[Businessmtg] Steering Committee / List Administrator's Report, 9.16.18

[List Administrator]

ESSAGE BODY

Steering Committee/List Administrator Report to ASP's September Business
Meeting

September 16, 2018

Evening, all, 

First off, apologies if any of you were upset by my delaying the Trusted
Servant Reports for September's Business Meeting. Because we were having
such a productive discussion on the website topic I didn't want to
interrupt the flow and have the reports serve as a distraction from the
progress we were making after years of not making headway. Look for them
to trickle in on Monday. 

As I write this report I see we've passed Motion #17 approving our
website text. It's hard to pocket this topic as just a May, July, or
September issue. We've been struggling with it for many, many months
(years!) - often on a day-to-day basis. I am grateful we have reached a
resolution which unifies us. 

Other Steering Committee Items: 
~ We received a query about what to do if someone talks of or hints at
suicide, particularly if one is a mandatory reporter. In general terms,
ASP as a fellowship is not prepared for helping suicidal members. We are
limited to the ESH of individual members and referrals to qualified
outside sources for aid. Mandatory Reporters would act according to
their legal requirements and personal conscience without ASP's oversight
or control. 
~ Every so often ASP receives a rash of bounces of member shares -
particularly, it seems, those who use aol.com accounts (and others which
use aol.com to carry their email traffic.) We received a goodly number
of these last month. ASP is not responsible for the metrics aol.com or
any other email service provider sets up for themselves. The best we can
do is tell affected members that there's nothing we can do, the problem
is not on our end, and suggest that they can contact aol with their
concerns. I routinely go into our membership list an remove the
moderations on those accounts affected so there may be little
inconvenience noticed by most membership. 
~ We had a brief discussion of ASP's daily topic formats. No action was
suggested. It wasn't recommended for a September Business Meeting agenda
item. 
~ It is amazing how fast our membership is growing! Ten months ago we
had just over 1,200 members. By the end of February we were just over
1,300. In the months since we began using our new membership application
process we have zoomed to over 2,000 members, sometimes ten or more a
day! Think of how we may be touching so many lives every day with our
topic shares. Zowie. 
~ We had an exchange about who sets the ASP Business Meeting Agenda. ASP
follows the Al-Anon Service Manual, the Traditions, and the examples set
by both Area Assemblies and Al-Anon's World Service Conferences which
receive their agenda items from elected or appointed committees, in
ASP's case its Steering Committee. 
~ The increase in new members has increased the number of questions and
requests for assistance emails I as List Administrator receive. About
tied for first are 1) bounced emails because a member used a "Reply All"
function rather that addressing their shares to asp at asp-afg.org, and 2)
assistance requests in unsubscribing because they can't figure out how
to do it themselves. The main reasons stated for leaving is the number
of emails they receive. I believe it's getting more important to
strongly suggest that an email address dedicated to just ASP email
traffic be used when joining our fellowship. 

Please remember to suggest topics for the next Business Meeting to the
Steering Committee at steering_committee at asp-afg.org. Unless a former
topic under active discussion is carried over to succeeding Business
Meetings, every Business Meeting Agenda starts from scratch based on
member suggestions and the urgencies of ASP's business needs. 

That's about it for now. I look forward to continuing making progress on
topics of interest and importance to ASP members in this and future
Business Meetings. Success will entail both participation and patience
as we work through the matters before us. And, as usual, Together We Can
Make It. 

 Thank you for being a part of ASP's September Business Meeting.

 In service,
 Jerry H.,
 ASP List Administrator
 -