[Businessmtg] Archiving

[Jerry]

I have been pondering, contemplating, wavering from keep to stop.

Al-Anon members keeping personal notes of others' 'key phrases' or their own thoughts on that day's topic are not unusual in f2f. Some members find this helpful in working their personal program.

This morning I find myself picturing a person sitting in the corner of a face-to-face meeting taking careful notes of everything every member shared. Every day, every meeting, every share, very word in detail, by name, date, and even address. All tabbed and cross referenced, infinitely retrievable. Year after year after year.

What if someone were to take this person's years of filed, detailed notes and made them available to everyone, any time, anywhere forever? Everyone who ever came or will some day come to that meeting. Anyone who came across the stacks of files sitting in a corner during the many hours and days when the meeting was not taking place.

I arrive, finally, at this: Everything said in a meeting and member-to-member must be held in absolute confidence. Only those in attendance at any one meeting are to hear what was said in that meeting, and all there are bound to protect the confidences and identity of the persons who shared.

"Only in this way can we help one another in Al-Anon."

The personal shares of members of ASP's recovery meeting should not be preserved. All past recovery meeting shares should be destroyed. No records of future recovery meeting shares should be kept. The assurance of anonymity is foundational to Al-Anon recovery.

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One further note. It has been stated here that the personal shares currently recorded in ASP's archive files are the property of A Serenity Place. I irrevocably disagree. Both Al-Anon and ASP have assured each member that, "The opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them." Nowhere in Al-Anon or ASP is it stated that either Al-Anon or ASP owns the words which are spoken in a meeting.

Jerry
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