[Businessmtg] Active Participation

[Anne]

Hi All,
 
I have been thinking about this for a couple of days.  I was curious
about the sharing aspect of the participation discussion.  I tried to
find something to reference in the Service Manual.  The context was a
bit difference and was geared more to the logistics of a F2F meeting, no
where in the manual could I find anything stating that sharing was
requisite to participation.  I have been a member of Al-Anon for many
years and I have been with ASP for many years.  I do not share regularly
in F2F or online.  But I do believe I am a participant.
 
Others have mentioned and I tend to agree: chairing a meeting, regular
membership in the Business meeting or some name recognition from prior
shares could be a good measure. I am not comfortable defining a schedule
or guidelines of sharing frequency for eligibility.  I like the idea of
a pool of the individual's Al-Anon experience that the voting body can
look at.  The resume already gathers much of that info; we could expand
on the resume a bit, in addition to the service positions that we ask
them to list.  We could also ask something like 'in what way do you feel
you participate or contribute to the group? 
 
Just my take on the participation piece.
 
Hugs.
 
Anne O.