Teacher: Amaya
Date: 2/22/2009
<amaya> Today’s topic: The Guild, its departments, its leadership, what it can do for you, and what we hope it will be doing in the future.
<amaya> The classroom is going moderated for now. If you have a question, send it to Nevyn please, and he will either answer, or bring it up for the full class, depending on the question.
<Nevyn> zhala is also available for questions.
<amaya> Basically Psion Guild is an organization devoted to psionics.
<amaya> We are one of several online communities. The other main community on this server devoted to psionics is the Psionic Social Club. They also run classes, on Saturday, and some of the classes we run will have a more in depth view on the topic we run.
<amaya> Their website also has a good collection of articles, as does ours.
<amaya> Chances are, if no one is around to answer your question, between the two sites, a bit of researching will find it for you.
<amaya> Our website is www.psionguild.org You will find a link to both the main site, and to the forums there.
<amaya> The guild is organized into 4 main categories, or umbrellas as Winged Wolf likes to call them, and each of those categories contains a number of related departments.
<amaya> We have the Advancement category, which is devoted to both personal advancement within psionics and with the advancement of psionics as a whole.
<amaya> Under advancement, we have the Education, Training and Research departments.
<amaya> Education is devoted to our collection of information in psionics The Education department maintains our articles, and searches for new articles, and keeps an eye out for new psionic information in the media.
<amaya> I don’t see any Education staff members in the room right now to add what they have to that… so we’ll move on.
<amaya> Training department is more concerned with personal advancement. The training department is what brings you these classes, maintains the practice room, and occasionally helps facilitate one on one trainings between willing experienced psions and those just diving in to their psionic education.
<amaya> The research department is hte department running the Survey that Ate Manhattan, our pet name for Winged Wolf’s survey, which will hopefully help us get an idea of what’s going on with psions, in comparison to the rest of the population, which allergies do we see more frequently, which illnesses do we get in more density, what related talents do psions tend to get in groups, etc.
<amaya> Its just a big survey for the sake of information gathering Beyond that, we host member research projects, as well as our own. We do hold to the scientific method as best as we can, something will will go into more detail on in a later class. We also follow American Psychiatric Association concerning ethics, and valid sample size numbers when working with people.
<amaya> In each of those departments, we have Winged Wolf in the education department. Right now the Research department is mine, but when I started as administrator of the training department, I chose to turn Research over to Firestorm, which is still in progress.. so You can see either myself or firestorm right now for questions concerning research.
<amaya> Nevyn, Zhala, and Solet are also part of Training They are all associate teachers, there to field questions, keep track of other aspects of the classroom, and help me run practice sessions associated with each class.
<amaya> We also have a public operations department, which is still under development, pending the growth of the guild and the growing knowledge of psionics by society. We have a PR department, which will help smooth over our relations with the public in an official capacity. IE: they represent the guild as a whole to things like the newspapers, the news channels, ETC. We hope to eventually help more with law enforcement as remote viewing gains more validity, and we hope to one day start a precog hot line.
<amaya> But, that is, for the most part, in the future, as is our administration category, which will one day be able to offer legal assistance for legal complications involving psionics, finance, once our finances grow beyond running the site, and reminding people to save for EITS. It will monitor membership, and collect/set membership dues. (We do NOT charge right now, but as our services grow, so too will our need for money.
<amaya> Our biggest, most involved, most staffed, and most detailed category is the member services category.
<amaya> It has 4 main departments, support, defense, networking and the junior staff department.
<amaya> The Junior Staff is there for minors between the age of 14 and 18, though if one has participated through their adolescence, we allow them to stay on junior staff until 20.
<amaya> This allows minors that are members of junior staff access to some of our closed classes, and allows them to explore working for different departments, hopeful to give them the training they need to step into guild positions as current staff members step down.
<amaya> Right now, we have several members on junior staff, Drazak and Dekasutu, but we are not very active at the moment. We are setting things in motion to make this department more active. Right now, I administrate that department, but I am hoping to find a qualified replacement. (which the members will be choosing)
<amaya> We also have the Networking department, which is the department that maintains the chat room, and the section of the forums that helps match teachers to students on a 1:1 basis, and connect psions living near each other. Logs of our classes can also be found in the networking section.
<amaya> The Networking department is currently headed by Firestorm, but he and I work closely together in maintaining the chat room. He and I both hold founder access over the channel. Some of our operators include Solet, FxChiP, Daimon and Ren (and anyone else with an @ symbol, but those are the most active.
<amaya> Our Half Ops include Nevyn, Zhala, and Rowinha as our most active half ops. Fenix can also be called on in an emergency when no one else is around.
