[Businessmtg] An answer for Carolina's Question

[Jerry Hunter]

Biz-Pals,


I have been asked to try to answer Carolina's question:

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Jerry, could you take a shot at answering Carolina's question?

"I have a clarification question on the motion. Once it has passed, is it
at that point that the details of setting up the committee, who will serve
on it, etc. is determined?    In other words, nothing more detailed than
the consensus we have already reached, it seems, but not yet formally voted
on, to form this temporary committee, is in play right now, correct?
Everything else, including who will chair it, etc. comes next as part of
this business meeting?  Just what to be sure that I understand correctly
how this will work.

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Carolina,


To my knowledge this is the first time that ASP has created a temporary (or perhaps a sub-committee) to independently take on an assignment so there is no track record we are following. Because I initiated the conversation by volunteering to do a review there may be an undertone that I would be leading this effort (which now, thankfully, is turning into a team event).  A few members have emailed me voicing interest in participating and I will be forwarding their names to Laura who I hope will be kind enough to send out emails to them asking if they would join the committee. Others may be added. I assume that once the committee is fully formed the committee itself will address its organization. The one constraint I suggested which I continue to support is that the committee be kept manageably sized. While I don't have an exact number, experience tells me that 6-8 people with experience in both Al-Anon, on-line Al-Anon, and writing/editing/presentation should be sufficient. I suppose we'll have to see how many people step forward before this can be accurately answered.


So, as I understand it the Business Committee will either approve the committee's formation (or not). A separate email address (something like  beginner committee at asp.org mailto:beginnercommittee at asp.org ) will be created for committee members to use in our deliberations. My vision would be that this committee would have free reign to address all newcomer-related materials, make specific recommendations back to the Business Meeting, and the Business Meeting would take action from there as it sees fit. The Beginners' Committee would be given no authority to make change on its own - that would fall under the Business Committee's group conscience authority alone.


Once this Beginners' Committee is authorized, I suppose the Business Committee would be free to address Item #2 on its agenda. If that's how it works out then my bet would be that the Beginners' Committee would have the bulk of its work done and suggestions formalized for presentation to the July Business Meeting....


....but you know how the best laid plans of mice and men work out. Getting it right is more important that getting it quickly.


Service hugs,

Jerry

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spell check not working to my liking - please pardon any quirks