[Businessmtg] Motion #20 - Lowering the Requirement for ASP Service

[Steve Rankin]

Hi ASPers,

 

It seems to me that the problem people have understanding ASP's service
structure arises when they don't understand the nature of ASP and how it
really compares to the service structure in f2f Al-Anon.

 

A.     For most members of ASP, those that simply participate or even merely
observe the recovery meeting, ASP is little different than a f2f recovery
meeting.

B.     However, behind the scenes, ASP is much more like a World Service
Area. 

 

Note the levels of the f2f AFG service structure:

A.     Groups. Recovery meetings with GRs. Groups have no geographic
boundaries - anyone from anywhere can attend any group.

B.     Districts. Clusters of groups where GRs gather and discuss business
affecting the local groups, the District, and occasionally the Area. Every
three years, on a schedule identical to the Area, a DR is elected from the
outgoing pool of GRs. Districts do have geographic boundaries, but they are
subjective and determined on an ad hoc basis by the Area. If a District has
many groups, the Area may split it into two Districts. This happened in my
District when I was a GR.

C.     Areas (World Service Areas). Every 3 years, the GRs of the Area elect
a Delegate and Area Officers (Chair, Alternate Delegate, Secretary,
Treasurer, . . .) from the pool of those that have served as DRs and Area
Officers. The Delegate attends the annual World Service Conference where AFG
policy is made. 

D.     Regions elect a Regional Trustee from the pool of Past Delegates in
the Region.

E.      World Service Office and Board of Directors. The BoD is made of the
elected Regional Trustees, the appointed At-Large Trustees (2 for the US and
1 from Canada), and the Exec Director of WSO. Note that the Exec Director is
a permanent member of the BoD. The staff of WSO handles the admin of AFG
under the direction of the Executive Director. 

 

So . . . what we did was structure ASP to resemble the Area/WSO level of
Al-Anon service. Unlike a f2f group, ASP needs people to handle admin chores
daily. In other words, ASP needs "staff" that run the magic stuff behind the
curtain so that people can come and go and the meeting goes on smoothly with
seemingly little to no effort. Additionally, we had personally experienced
the chaos that occurred at CAFG (an older online meeting started by a f2f
friend of mine) resulting from an open subscription where anyone could join
CAFG with a couple of mouse clicks. The growth of CAFG was astounding, but
the result of the chaos was that it imploded in less than two years. Our
goal for ASP was to create a healthy and stable meeting. That we are still
here and humming along 23+ years later says something about how well our
structure works.

 

The first instance of the difference is when someone wants to join ASP.
Unlike a f2f group where everyone can literally see who is in the meeting,
the members of ASP are unaware of who is in the meeting. Hence, our
structured process for joining ASP. It's not perfect, but it does serve
reasonably well as a safeguard for the members.

 

This inability to literally "see" what is happening is huge and affects more
than many think. First, it prevents members from actually seeing the service
performed by the trusted servants. No one sees the greeters doing their job.
No one sees the coffee being made, or the tables and chairs being set up,
the literature being set out. No one sees who is here at tonight's meeting
and who isn't, just like no one sees if so-n-so isn't doing their job, or no
one sees that they are doing something other than what we asked them to do. 

 

No one sees that Ms. A's eyes are bloodshot from crying, or hears the
cracking in her voice as she shares or tries to share. She's a regular with
several years in Al-Anon, but something happened and she's in incredible
pain and probably doesn't even share that night; but we saw her and shared
with her after the meeting. Likewise, no one sees Ms. B (whose personal life
is a perpetual disaster) cornering every newcomer and collecting sponsees
like Girl Scout merit badges.  Or Mr. Q that has a penchant for sweet
talking the newbies that are young and pretty, while being sure to get their
phone numbers. Likewise, no one sees the young woman walking from the
meeting instead of getting into her car like everyone else. The bus stop is
a mile away and she's afraid to ask for a ride to the bus stop. Hell, I'm
sure one of us would be glad to give her ride home, and even gladder to pick
her up next week.

 

Note how a new member to Al-Anon interested in service must first become a
GR for their group, then after serving for 3 years get elected as a DR, then
after serving for 3 years as a DR, get elected as an Area Officer. So, by
the time a member get elected as an Area Officer, they have 6+ years in
Al-Anon and most likely 6+ years in the service structure. Yes, there are
some that short-circuit this for one reason or another, and there are others
like myself that served in many other positions along the way and had 15-20
years in the program and all kind of service before becoming an Area
Officer. I'll note that both my wife and I have observed that the results of
a member getting involved in service too much, too fast tends to be ugly.
Why is that?

 

Getting involved in service too much, too fast tends to change the
individual's focus from their recovery to the service. Then, after having
done that service, they move to the next level of service, again focusing on
the service instead of their recovery. Along the way, they often get
involved in snafus because they don't have the recovery to recognize the
principles of AFG in a situation and their actions tend to reflect their
lack of recovery and understanding of the principles. For those that get
fast-tracked and wind up getting elected Delegate after just a few years
(9-10), they have a high incidence of crashing and burning badly after
rotating out because they don't have sufficient personal recovery to deal
with just being a member.

