Mind The Gap

There's been a lot of guild drama recently in the guild I'm in with Ingredients. XXL had a major officer leave after she tried to arrange a Naxx run and only her and one other came online for it despite the fact people had signed up to do it. Thankfully, she came back but it raised an interesting point. How hard is the leap from a social guild to a raiding guild? And is it possible to be a "casual" raiding guild at all?

A social guild (in my eyes) is one that might do events or heroics but it's usually a guild that doesn't have a strict focus on endgame. It's there because either the people in it are all good real life friends/e-friends and wanna have a laugh or they focus on helping people do quests and possibly boosting but that territory would be more for a levelling guild. A raiding guild is one that does all the endgame stuff in terms of raids and progression and most social guilds probably wish to aim for this at some point or levelling guilds will become raiding guilds once everyone's high enough of course. But how easy is this to do?

Well, the first thing to look at is the people in the guild. If there's not a close bond between leader and officers, you probably aren't ready to raid. And you need to make sure to have the right number of healers and tanks and dps of course...but what happens if you can't seem to get them or they don't stay? Another thing to look at is the time and effort it will take to sort out both times for raiding and being ready for raids. It can be tricky to find a day and time that is best for everyone...what happens if you can't find that day and time? Also, people need to be aware of being prepared for a raid too. Flasks, potions, gear....everything has to be ready. It all becomes much more difficult when you see the things that need to be considered.

My other thing to ponder is this...can a raiding guild be classed as "casual" or not? Casual implies a loose and laidback approach instead of a weekly structure of days and times to raid. The guild would just set a day and time and see what happens. Is that casual or bad organisation though? Is a raiding guild unable to be "casual"? I know that I'm using a lot of rhetorical questions here but I think it's a big thing for a guild to try and make the step up to raiding and it's on my mind because XXL is trying to make this step. I'd like to see what my readers think though.

1. Do you think there's a big gap between a non-raiding and a raiding guild? If yes, why?
2. What are the most important things for a guild to do or have when making the leap?
3. What is a "casual raiding guild" to you? Is there such a thing?