[Businessmtg] Beginners' info...

[logmark at comcast.net]

Biz-Pals,

I haven't detected a clear consensus yet regarding this
suggestion. Using KBDM, we'll arrive at a consensus then
put words to it and vote, or, if no apparent consensus is
arrived at the subject will be tabled without motion or dropped.
I like the idea and would like to explore whether we could
find some fresh ideas which we all could agreed upon. So far
the full Beginner's Packets, an abbreviated selection, and
electronic substitutes have been suggested along with those
who oppose all or some of these to varying degrees.

Are there other ways to introduce beginners to CAL we haven't
brought up? What about developing a ASP printed piece which
assembles an ASP welcome message, ASP boiler plate info, and addresses
for ordering CAL and contacting other groups? A two-sided, single
sheet piece could hold a lot of helpful information for newcomers, and
keep postage to a minimum. I understand that upwards of 30% of
newcomers make their first contact with Al-Anon electronically. What
can we do to make their Al-Anon beginnings more positive?

Also, it seems to me that we may benefit from a trial program
of beginner literature to see both how it is received and
find out how many mailings would be requested each month.

We could set aside say $100.00 for a small selection of
literature and envelopes, etc., track the postage expenses
for responding to requests, and end up with real-world
data for deciding if we want to continue the effort.

Let the trail period prove the idea successful or not instead
of us trying to pre-think the whole deal. The worst that could
happen is that nobody would ask for literature and we'd have
to donate our stock to some local Al-Anon group to use
for their own purposes.

Jerry

BTW, anybody else out there detect differing messages from
WSO? I quoted prices out of the 2008 CAL Catalog only
to hear that the prices were different on the web site. What's up
with that???