[Businessmtg] My final response to Jerry

[Karen Clem]

Morning bmASPers, steering committee members,  Jerry and Steve:
As i stated yesterday in my post, i am addressing my other concerns.  I have cut and paste in Jerry's response to me and answered each concern following the paragraph above it.  I feel it is necessary to say that "Participation is the key to Harmony".  That means we in the bm need to read what is posted and share our thoughts on this stuff.  As we have had a lot of blank space in this meeting, that actually means that our HP,   group consensus and group conscience/group inventory cannot be heard over the silence.  Those of us in the bm that choose to participate in these meetings, speak for the membership.  If we don't speak our thoughts, nothing will change.  WE have a responsibility for and to our membership.  WE have a responsibility to speak for ourselves as well...

I will now address Jerry's response to me.  


Jerry stated:  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. 


my response....Confusion...you bet there is...So...then does this mean that i can assume that repeated questions for answers regarding the group inventory has no place in the ongoing bm meetings... I get the feeling that this is not deemed a priority and never has been.  Anyone else feel this way?  Why is it that i have been asking about this since i started attending the bm's last year ( i believe i first addressed  this over the summer meetings in 2017 and at every meeting since them)  and that no, i repeat NO clear response or guidance has been given on this.  In fact, it has been totally disregarded until this email was sent in this meeting.   I have asked about this at every bm since i joined this group.  Frankly i take this to mean that the steering committee has no intention of addressing this or recognizing the fact that this should be a priority.  Since the group inventory is what guides the group,  where are you getting the guidance you use to lead this group ?   I was told by Steve last year that the last group inventory was done over 10 years ago.  Where is that found.  I have looked all over the web site and still can't find it.  Ten years is a long time to not do an inventory.  Steve, can you claifly this fact for me and please address your responses to the bm, not to me personally.  Thanks in advance for doing that.   



Jerry stated:  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.


my response:  Who sets the agenda....the bm or the sc.  Who speaks for the membership?  The fact that the process is specifically designed  to assure no individual dominance or control...that does not mean that a small group of individuals cannot  (as we have seen in the past, and it seems that it is ongoing), take control of the meeting and dominate the membership as a whole.  Your process does not allow for group interaction in this case.  You close us out of this part of the process... It was and is my understanding that the bm speaks for the membership.  We can't do that when we do not know what is being discussed in the sc.  Why is the bm membership not included in the process when it comes to discussing the group inventory or for setting the agenda.  It directly affects us all.   If the job of the steering committee is to "DECIDE" what is passed to the bm, what good does it do the membership if they are not privy to the guidelines that the steering committee uses for what is put on the agenda.  Why is there no archive for the steering committee to share with the bm ?  It is my belief that we in the bm should be able to see what is going on in the sc, and while we may not be able to vote or add voice to the sc process at least it would make more sense to those of us  in the bm.


Question...why does the sc in a f2f bring everything they hear from the membership to the bm.  Because it allows us to keep our groups healthy.  Does that not work the same way in an online meeting.....If not please enlighten the bm so that we understand where the boundaries lie.  



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Jerry stated:  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.


my response:  It is all good that topics can be decided over multiple meetings.  In fact, that is what allows the kbdm process to work.  The web page represents who we are, what we adhere to in regards to our program and provides other information that allows us to find recovery in these rooms.  BECAUSE the web page is important, it must be overseen by more than one person.  This is why we are having such issues with the web page now.  ( I also see this as a form of dominance in that one person is doing all the work and NOT SHARING that task with the rest of us.)  Telling Steve what was found is all good, but in some cases his responses do not address the issue that the membership relies on.   The web page is an entry point for those looking for our program and for what we have.  Its where we all start our program in ASP.  Telling me that duplicates do not matter does not address the issue.  It simply justifies the fact that problems still exist.  There are other issues as well...this is the one that i am using as an example because it is fresh from this meeting.  Your justification of the number of members does not allow this be overlooked or ignored.  This can be done over several meetings or may take a year.  We can develop a process that can lead to other paths to gain this information.  That is what a committee is for and set up to do....It can take as long as it takes....The fact that i am addressing this again should be an indication that at least some in the membership are willing to work on this project.  Any others out there willing to work on this......let the secretary and the sc know....

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Jerry stated:  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.
my response: Let me be clear.... I was not referring to dominance as it relates to a group conscience or policy.  I am referring to dominance as it relates to the steering committee and the manner in which issues are addressed or ignored, and the fact that those of us in the bm have no idea what occurs in the sc and how your make your decisions for what will be sent to the bm.  We have dominance in that people are doing all the work because they are afraid to let others assist them or afraid to let go.   All your decisions affect the membership.  That in itself ties into the group inventory and its importance.  


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Jerry stated:  Acronyms and such....

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 response:    I already addressed this on my post from yesterday, but i will finish this up by saying this.  It does not matter that you hate them Jerry....the rest of us use them and as such they are an important part of our recovery.  

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Jerry stated:  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.  
my response:   FIRST of all, we all need to  hold you to this.   I am glad to see you say this...however, with all the pushback coming from this and the way that it has been ignored for all these months, I guess it is going to be a wait and see when it appears on the agenda....There is no reason we cannot have the web page and the group inventory being addressed in the same meeting...We have way too much quiet time in these meetings.

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Jerry stated:  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...
my response:  What business committee is in play here?  Where in motion 16 does it specifically state that no committee would be created for the web page.   I do not remember the bm stating they did not want a committee and i looked up motion 16.  Please provide that link or reference so that we in the bm may be aware of this and look it up.  This committee is not for changing content but for final proofing and being able to take it to bm for a final vote.  


Jerry stated:  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.
my response:  WE DO NOT GOVERN.....or do we?  There are many other tradtions and concepts being broken or infringed on here, not just Tradition 2.  We have no group inventory/conscience to  work from...am i correct in this?  Please explain to me how we can justify  what you stated above.  Choices...we always have choices....choices can lead to change.  Simply put, that means that the sc must learn to trust the bm and vice versa.  WE need more transparency here, not less.



Jerry stated:  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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Lastly, thanks for letting me have a voice....and for reading this.  

hugggsss,
karen c.






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