Every guild's history is at least a little bumpy, but hopefully The Box's will also be interesting and long. We strive to keep details records of the guild here in this area -- fantastic and not-so-superb -- so that we can learn from our past and remember the good times. Use the chronological navigation to the left to read through all of it beginning to end or jump around and read what looks interesting! The link at the very bottom will take you to a timeline of events around the box, some of which weren't big enough to deserve their own section.
We're making memories every day at the guild and we'd love to have more amazing people to be a part of it. Visit
this page if you'd like get some more info about that.
For our current members: if we've missed something important or if you feel there's something we should add to our account of the guild, please neomail Arie!
Of course, we love help, too. For the journalists and documenters out there, if you feel writing some history (pun intended), neomail Arie and she can give you some projects to work on!
The Box began with a dream to create an amazing guild that would last through the trials of busy offline lives, unavoidable drama and other challenges guilds face every day. A guild full of close friendships and understanding members. It was clear that this guild would have to be different than any other guild Arie had ever led or known.
The process of creating said guild began with Arie and Bella's wishful thinking. Both missed being in a guild, and Arie longed for a guild that didn't stress her out or pressure her to be around 24/7. She figured if she could create a guild with a pressure-free environment, that would be the guild to last, and Bella was just excited to get started. Then along came Al's determination to make Arie do something with her ideas. Once we added Paulina, Gen, and Alyssa to this group, the guild was off to its slow, but purposeful start.
For the first few weeks, it was just the small group of people chatting whenever they could. It was a very laidback, cozy atmosphere which perfectly fit Arie's ideals. With encouragement and help from everyone, the webbie finally got finished and advertising began!
The Box officially began advertising (our version of open) on December 17, 2009. Being selective about who we send our invitations to didn't hurt us too much, as we quickly grew into a loveable, close family, making memories and hitting many firsts along the way!
We spent many weeks still setting things up, however, and pages such as the Boxery and the Yearbook were added to our growing world. We made decisions about member caps, team competitions, trophy timelines and more through poll, allowing the members to have plenty of input into how their Box was to be run.
February saw The Box go through some exciting things! Not only did we start planning an epic team competition and reconsider our member cap, but we also turned 3 months old and had our very first trophy week!
In January, we decided that it was too early for us to vote for trophies because we didn't know each other well enough. We'd actually just had a bunch of new members join, which we always love, but we felt we need to get to know them before we started making judgements... even friendly, shiny ones. So on February 5th, 2010, we held our very first trophy week, and on the following Friday, our very first trophy ceremony was conducted on the GC. Check out the screenies for that!
Then, on the 23rd, we turned 3 months old! Beginning on the Saturday beforehand, we held a four-day celebration with different activities and themes for each day. Saturday was our bratty mafia day. Sunday gave us time to chill and make goodies for the coming goodie bags. Music Monday had us playing "guess the song" and writing a guild-wide song poem. Tuesday wrapped it up with a drawing competition (featuring a computer addict, a soggy underwater box, Bella's psychology office, and more!) and goodie bags! Each member recieved a "goodie bag" on a petpage that was filled with poems, icons, and other graphics all made by other members of the guild.
And with that, we said goodbye to February and the lessons that it taught us. Mainly that you don't need to use hide and seek as a filler for trophy ceremonies -- they're quite exciting (and long) enough as it is! -- and that we really only have the energy for such huge celebrations for our milestones once every three months. XD
We finally settled into a routine, but we came across an issue: the member cap. We had it set to 25 members and for this reason had to turn many interesting and likeable people away from our lovely box. After about a month of going without getting a new member, we finally decided to reconsider our member cap and our activity rules at the same time. Members were asked to neomail their opinions on the subjects to Arie, and after looking them over, the guild unanimously decided to raise the memeber cap to 30 on the following conditions: 1) the cap would not be raised further within the near future, 2) we would not go on an "advertising spree" and invite groups of people all at once and 3) we do not lower our standards for the people we send invitations to. The guild members also all agreed that something had to be done about the activity rules, and agreed to put a "technicality" into it: a person has to have a conversation with us once every two weeks instead of just posting every two weeks. This was to avoid letting people use us for the sake of having a guild and never actually getting to know any of us.
As predicted earlier, the trophies did turn out pink AND purple, but also teal. Members are allowed to choose which of the colours they'd like their trophy to be, should they win one, beginning with the April trophies.
And this all happened before we turned 4 months old!
For Easter of 2010, some members demanded an Easter surprise, and so Arie obliged with four adoptable Easter eggs that would hatch into four different... creatures. Every member was welcome to help themselves to one of the eggs to put on a userlookup or petpage and waited to see what they hatched into. See for yourself:
For April Fool's Day, Arie and Al hatched up an evil scheme that left some of the members -cough-Olive-cough- bitter and determined to never let them hear the end of it. On April first, very close to midnight, Arie transfered leadership of the guild to Al, saying that leadership was too stressful and that another GC project would take up too much of her time. Al then proceeded to update the guild with a very... unique layout and imposed an Al-themed dress-up days and other activities. Some members believed it and others didn't, but in the end, everything was put back to the way it was before... with a bit of Al's legacy left behind. (Namely member-themed dress-up days!)
After April's voting week, we decided that trophies needed to be revamped because it was getting hard to vote for the same category every month. It felt like the same people were being nominated over and over. So we added another "round" of categories and decided to alternate between rounds each month. The second round of trophies was first voted on in May.
Our first ever team event was put into play during our 6-month masquerade celebration. It involved decorating the image of a box with various items that were to be collected over the span of a month. Each team got one side of the box and collected items by doing activities around the guild, including
madlibs.
The winning team will be decided by voters on the GC on July 1st!
November 23, 2009 The Box opened.
December 17, 2009 Advertising began!
December 23, 2009 First GAHAI (Give A Hobo An Item).
December 26, 2009 Boxing Day celebrations. (How could we not celebrate this day?)
December 29, 2009 First ever game night.
December 30, 2009 First ever dress up day!
January 4, 2010 Member cap set at 25 members by poll.
January 23, 2010 Our 2-month "anniversary" that everyone totally forgot about. :)
February 5, 2010 First round of trophies begins.
February 12, 2010 First trophy award ceremony.
February 23, 2010 3 month milestone celebration.
March 4, 2010 Spiffy new webbie layout goes up.
March 18, 2010 Member cap raised to 30, activity rules changed according to member input.
March 20, 2010 Pink, purple and teal trophies added. (Top three colours chosen from a poll.)
March 27, 2010 First annual Easter egg surprises released.
April 1, 2010 AL'S TAKEOVER!
April 5, 2010 Takeover ends. D:
April 14, 2010 First Box-related video ever released!
May 3, 2010 Trophy revamp!
May 21, 2010 Masquerade Celebration for 6-month milestone begins.
May 23, 2010 The Box turns 6 months old!
