[Businessmtg] OT emails-a couple of ideas

[Jane Anon]

Hi everyone!

For those who may not know, I am the ASP Webmaster and will be serving
until October (Nov?) of 2017. I created the current member website using
the content from the former ASP Business site as well as some content that
I created based on my experience with Al-Anon and ASP. I've been a member
of ASP for about 8 years (I think!). Here are my ideas:

1. A Newcomer Chair on the steering committee whose role it is to welcome
newcomers, answer general Al-Anon and ASP questions, direct them to the
information on the website and alert the List Admin if they need further
guidance (if they just aren't 'getting it').

2. I could create an OT Forum on the member site. That way, members could
choose not to see any of the OT's or to see them all. The ASP Webmaster
could moderate the forum mostly to ensure that no one was doing any flaming
or whatever and alert the List Admin in case that happened. The guidelines
for the forum would be a bit less structured to allow some latitude to
newcomers needing to vent, but the traditions would still be followed. I
could name the forum "The After Meeting," perhaps, reminiscent of the time
after an F2F when lots of us have gone for coffee or whatever with fellow
members and talked about whatever was going on in our lives.

I have benefited greatly from being able to post OT. I have only had a
couple of sponsors during my nearly 4 decades in Al-Anon, so most of the
time, I don't have anyone to talk to about the specifics in my life. I have
rampant abandonment issues and being able to post OT has literally been a
lifeline for me during some difficult times. I would never want to close
that off to people.

I do think, however, that often we can post on topic and add something
about our personal struggles. I think we could encourage members to do
that. So instead of OT the subject line could be, "Step 3 ESH welcome."
This is something members often do to indicate that they would like some
extra guidance.

Finally, I have seen the OT's proliferate and diminish over the years.
Typically, the LA posts an email to the group asking people to limit the
OT's, to talk to a sponsor and when posting OT to make it more general,
like, "I'm having trouble detaching from my A son and his troubled
marriage. Anyone have ESH to share?"

Them's my thoughts :-) Great discussion!!!

Hugs!


Jane

"It is easier to put on slippers than to carpet the world." ~Stuart Smalley