.

Evidently following his burning dislike of me he went and had a look around our forums and liked what he read. He then turned his hatred for me into competition with me (again at this point I was still oblivious) and decided he was going to revitalise his guild and be BIGGER and BETTER than More than Raids. That would show me! Alas ignorance is bliss and I wasnt watching :P However he was successful in his drive and has several hundred members who all seem to love him.

At some point in the not to distant past he then started chatting to me (I dont know what the motivation was in talking to me, to rub my nose in his success? to face thy demon and conquer it? just to take the clock apart and see what mkes it tick? whatever the reason Im intrigued and he seems like a nice guy) He discovered I wasnt a monster and that a lot of our guild ethos was similair just out management was different. He was actually one of the people I confided in and sought advice from after the whole disgusting Whereswally saga. Following one of these conversations, at his suggestion, I had a pedigrees meeting and advised the pedigrees I was going to try to loosen the reigns a little and that they had the rights to invite people to guild as well (Forum application still required)

This GM is someone whom I rather enjoy chatting too as he makes me laugh, he has good sense and although we run things differently I like to hear his take on things. A budding friendship was developing. I went and Dps'd an ONY 10 with his guys one night. Alas it was a fail run and Ony came out the victor. Then last week there was the ToC10 for the weekly. Towards the end of the week we had cleared Toc twice on different 10 mans and had rustled up 8 people for another run. I asked if he had a couple spare guildies at which he advised they were one short of a 10 man too. So I made a decision in haste and said how about we do a 25 man? The remainder of the spots were filled by his guildies and mine( those saved to 10 man were happy to come do a 25 man)

It was an absolutely mammoth nightmare run. wipe after wipe after wipe. people were switching in and out on alts to try to clear it so fast that i was getting dizzy. Surprisingly Jaxx went down first go - just when I was thinking we were NEVER going to down him. It was bloody hard work but it was extremly satisfying when we finally downed him. It would appear that the other guild members havent had a lot of raid experience!

Much back patting went on and we all felt rather smug having beaten the odds and getting what we went in for.

It was following this raid that I rolled a priest. This friend in makings guild needed help. As I now considered him a friend I was not interested in poaching members but was instead going to help them to unleash their potential. Priest got to level 6 and I went to bed early.

I wake up in the morning to discover all hell has broken loose. The officers/Raidleaders of this other guild have all GQuit following a chat with him and been invited into MTR's by my a pedigree. I'm like EKKKKK WTF this is not what I had planned. EKKKKK Gm buddy is going to be spewing tacs EKKKKK Hes gonna think this was some devilish plan of mine ( For the record Im mostly to lazy or to out of practice for devilish anymore)

So me being me I address it head on and talk to him as soon as I find him. Obviously he is not to happy - his officers/ raid leaders and a good portion of his active 80's have just jumped ship,  He feels freindships have been lost and although he says otherwise I feel like he blames me for the departures.
During this conversation I discover that he personally isnt that interested in raiding and has on occassion appointed raid leaders but they have been inconsistent in doing so. I find out from his guildies that although there are over 300 accountsi n the guild they have trouble filling a 10 man which is why they jumped. And it got me thinking about several things.

1) The direction of a guild can follow the likes or dislikes of a GM. (He doesnt raid therefore his guild doesnt raid)
2) Guild membership can be very fluid at the lower end of raiding (Members leave to find the greener grass)
3) You can plan for yourself and plan for the person you are talking too but you cant plan for everyone else in game (despite my not wishing to recruit from his membership, his guildies had thier own plans)

and the last thing I am still pondering is :
Is it possible to really have a long term working relationship with another guild?


Now I can see if you had a levelling guild working with a guild of 80's it would work - the levellers happily potter away in one guild and when they hit 80 and are ready to start doing heroics and raids they transfer to the raiding guild. This would be mutually beneficial to both guilds as the 80's guild can direct lower level applicants to the levelling guild and the levelling guild can refer to the 80's guild. They could also benefit from being able to split the challenges of guild leadership for such a range of needs across to Gm's and two lots of officers, two guild banks etc etc

But you have two guilds after the same limited pool of new recruits eventually they are going to have people jumping one way or the other regardless of how well the Gm's work together or regardless of how well planned you have things for such an eventuality. And there is always the risk that more people move one way than the other and someone is then left hobbling with a crippled guild that loses its best talent.

So how do other guilds manage the "Working together" Approach.
Ok granted we dont need to work with other guilds to organise 10 man raids and often even 25 man raids, but it is nice to have other people you can call on if you do need to pug the other 2 spots in your third 10 man run....