[Businessmtg] la job

[Steve Rankin]

Hi folks,

Actually, the List Administrator job was greatly downsized when I rotated
out.  During the first 10 years of ASP, the List Administrator was also:

* List Owner - I 'owned' the "List".  ASP is a "list" that members subscribe
to.  An individual or organization can 'own' the list which means that they
own the server, etc.

* Treasurer - I paid all of ASPs bills.  

* Web Master -  I created the entire ASP web site, made it visible to search
engines, etc.  The original web site was - and still is - hosted on my
personal server at http://www.serenitysys.com/A_Serenity_Place/  My original
site still receives about 600 hits/month, which are forwarded to the current
ASP site & greeters.

* part-Secretary - We always had a Secretary that recruited new Daily Chairs
for the ASP recovery meeting.  However the Secretary very rarely ran the
business meetings.  Most attempts to have the Secretary chair the business
meeting fizzled.


The Greeter Chair was the only position at ASP, besides the List
Administrator, that has consistently stood on its own two feet.


In late 2005, I opened a new business meeting and after several months the
meeting has decided that it wanted to maintain the same kind of recovery
meeting format but seemed to be making little progress in determining the
service structure.  So, I proposed a modification of the then current
service structure.  The new (today's) service structure includes a division
of the previous responsibilities of the List Administrator.

** List Owner is now ASP, instead of me or any other individual.  

** List Administrator performs the duties as Tara outlined.

** Treasurer handles our finances; receives donations from members and pays
ASPs bills

** Web Master maintains the ASP web site. The current ASP web site is
essentially a clone of my web site with updates & changes made since May
2006.


My personal experience here since I founded ASP, plus my 26+ years of f2f
Al-Anon, suggests that dividing a service position into small pieces creates
more problems than it solves: 

First, understand that the List Administrator job is NOT a huge job.  I did
it for 10 years; often while traveling around North America with hit and
miss Internet access.  The daily work load can be done in 5-10 minutes.
There are 2 exceptions.  
A.  When a business meeting is underway, the List Administrator and
Secretary need to actively chair the meeting, which means accessing it
several times daily and responding appropriately.  
B.  When a snafu of some sort is in the works.  Generally, this is the
result of one member posting a religious, political or business share in the
ASP meeting that prompted a reaction among a large number of members
resulting in a lot of chaos in the recovery meeting.  Fortunately, those
situations are quite rare as a result of our being upfront with our meeting
guidelines.

Second, when a position is divided into smaller parts, the divisions are
often arbitrary and lead to communication snafus among the trusted servants
and/or things fall in the cracks.  Normally simple procedures now require
input/action from several trusted servants.

Third, finding new trusted servants at the next rotation becomes a real
problem.  For example, I've seen two f2f meetings that died as a direct
result of this.  The meeting seemed to have a bit of difficulty getting
someone to secretary (open the doors) until someone suggested that 4 people
could share the job--one for each week of the month.  The meeting thought
this was a super idea and ran with it.  Six months later they needed 4
secretaries instead of just one, and since all 4 existing secretaries
thought they'd done their job none were available.  Poof, the meeting died.


Those of us who have served ASP are all too aware of the fact that finding
new faces to fill our BASIC positions is not an easy task.  ASP has never
had all of its positions filled.  For example, we haven't had a full cadre
of greeters since . . . 

Finally, I'll say something about the issue of abuse and control.  I
periodically hear a lot about this issue, but I've never seen it in
actualized at ASP.  If a trusted servant is doing their job as stated in
their job description, then they are NOT abusing their position, nor are
they 'controlling'.  It's very unfortunate that some members of Al-Anon find
it necessary to raise this issue in the absence of actual abuse.  The fact
that a member perceives a 'control problem' does not mean it's valid, nor
does a member's sensitivity to authority mean that authority is a problem.
Now, don't get me wrong.  I have seen horrendous cases of abuse of power in
Al-Anon service.  Just not at ASP.  IMHO, as long as we don't have the
problem at ASP, we don't have that problem.  Besides, our service structure
does provide for a balance of power with other positions and within the
Steering Committee.  

Love and SERENITY,
Steve