<amaya> All of these people are here to help you with any problem you might have in the chat room, they are all responsible for the orderly conduct of the chat room as a whole, and if they say something, it is recommended that you listen, or face disciplinary measures ranging from devoicing to banning, depending on the severity and frequency of misconduct.
<amaya> We have a Defense Department as well, which is manned by Firestorm and Daimon, with the help of Drazak. Firestorm and Daimon can be contacted through the forums.
<amaya> The defense department basically is there to help you deal with psionics (or magic as it occasionally happens to be) based attacks, as well as issues with all the other little energy entities out there, as well as a construct that might be pestering you.
<amaya> They often work hand in hand with the support department, and if you cannot get a hold of them, you can contact the support department if need be. The support department offers energy based healing for our members, from illness and injury as well as damage and injury caused by an energy based entity, and damage to your energy systems. We are also here to listen to you, offer an ear when your going through something rough, such as a divorce, a death in the family, ETC.
<amaya> We are NOT there to replace doctors, nurses, EMS service, and professional counseling. All of those services should be sought as they are needed. 911 (in America) is STILL your outlet for medical emergencies, not our channel, and your doctor is still the one that cures strep throat. Your psychiatrist is there to help with your behavioral and mood medications, and we are NOT here to tell you what to do with your medications. IF you come to us with matters that a doctor should handle, we will suggest you go to a doctor or a hospital.
<amaya> Manning the support department is myself, as the department head, Solet, Nevyn and Zhala. We can all be contacted either in channel, or on the forums.
<amaya> Running the entire guild as a whole are your three codirectors, Myself, Firestorm, and Winged Wolf.
<amaya> As for the future, we’re hoping to increase membership, as well as the services we can offer, expand our staff and get all of our departments FULLY staffed, possibly open a physical location for psions to live as a community in the future, and have a hand in any possible laws that could come to affect psions, and their abilities.
<amaya> Well, that’s it for the night. Demoderating to take questions and comments: just as a reminder, raise your hand and wait to be called on just to make this flow more smoothly
<amaya> comments/questions/
* ShadowRain raises hand
<amaya> Go on ShadowRain
<ShadowRain> Is the guild open for membership yet?
<amaya> Yes, we have a form on the web site that you can submit. Right now Winged Wolf maintains the member database. It is separate from our registered forums users
<Solem> raise hand
<amaya> [outdated URL. The Psion Guild is not currently open for membership until more services start being offered to make membership more than a formality.]
<amaya> How to join the guild is on that url.
<amaya> Solem?
<Solem> How many years, in an estimate, are we guessing for the real community for psions?
<amaya> If plans continue as we have in motion now, the beginnings of the community should be in about 4 or 5 years. We have some plans for picking up 50-100 acres in Wyoming, because it has the best laws for what you can do with land at teh moment. East of Cheyenne, before you hit Nebraska
<sindan> raises hand
<amaya> Sindan
<sindan> do you know any of the specifics about membership dues…like cost and perks of membership, when it happens that is
<Dekasutu> What climate does Wyoming have?
<amaya> Perks will include things like the ability to live on the future guild physical site, the right to apply for staff positions, and as psionics grows more acknowledged and wide spread, the services we already provide will possibly be reduced to just members as we grow larger
<sindan> approximate cost?
<amaya> And also, as we grow TOO large, EITS gatherings might grow to be limited to only members.
<amaya> Cost, I couldn’t tell you, we’re so far off of it that we would have to get a good grasp of our operating costs first.
<Solem> Will non-psions be allowed to live in the community?
<Dekasutu> Is Wyoming hot or cold? I can’t stand hot.
<amaya> Much of that will be offset by financial contributions of our in person community once we have a physical location. Money will come in teh form of reptile breeding, a business wolf already is forming, and handmade goods sold online, as well as via Eclipse Metaphysical, another Winged Wolf store, specializing in construct containing items such as jewlery and figurines
<amaya> Deka, Wyoming is 80-90 in the summer, 60 for summer storms
<Nevyn> Ok people, this is still years down the road. Lets get back to questions and the rest of the class.
<Solem> When will we be covering the basics of telepathy and/or constructs?
<amaya> A lot of the timing of classes depends on how quickly you guys catch one. I would rather give everyone a SOLID basis and ability with charging, gathering energy ETC before we delve into constructs. If the class seems to be more advanced already, we’ll get there more quickly
<DN^SilverFang> how would one help without joining a department if they are over 18?
<amaya> Let the existing staff know their interest, we’ll watch them for a while, see how they conduct themselves, allow them a change to show us their talents, interview them and see what happens next when we talk about it. Staff also will note people that would do well on staff that AREN’T asking to join, and we’ll approach them about it.