[Businessmtg] jerry's statement......my response

[kacasp17 at yahoo.com]

Jerry...i will address your answers to my questions in this email.  

Jerry Stated:  Does everybody accept that... 
1) "Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the
greatest number depends on unity."?, and 

2) "For our group purpose there is but one authority - a loving God as
He may express Himself in our group conscience...? 

A reasonable discussion of any of the posed questions and issues can not
be had unless all Business Meeting members accept that A Serenity Place
was formed by a series of Group Consciences which were in ensuing years
added to by additional Group Consciences, all agreed to and under the
authority of our Higher Power. The collective Group Conscience of A
Serenity Place is reflected in our 'Founding Statement and Policies',
'ASP Service Structure', 'Business Meeting', and 'ASP Group Consciences'
pages posted on our website. 


My response to this....
yes we/i accept this...do you?  your response openly admits that there are different group conscience's in play in the sc at the same time in this email.  if we have different group conscience in play, then what is the sc doing.....picking the one that plays to the question at hand.   where are the results of these group conscience's listed and when can we see what the sc is using for these decisions.  no jerry,  unity is not something i see being honored at this time in this meeting...do you think unsubscribing a trusted servant creates unity and allows for a trusting environment.....what i see is damaging the program and the membership as we all know the bm speaks for the recovery meeting.  i too would like to see how the recovery meeting would react to this stuff.....its wrong that they are not allowed to see what the sc and bm do to support them.  in any f2f group this is not information we keep from the membership.  it is always shared with the recovery program participants.
one last thought on the group conscience/inventory....again i ask when was the last one done for the group....why have we not done a current one based on all the new membership and lastly, why can we not find the previous results for the past group conscience/inventory.  this needs to be addressed by the sc, added to the bm and something needs to be done so we have a CURRENT group conscience/inventory to work from so we are all on the same page in these meetings.


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jerry stated......

With that in mind I will take a brief moment touch on Karen's three
separate posts [5:13, 5:32, & 5:33 PM]. The other questions will have to
wait until the current topic on the table is concluded. 

1)The Secretary Issue 

ASP's Group Conscience gives the Steering Committee (SC) - and only the
SC - the oversight of trusted servant behavior including unsubscribing
members. [See Founding Policy #12.] By long-standing policy and for
reasons of anonymity the SC makes no statements regarding trusted
servant related decisions. 

The Chair recognizes that close emotional attachments can formed between
past and present members, but these need to be set aside so ASP business
matters can be addressed calmly, with respect for one another, and
according to Al-Anon's Traditions and our group's Group Conscience. 


my response to #1.   

has the sc read #12 in the founding policies...have the traditions and concepts been practiced lately.   what is being done is clearly wrong and the legacies are in place for a reason....emotional attachments can be formed yes, but my concern regarding this issue has nothing to do with personal relationships ( and frankly i resent it that you have decided that is why i spoke up...it is not).  it deals strictly with the way that these actions have been applied and i believe that by unsubscribing a trusted servant because of personality problems  (personalities above principles applies here) every aspect of our program is in jeopardy....since when are we/you allowed to throw an al-anon member out of al-anon because we do not agree with them or the way they do thier job.  clearly our secretary was trying to do her job to the best of her ability.  who made the sc and the other trusted servants in ASP the police.....(unless it is continued personal flaming or  a member that continually breaks all of al-anon's guidelines such as constantly using outside lit and continues even after numerous warnings continues), when is it right to EVER remove a trusted servant?  more importantly when is it right to do it behind their back?   we/i would like to know.   i agree with others that each of you owes us an explanation as to why you did this.  when a trusted servant is elected they are given the lattitude to do the job the best way they can and they are expected to practice principles above personalities.  its too bad you all did not remove and unsubscribe jane when she pulled her web page crap or sandie and her la issues.  it seems to me that would have been justified.   why did you not unsubscribe them?   our trusted servants reach out for help then they ask, as we do not govern.   what gives the sc the right to tell another member thru unsubscribing them that they are not doing their job to sc satisfaction or that they are not welcome in asp or al-anon.   what you and the sc did was wrong jerry based on the principles and legacies of al-anon, not based on what i or anyone else have with another member of asp.   i put my personal feelings aside and looked at this as an ASP issue.  again i ask where and what group conscience are you using to justify these actions.....if there are that many issues between the sc members maybe it would have been better to try and resolve them first and then if that did not work ask the trusted servant to resign.  

Jerry stated.....


2)The At-Large Steering Committee Confusion 

This is a case where multiple Group Consciences resulted in inconsistent
results. There are a number of issues related to the 'at-large' service
positions which need to be clarified and resolved. These will show up as
an agenda item for discussion in November's Business Meeting. 

my response to #2
that is all fine and dandy, but the web page founding policies still state that there are 2, i repeat 2 at large positions that are required for the sc and for asp as a whole.   the trusted servant page that lists all the positions no longer has these positions listed , yet they remain a part of the founding policies.   this is not a bm decision needed to be put onto the agenda before these actions were taken.   the archivist position is also missing from that link, why?   what is going on and why are changes being made that are not housekeeping and have a direct effect on the membership.   it was stated in this meeting with the web page housekeeping issues cannot even be corrected so why are the founding policies being left in place and other parts of the program that are based on those policies being changed?  put them back on the trusted servant link until the situation is resolved through a bm meeting as this is a direct break in the guidelines/founding policies set up to help ASP function.  inconsistent results is not an answer nor does this give the sc or trusted servants the right to change the founding policies without a group conscience, vote of 75% and this being placed on the current agenda to be decided by the bm.   your response that these will show up on the november bm does not justify the fact that the work was done before the issue came to the bm as it has already been changed without ever seeing a bm or agenda.

jerry stated.....

3)The Call to Service Announcement. 

The referenced call to service announcement was made to the Business
Meeting at 12:12 AM EDT, September 1 (21:12 PM Pacific, August 31)
moments after the Business Meeting was opened. 
my response to jerry.   

i looked for that email....i did not receive it....did anyone else not get that email.   it would be helpful if you would repost that email for us.   also,  i do not remember you even addressing the position and asking for resumes to be sent up.   when did you do the second part of this process, update the bm that the resume process was starting/ and or closing or announce it to the bm.   i believe there is a 7 day period to collect resumes for open positions.  (if i have the time period wrong please let me know.)   when did you announce 7 days before it was closed on 9.16.2018  that the treasurer position was open and resumes could be sent in.  did your original email state this process for new attendees?  i did not see it come up as an agenda item....that was open for discussion


lastly, the fact that you alluded to my or anyone else's relationships with others on ASP,  and chose to send this email back to the bm while you chose to target me specifically in number 1 on this email is not acceptable.  had you done this to a new member with no program behind them it could have caused major damage to their recovery.   had i been addressing the situation of the trusted servant position by saying i am really angry etc..... i could see you doing this.   i did not do this and as i am concerned about all the dominance, governing and triple headed mgt (yes i believe we have moved beyond the double headed stuff at this point),  occurring in this meeting, ie bulldozing the web page through for a vote when others were trying to research and make sure there were no other issues such as the trusted servant/founding policies i believe this issue would have been addressed earlier.  too bad some of us were cut off before we could speak our voice.  the vote could have waited a few days...