I think you need to state your server, since you cannot join guilds across servers. When they state that members need to be active, they meant to login everyday actively or participate in guild battles actively? I think it's reasonable to demand the active login since no guilds want members who don't even login.
As for guild battle participation, I think guild leaders need to have realistic expectations. Guild battles will eventually become very tedious, repetitive and boring. Not everyone can attain 5k every battle without eventually getting bored and burnt out.
The guild that I joined in gl is quite successful, and the guild leader enjoys the loyalty of long term members. I myself is one of them, having been with the guild for around half a year, and will not be thinking of switching.
I think the reason why his guild is successful due to the following:
1) The guild leader is never pushy on guild battle participation. From day 1 since I joined, he never push people to do guild battles. It's all on our own accord. If we want a good account and decent power, we automatically will do it.
2) He is very reasonable and realistic in setting the difficulty of guild battles. He knows that not everyone can commit to do guild battles early in the week during weekdays. So, he set the first battle at a difficulty that is low, low enough for most of us to auto. Lesser reward is better than not completing the war and bringing stress to members.
Later in the week, he will set the 2nd guild battle at a higher difficulty, since people has more time during weekends to tackle the challenge.
First battle most of us attain 5k easily on the first day. I just solo auto through.