[Businessmtg] Prudent Reserve and participation with WSO

[Steve Rankin]

Hi ASPers, 

Way back when I was a GR, I never had any direct contact with WSO.  However,
I regularly received a newsletter informing the Groups about what was going
on in Al-Anon, a copy of the Service Manual and a copy of the WSC Report.  I
remember attending District meetings where Mary A-T (yes, our same Mary A-T)
came to give us her Delegate's report.

Then I became DR and attended the Regional Service Seminars that WSO took to
the Areas every other year.  

Later, as an Area Officer I had many opportunities to meet with the Regional
Trustee, as well as Ric B. and others at WSO as we worked on finding
solutions to the Area's problems.  

Along the way, I've had the opportunity to hear quite a number of Trustees
as well as WSO staff speak at both Al-Anon conferences as well as smaller
local events.  There have been 3 Al-Anon International Conventions: 1995 in
San Diego (I was even asked to be one of the speakers at that one :-), then
in 2000 at Salt Lake City and last year in Pittsburg, PA.  In addition to
the usual recovery speaker meetings, there are many workshops at the
International conventions.

My point is that WSO made numerous attempts to reach out to the face-to-face
members via a wide variety of paths: newsletters, reports, Regional Service
Seminars, Conventions and speaker engagements.

Unfortunately, WSO makes no effort to reach out to the online Al-Anon
community.

Yes, WSO will answer questions when someone calls and asks.  And, of course
they'll be polite.  However, they'll answer anyone's question - that has
nothing to do with representing an online meeting.

How to be visible and heard?  That's pretty difficult when you're virtual
and aren't allowed a voice.  

But, not impossible.  That's where I see OLA-IS serving the online Al-Anon
community in ways that WSO is unwilling and/or unable to.  OLA-IS can
provide a forum for representatives of all online meeting to gather &
discuss issues.  Those issue might be specific to an individual online
meeting, or they may be bigger picture issues such as the integration of the
online meetings into the service structure.  OLA-IS could even host a real
f2f meeting once a year.  Why not, we got together in Salt Lake City in 2000
and tried to do the same in 2010 in Pittsburg but WSO didn't cooperate and
the effort collapsed.  

IMHO, donating all of our excess funds to WSO without a genuine attempt to
support the online Al-Anon community in general enables WSO and the
face-to-face service structure to maintain their comfortable status quo.

Love and SERENITY,
Steve