[Businessmtg] Archiving of Personal Shares

[Jerry H.]

Biz-Pals,


ASP describes itself in its own literature as being as much like a face-to-face Al-Anon Group as it can be. In all my years attending Al-Anon (28) the only meetings which kept recordings/complete minutes of everything that was said were business meetings beyond the group level and Al-Anon speaker meetings where agreements to do so were known in advance.


ASP, by archiving every word that any member has ever said within its recovery meetings is not at all like any face-to-face meeting I've ever known.


Anonymity is not a part-time thing in Al-Anon. It is a foundational Principle. More, it's "the spiritual foundation of all our Traditions (T12)." Members gather together in a space where they can share freely and safely. Those people who are sitting in a particular meeting get to hear what is said there and NO ONE ELSE. ("Everything said here, in the group meeting and member-to-member must be held in confidence. Only in this way can we feel free to say what is in our minds and hearts...") Think carefully about what this promise means: You have to be in that meeting to hear what is said in that meeting, AND what is said in that meeting must not be shared with others who were not there (...for this is how we recover in Al-Anon.")


Now why would that be? I mean, what's the big deal about passing along something one Al-Anon said in a meeting to another Al-Anon who didn't happen to be there? I'll tell you why: in a meeting a member can look around the tables and see who's there (and who's not) before they speak, knowing what they say will "stay in this room" - the promise Al-Anon gives to every newcomer. By archiving shares ASP takes that choice away from our members.  


In fact we even provide instructions on how to eavesdrop on our past meetings and every share. Any member could betray our trust by copying and disseminating anything they want. ASP already has a record of members, even trusted servants, who have been willing to evade our Group Consciences on other matters. It's irrational to think that in this one area it will never happen, and the bigger we get the more likely it becomes. As our closing says, "We aren't perfect." Expecting perfection is no protection against the potential for harm - harm from passing along what someone said, or harm from someone not feeling safe enough to say something because there'll be a record of it.


Every Group is autonomous in Al-Anon. Any group can decide to record its meetings IF IT DECIDES TO BY GROUP CONSCIENCE (GC). ASP has never decided by GC to record or archive its meeting shares. The archiving of shares was done without the authority required by Tradition 2. That, alone, is sufficient for me to stand firmly against keeping our archives of past ASP recovery topic meetings. If we wish to archive future topic shares I believe we would have to have an approved GC clearly permitting it from here on out. I believe because there never was a GC approving the shares we currently have in our archives our current archives should be permanently deleted. Quickly.

No question in my mind.

Jerry

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