[Businessmtg] Ongoing Prudent Reserve Excess Discussions

[Steve Rankin]

Well Jerry, on the one hand I understand where you are coming from.  But, on the other hand it sounds pretty rigid and doesn't leave much opportunity to adapt to new situations.  

Perhaps worse, it is so WSO-centric instead of being Group-centric.

IMHO, THE Traditions are the last word on the principles of Al-Anon and how those principles should be applied.  The Service Manual does serve as a guide to the application, HOWEVER unlike the Traditions, the Service Manual changes according to the political winds of the fellowship, especially the established leadership.  

The Traditions say 
"The relatives of alcoholics, when gathered together for mutual aid, may call themselves an Al-Anon Family Group, provided that, as a group, they have no other affiliation. The only requirement for membership is that there be a problem of alcoholism in a relative or friend."

There is nothing in there at all that even suggests that a group needs to be registered with WSO in order to be a group.  

Since the online meetings have been given any NO opportunity to participate in the process of the guidelines/policies in the Service Manual I am loath to consider the Service Manual as a definitive reference, especially when attempting to reference applications that are not directed specifically at online meetings.  I also have to wonder aloud about why we would focus on trying to follow guidelines from the Service Manual verbatim when the Traditions are not being followed verbatim.  

The list of requirements for an Intergroup are interesting.  And obviously tailored for a face-to-face situation.  Why not also require an email address & web site so the vast number of folks looking for Al-Anon online would have a better chance of finding it?

You said that OLA-IS has been effectively rolled into WSO & that the service provided by OLA-IS is now provided by WSO.  I strongly disagree.  The only service that WSO has provided is listing the online meetings.  OTOH, WSO has eliminated the sole Al-Anon entity that provided for communication and discussion between the online meetings.  Without that service it's more of a case of "united we stand, divided we fall".

I should also point out that in my personal experience, most folks find ASP through the OLA-IS site, the original ASP site which is still up on my server or the current ASP site than find us via the WSO site.  It's also worth noting that the OLA-IS site provides a brief description of each meeting so that the member looking for an online meeting can find a meeting that suits them with a lot less trial and error than they'll have using the raw list of meetings at WSO.

When I just Googled "online al-anon meetings" the first 2 hits were OLA-IS site.  The first WSO site is a request for the list of online meetings where the individual must submit their email address to WSO & request a list of meetings be sent to them - not very user friendly.  The original ASP site on my server is the first meeting site listed.

You mentioned that you've never seen an OLA-IS report.  You can't blame that on OLA-IS - the blame for that falls squarely on ASP.  One of our service positions is the OLA-IS Representative.  Unfortunately, we haven't had one for a long, long time.  That is our responsibility.

OTOH, WSO says they are the Representatives to the online meetings.  I have never seen a report from WSO to the online meetings and I can't blame that on ASP.  Nope.  WSO is wholly responsible for their failure to represent the online meetings.  OTOH, you can be sure that the List Administrator will get a new contract to sign every year so that we have permission to use CAL in our meetings.  A clear example of how WSO cannot serve both roles.

As for the geography question . . .  yes, ASP and most of the probably most of the other online meetings have International members.  So what's wrong with that?  After all, WSO did name itself the "World Service Office" and refers to the equivalent offices in other nations as "General Service Office".  WSO is also officially known as "Al-Anon Headquarters".  Hmmm.  That's not how this program is supposed to work.  

As long as Headquarters chooses to word the Service Manual in ways that separate the online meetings from the rest of the fellowship you won't be able to find simple & direct opportunities for the online meetings to be a fully vested member of the fellowship.  This situation is perpetuated by the fact that the online meetings don't have a voice in any part of the fellowship.  

Have you ever seen the bumper sticker "Well behaved women rarely make history"?  While I'm not a woman, I still love the sentiment.  

Well, I'm 200% for being well behaved, provided the Traditions are the standard by which we measure our behavior.  I have little interest in evaluating the path I'm on based on how popular that path is with the general public, the entrenched bureaucracy or the political leadership.

Love and SERENITY,
Steve