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TG was formed in January 2003. We're not sure of the exact date but the month is definite. Before the name "The Gathering" even existed though many of TG's first members knew each other through other gaming clans, notably LAMM or "Look at my Monkey". LAMM was a JK2 and SoF2 clan in which Havoc, Jim Daala, Roadrunner, Wotok, Andon, BaronWalker, Vortek and Shade played. Roadrunner and Wotok were the first people to think about setting up a new clan, and it was not long before others from LAMM followed.
The Gathering Clan was born slightly different from the thousands of other gaming clans created at the start of 2003. Rather than being all about skill or being the best, TG was built on foundations of respect, community and of just having fun in game with friends. These rules have done us well and are upheld to this day.
Roadrunner and Wotok were the leaders of the clan, and early members also included Jim Daala, Dregot, Reco, Niven, Wotoksgirl, Cl0wn, LlamaOnDrugs, Deadman, Nikolai, Elladan, Arathorn, Havoc, Andon, Puffing-Dragon, REBD, Baronwalker and many others. The first record of the TG site can be viewed on the web archive here: http://web.archive.org. Shade was also one of the founding members, and it is down to him that we are called "The Gathering". Other names thrown into the hat at the time were MEGA (Massively Entertaining Gaming Area) and other such horrible, horrible acronyms.
TG's early days were exciting for all in the clan at the time. No-one knew what was around the corner or what would be achieved next. What was very apparent right from the start though was that there was an exceptional sense of community and spirit in the clan. Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast was the game of choice for most of the players, and indeed TG was one of the very top clans in the game - topping the ClanBase ladder in March 2003. The TG server was one of the hottest around, and budding Jedi often had to wait for many minutes before space became available for them to join.
As with any clan, there were the small arguments, but the majority of 2003 passed in a blur of fantastic gaming on "Barrysworld - The Gathering" and success in the ClanBase league games. The clan had also diversified into playing a number of other games such as Enemy Territory, Call of Duty and Battlefield 1942.
In December of 2003 though, things came to a head. From the start of 2003, Roadrunner had been paying hundreds of pounds a month to keep TG's dedicated server running so the JK2 and SOF2 divisions could have servers and somewhere to play. By the end of 2003 he just couldnt afford to keep paying out so much money, especially when contributions from the other clan members weren't covering much of the cost.
Roadrunner therefore, against the wishes of a large proportion of the clan, took the decision to split the clan and make TG a "starwars only" clan, forcing out all the players and divisions such as SoF2, BF1942 and ET into a sister clan, which became known as "The Fellowship of Gamers" or FoG. FoG was led by LlamaOnDrugs, MrJoshua and Minotaur. You can see the original post announcing the split here. The reason for this was to cut the costs in half and put a stop to the influx of members who seemed to join, get voted in, and then never appear on the forums again whilst playing only their one game on the server. Roadrunner hoped that these actions would ultimately save TG from bloating into a clan where players only knew the people in their division, and no division could afford to pay for a server.
So the split was made and TG reeled from having half it's membership torn from it. People were allowed to be in both clans at the same time which helped, but it was inevitable that people would spend their time with one clan rather than the other, and so friendships were broken. Roadrunner also came under a massive amount of pressure to justify his decision, and after a particularly nasty argument, he left TG never to return. This left Wotoksgirl and Andon as the clan admins, with the unenviable task of trying to keep TG running and trying to restore some sense of normality.
After a short while Andon stepped down as clan admin, and Goatherder, who had taken on a few duties such as JK2 Division leader and Clan treasurer was promoted in his place.
2004 saw both TG and FoG recover, grow and eventually flourish again. Towards the end of 2004 FoG had divisions for Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, Soldier of Fortune, Battlefield 1942 and Call of Duty, and TG had divisions for Jedi Knight 2: Jedi Outcast, Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, Starwars Battlefront and Starwars: Galaxies.
Many members of TG were members of FoG, and vice versa, but the leaders of both clans and many of the older members were still upset that there was a split and so, secretly at first, the two sets of clan admins started talking about trying to re merge the clans. After a couple of weeks of talks the admins agreed a plan and took it to their members.
The plan was that FoG was to be disbanded and all its members were to be incorporated into TG, and TG was to take on the three FoG admins as extra clan admins. While the first part of this agreement was OK with all, the second part, that of making 5 admins, caused a massive argument amongst some of the clan members. Whilst the majority, if not in agreement, did not particularly mind the situation, some TG members were absolutely against it and threatened to leave if it went ahead. Hindsight showed that the decision was a good one though, and after a year of separation, TG and FoG were one. (View the original post about the re-merge).
As with the split, it took many months for things to settle down and for everyone to get used to the new order. Some members left for better things, some new members joined and some divisions hit trouble. Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy (JK:JA) was never as popular as JK2 and despite some dedicated players, the division struggled to be active. Starwars:Galaxies was also in decline with members leaving and the game updates becoming ever more reactionary and fundamentally changing the game. Enemy Territory was also in trouble, with massive inactivity and no server.
It was at this point that a brave decision was taken to stop paying for individual game servers month by month, and to splash out as RoadRunner had done on a single powerful dedicated server which would run 4-5 game servers at once. Funds were raised and the server was bought, giving a new lease of life to the divisions. Funding was ever on a knife edge, but with some exceptionally generous members the clan never looked back and have had a dedicated server since.
Taking advantage of the dedi, the JK2, ET and newly formed CSS divisions blossomed. Goatherder took over the running of the ET division and Darkvain took on JK2. CSS went through a number of leaders at this point, ultimately ending up under the wing of Guyver.
Plenty has happened since 2005 and we're still here as I write this coming into 2007. The day to day running of the clan really doesnt seem exciting enough to post here, and if we mentioned all the leadership changes etc this page would end up as a list of names. With time, more will be added here as hindsight shows us what the important events were/are but for now please feel free to edit this entire text and add what you can!