[Businessmtg] Web Page Comments

[Jerry H.]

Hi, all,


There seems to be considerable confusion on what ASP's Group Conscience is and whether we should follow it. To be clear, all suggested topics for Business Meeting discussion are openly received by the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee discusses then prioritizes the topics and business concerns. The agenda is then set for a given month's meeting and presented at the Business Meeting. This is the Group Conscience approved process for doing ASP's business, a process specifically designed to assure that no one individual can control or dominate the Business Meeting by having sole authority over the agenda.


Some topics are of such importance that ASP's Group Conscience requires they be considered over multiple business meetings. The web page topic is an example of this. Any changes to the web page content can affect the entire membership so this extended discussion is a necessity. We can't shorten it without changing long-standing ASP Founding Policy. I encourage all to review ASP's Policies and business practices.


It is my perception that the accusations of dominance I've heard pertain not to acts of dominance, but to the earnestness of those who are stridently defending ASP's Group Conscience-approved Policies and Practices as they are written - the exact opposite of dominance. Labeling the defense of the Group Conscience as dominance is inaccurate and in itself an act of attempted dominance - averring that a minority position should override a clearly made majority determination. Can a minority be right? Yes - and there's a process for addressing that possibility.


Changing a Founding Policy is possible though the bar is set intentionally high. Add to this the distinct possibility that ASP's long-term success as a source of online Al-Anon recovery points to the effectiveness of our Founding Policies in keeping our meetings focused on recovery needs. That's not an easy task in the internet environment where chaos seems to reign so often. Anyone can suggest a change to a Founding Policy and if there's sufficient interest in the Steering Committee it will show up on a Business Committee agenda for a Knowledge-Based Decision Making discussion. First, though, we need to get through what's currently on our plate.


My input on acronyms:


I hate most of them. Those few which are shorthand versions of recovery concepts [H.A.L.T., K.I.S.S., ODAT, etc.] I'm good with. I don't have a good grasp on where to draw the line between these and the plethora of others which shortcut good plain English. I admit to a love of the English language and find most attempts to alter it unnecessary and in many cases ugly. Often it seems like we're heading toward a secret Al-Anon language. By providing lists of "approved" acronyms, ASP is actively supporting their increased use - an increase which is the primary cause of the increase in the confusion of newcomers and long-timers in the first place! What we accept we will get more of. Ugh!


I propose we edit the acronym list severely and rely on newcomers to ask questions when they occur to them much as f2f Al-Anon does. I've never seen an acronym list at any of my thousands of f2f meetings.


My input on Group Inventory:


I love group inventories. In f2f they're relatively easy to do and usually point out many more assets than deficits. The question then arises: How would we format an ASP Group Inventory. There are published guidelines for f2f group inventories, but none address the particularities of online meetings - keep in mind that ASP is not an Al-Anon Group, but is designated only as an Al-Anon Meeting. Perhaps ASP could break new Al-Anon ground by exploring how to do an Online Meeting Inventory?!


Let's look into this. In this email format I'm not so sure how to get a significant portion of our 1,350 members involved.  Certainly a six-member Steering Committee wouldn't be sufficiently representative of the membership's online recovery experiences, nor would the fifteen or twenty active participants in bi-monthly Business Meetings. In order to take a meaningful inventory of ASP's membership on issues specific to our online environment I'd say we needed to have some means of tapping into hundreds of members, maybe many hundreds of members to get broad feedback. Limiting participation to ASP's small service arms would give weight to the loudest voices, not the membership's personal experiences and private thoughts.


I believe we'd have work at developing an ASP Inventory Guideline - and perhaps even a membership survey - which could elicit responses which may help to improve ASP's service to its members. Then we'd have to build up membership interest in participating in such an endeavor with announcements over multiple months and a distribution of our Guideline to elicit thoughtful responses.  


On this Web Site Committee thing:


Please note: The Business Committee summarily REJECTED the creation of such a committee for this purpose by a clear Group Conscience vote; it also rejected using the formerly altered web site text even temporarily [See failure of Motion #16]. That's why we're on this web site topic now. Quite frankly ASP had already approved the old site text by Group Conscience and the new site design by Steering Committee decision. The primary reason we are readdressing either or both is to have a single agreement on the whole shebang we can point to down the road - participation being the key to harmony and all that...


On governing:


The only thing that approximates "governing" at ASP is our adherence to Tradition Two: "For our group purpose there is one authority - a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience..." Following ASP's expressed group conscience to my mind is following our Higher Powers' will for us as a group. Defending His will for us is not governing in my book. Either we go through the accepted group conscience process to address change or we stick with what we've got. I can think of no other choices which adhere to Al-Anon Principles.


On May's Business Meeting agenda:


We have not completed the required successive meetings on the web site so that will no doubt be one item on the agenda. Any and all suggested topics for future Business Meetings should be addressed to any member of the Steering Committee or the Steering Committee as a whole at steering_committee at asp-afg.org.


In Service,


Jerry


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