[Businessmtg] Reply to Steve's message - Steve's response

[Steve Rankin]

Hi Emee et al,

Since our server strips all formatting, I will use UPPER CASE occasionally to provide emphasis and/or to ensure that an important word isn't overlooked - I'm not yelling.  :-)


1. Is Al-Anon travel a paid vacation?

1. A.  ASP has not yet taken a group conscience regarding where the excess funds will go.  Do I hold back my donations to my home group because they haven't taken a group conscience on where the excess funds will go?  No.  Does my District withhold donations to the Area because the Area hasn't decided yet this year where the funds will go?  No.  One of the tools that we can use to validate a thought process is to consider the effect if everyone followed the same practice.  Obviously, if everyone withheld donations until the group had decided on how they were going to donate the excess funds, there not only would never be any excess funds, there wouldn't be the basic necessary funds for the group to function.  

However, if the individual believes that the group (district, area, WSO) is spending their funds inappropriately, then they can fall back on the principle of not enabling poor behavior by not donating funds.

Then, there is the fact that ASP made a UNANIMOUS decision to postpone donations until we had resolved the issue of how we would distribute our excess funds.  I believe that you were a part of that unanimous decision, so I'm having a hard time figuring out why you're bothered so much by a decision that you were a part of.


1. B.  The Steering Committee has never even discussed attending an AA International, much less suggested that ASP send a representative to an AA International.

However, we did discuss and suggest that ASP send a representative to the Al-Anon International in Philadelphia about that time.  Unfortunately, our attempts to put something together for the online meetings was ignored by WSO, so the attempts by the online meetings to participate in the Al-Anon International was thwarted by WSO, and there were no further discussions at ASP.


1. C. It seems like you believe that sending a trusted servant to a convention is akin to sending them on a paid vacation.  I PARTIALLY agree with you.  This is why many of us in both fellowships have issues with the frequent trips to foreign countries by paid staff.  For those that think that Al-Anon trusted servants wouldn't try to turn a business trip into a paid vacation consider what I experienced as an Area Treasurer:

* Past Delegate turns in expense report for an extra week in Hawaii "so that he could recover from jetlag after the flight from San Francisco".
* Area Coordinators stay at Hilton for twice the cost of the Day's Inn where we had a contract rate.
* Area Coordinator at an Area Assembly "I could never afford a vacation on my own, so I'm owed one now"
* Delegate submitted $200+ expense for photo processing while at WSC all 3 years
* Area Coordinator submitted travel expenses for 2 days/nights because her Jeep was too uncomfortable to drive 200 in a single day.
* Area Officer submitted travel expenses, including meals for an Assembly less than 10 miles from home.
* Area trusted servants voted to pay travel expenses for ALL Past Delegates to attend Conferences, Assemblies for life.  
* Past Delegates submitted dinner expenses for steak and lobster at a premium restaurant while at a conference.

Enough said?

OTOH, our Al-Anon groups are responsible for supporting the BASIC travel costs of our trusted servants to meetings, Assemblies and other events that the Group, District or Area sends them to.  Regarding the situation back in 2008-9 we were hoping that the online meetings could participate in the Al-Anon International in Philadelphia much like they did at the Al-Anon International in Salt Lake City five years earlier.

Having said all of that, I'll note that the AA International is with Al-Anon participation.  Here is an excerpt from the 2011 World Service Conference Summary.

"The World Service Office accepted A.A.’s invitation to participate in the International
Convention in Atlanta, Georgia, July 3-5, 2015. This will be a worldwide gathering of
Al‑Anon members celebrating recovery with Alcoholics Anonymous. There will be daytime
Al‑Anon meetings and workshops on Friday and Saturday. The evenings will be
shared with our friends in A.A. at the big meetings."

So, it is a fact that Al-Anon does in fact participate in AA events - and the Al-Anon fellowship spends money supporting this participation.  



2.  Fundraising. 

Yes, we certainly do a variety of things at Al-Anon events to raise funds.  However, we do not have events for the purpose of fundraising.  For example, while we may have a bake sale on the sideline at an Al-Anon event, we do not have bake sales as a stand-alone event.  Nor do groups hold special fundraiser events for other Al-Anon entities.  The first part of the 7th Tradition says "Every group ought to be fully self-supporting . . ."  That applies to districts, areas and WSO just as much as it does to individual groups.  The groups are responsible for supporting themselves and for living within their means - ditto for the other Al-Anon service entities.  



3.  Rotation of Service.

Emee: "Ric is a paid employee and also an Al-Anon member. Paid employees do not have to rotate."

I agree that paid employees don't have to rotate.  Who would take a job at WSO if they knew it was only a 3-year position?

We had two very specific goals when we set up the structure for ASP:
a. Provide a safe place for Al-Anons to share ES&H. There were serious problems at other online Al-Anon meetings at the time and some were definitely not a safe place.
b. Establish a stable structure that was similar to the f2f Al-Anon structure.

Obviously, the structure of the recovery meeting itself resembles the structure of a f2f meeting.  However, that structure is seriously challenged when we try to apply it to an online meeting, so we structured the service side of the meeting more like WSO.  Hence the Steering Committee (similar to the Al-Anon Board of Directors).  The position of the Founder was somewhat similar to the Executive Director at WSO, yet also unique because ASP was hosted on my personal server and 100% funded by me for the first 10 years.  However, unlike many other List Owners, I set up ASP with trusted servants that were given full authority to perform their job with no interference from me.  After 10 years of being the List Owner/List Administrator I got the ball rolling and I kept it rolling during the months ASP spent preparing for the way ASP functions now.  Frankly, I was surprised that ASP decided to continue operating virtually identically to the way I'd been doing it.  :-)  So, yes, like Ric B at WSO I serve without rotation.  However, unlike Ric who has hire/fire authority at WSO, I have NO AUTHORITY over anyone in ASP.  

As for other permanent positions on the Steering Committee - check out the web page.  Just like f2f meetings, we have difficulty filling all of the possible positions, so we focus our attention on the basics.



4.  My recommendations.

4. B.  "The Online Al-Anon Information Service is supported by Tradition 7 contributions from participating OLA meetings and individual members who participate in those meetings."  So, no OLAOC is not a part of WSO, nor is OLAOC supported by WSO in any way.

4. C.  The GSO's in other countries are fully self-supported by voluntary contributions of the members they serve.  

4. D.  As I mentioned in the text of my post, I have volunteered to serve as the ASP rep to OLAOC until ASP elects a rep.  In other words, yes, there is at least one position that I'm aware of.  If the community of online meetings is pro-actively supporting the online community in general as well and pro-actively working with representatives from other online meetings towards truly integrating the online meetings into the Al-Anon fellowship and service structure, then we will likely make some progress.  However, if the online community is not willing to pro-actively participate in this process, then we will get what the leadership of the f2f service structure is willing is give us without our input.



I hope this answers your questions and concerns.  If not, holler back at me.  :-)

Hugs,
Steve