Unless one completes the contract as soon as one takes the note, this journal idea would be cool...

Maybe put the contracts on a public notice board... you can set it as "holding up to 10 contracts." When I click on one , my game name appears next to it: "taken by GG907" when I come back after finding / kiilling monster it shows complete. A courier can catchup to me with the gold. After two contracts completed, the top one disappears off the list. sooo this time next year, a newbie can see the first 10 contracts... (put the intro as the only one at first and is labled: "Required task for ENTRY to GUILD") and next year when you have 30 to 45 contracts, the new guild members can have a running list... when someone is caught up with all the contracts, there are no contracts listed... however, I would check back every week or so to see the new contract loaded by you: a new one gets posted at the end of the list...