thanks so much guys, much appreciated.. but I must be doing something wrong, I tried all three and none of them worked.. I copied and pasted into the remote section on a new line under the welcome onjoin command, saved it and then tried it and nothing happened.

I also had a question regarding adding the bots name, do I just add the name like this:

on *:text:*:#:{
if ((*thank*you*guard* iswm $strip($1-)) || (*ty*guard* iswm $v2)) && ($me isin $v2) {
.msg $chan Your welcome, $nick $+ .
}
}
OR this one:

on $*:TEXT:/^(thank? ?you guard|ty guard|thanks guard)$/iS:#:.msg # your welcome, $nick $+ .

OR this one:

on *:text:*:#yourchan: {
if ($1-2 == thank you guard) || ($1 == ty guard) { msg $chan You're welcome, $nick $+ . }
}

However, if i cant get these to work as is i guess that should be my first problem to solve ..