 

Now, recall that ASP is structured like an Area and that our trusted
servants have duties and responsibilities that often far exceed what they
might have in a f2f meeting, and now it is being suggested that we shorten
the tenure requirements to serve. One of the long-timers even suggested that
a month in ASP would be enough. How could that possibly be good for either
ASP or the member involved?  What is being set up is a scheme where someone
- with perfectly good intentions - could join ASP, become a greeter after
just 6 months, serve a year and be eligible to serve as the List
Administrator when Jerry rotates out. 

 

Frankly, that wouldn't have scared me nearly so much before when the
greeters actually exchanged emails with new members and spent some personal
quality time with some of them in the process. Now that the system is highly
automated, the greeters work is much simpler but the opportunities for them
to practice their program is equally diminished, as is the Greeter Chair's
opportunity to observe their personal work. 

 

Some folks seem to subscribe to the idea that having done service in f2f
Al-Anon should count towards serving at ASP.  Would your f3f home group
elect some from another group on the night you were electing a new GR? Would
the Washington State Area accept my Al-Anon service resume from California
and allow me to stand for Delegate in Washington?  No way. There is a reason
why the Service Manual describes a process where the groups elect GR from
their group members - often limiting the voting to just those that are "Home
Group" members, then the District elects the new DR from the existing GRs,
and so on. Regardless of your previous experience elsewhere, you are a
newcomer in the new group/District/Area in terms of eligibility to serve.
Besides, as I've pointed out above, while we try to make ASP as much like a
f2f meeting as possible, the structure of ASP is vastly different from what
most members of Al-Anon have experienced before. Unfortunately, we've
experienced the consequences of electing someone with an impressive f2f
Al-Anon resume, but the new "trusted servant" then worked diligently behind
the scenes to change ASP into something else, which resulted in major
problems for ASP that still affect ASP. 

 

A related issue is the rather sudden increase in new members that occurred a
few years ago. The flow of new members into ASP was consistently 2-3/day for
almost 20 years. Then, it suddenly increased to about 5-6 per day and has
remained at that level since. What happened? Along with that increase, the
number of members that leave ASP immediately has also increased. As a
result, the NET increase in members of ASP is minimal. In fact, I seriously
doubt that ASP has actually increased the number of participating members in
the last few years, which tells me that the Greeters are spending their time
whizzing new members through the revolving door, which doesn't really
accomplish anything if they turn around and leave just a day or two later.
We need to accept that WE have a problem that we are not dealing with. Yes,
I know that most new folks leave f2f Al-Anon rather quickly, too. Sigh. It's
frustrating. But, frankly I believe that we are too focused on getting new
members and getting them in the door quickly, instead of putting in the
effort to better inform them about what ASP is and isn't. 

 

I'll note that in the first 10 years, the greeters were by far our best
source of new officers. Unlike the Daily Chairs that simply post a share
once a week, the greeters used to be thoroughly involved in the behind the
scenes processes. The Greeter Chair often ran the entire show when I was
offline, which sometimes was for days and even weeks at a time. There was a
frequent dialogue between myself and the greeters themselves, not just the
Greeter Chair. It worked quite well most of the time. OTOH, since giving the
operation to the membership of ASP, the individuals serving have become less
well connected with each other as they focused on their own duties and not
the bigger picture. This was probably especially true for the greeters as
the greeter process became more bureaucratic and less personal. Obviously,
the ability and willingness of the officers involved, especially the List
Administrator, to keep the others fully informed and make them a part of the
big picture behind the scenes has an impact on the greeters willingness to
serve as an officer.

 

What about the Daily Chairs?  Clearly, ASP relies on our Daily Chairs for
our recovery meeting, however the Daily Chairs get little if any experience
with the background of ASP through that type of service. 

 

Yes, I understand that both Jerry and Anne are having problems getting
volunteers to serve as Greeters and Daily Chairs. After 36+ years of
watching f2f meetings have the same problems, I've yet to see a group
successfully solve the problem by lowering the standard for serving or
diluting the service position. Instead, the catch-22 of unintended
consequences raises its ugly head sooner rather than later and the end
result is worse than before. 

 

IMHO, a better solution might be to (a) revert back to the previous
personalized greeter procedures. While that might not process new members as
rapidly or easily as the current web-based process, it would provide a
better Al-Anon experience for our greeters. As for the Daily Chair question?
If we don't have a Daily Chair for Tuesday, for example, then let the
meeting go dark on Tuesday. The reality of life is that when a f2f meeting
has these kinds of problems it affects the recovery meeting and members get
the opportunity to see the consequences of no one serving. We've let ASP
avoid that reality. 

 

The bottom line?

 

I believe that lowering the requirements for serving ASP is a mistake that
will haunt ASP in the future. 

 

Love and SERENITY,

Steve

 



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