[Businessmtg] Participation requirements for topic chairs:

[Sandie Parkker]

When I was the secretary I had no issues getting people to sign up and I
had overflow.  The people who I had to turn away, i see, are now topic
chairs.  And I see that Steve has not had any difficulty filling the new
chairs.  I remember once when I chose to be a topic chair I was also turned
away because there were enuf people.

In my experience here at ASP I have found that just because you have many
years in a face to face meeting, does not mean you automatically (there’s
that auto pilot thinking, ha ha) know everything there is to know about
this online meeting, you don’t.   There is a reason the flavor, if you
will, of ASP has been set up to work the way it effectively does.  This ASP
is designed for people to grow in their recovery.  Takes thought *and
*commitment.


Making the requirements ‘easier’ may also mean that people get a false
sense of security in serving on the SC before their time is due so to
speak, and may not have enuf experience with the ASP policies themselves,
especially in running the BM, to be effective in this
leadership......running the BM and being on the SC is a lot different than
being a topic chair, IMHO.

I have also personally witnessed when someone that had not met the
qualifications to be in a major SC position made a big mess.  They had a
plan to take over the meeting with their own set of cronies and rules.  And
that was because the membership had chosen them to serve on a case by case
basis.

I am not in favor of changing the requirements FWIW.