[Businessmtg] Daily Chair Requirements

[Steve Rankin]

Hi ASPers,

 

Perhaps, a few points regarding this discussion.

 

First, I did a little research on the archive covering 2017-current.  What I
discovered was that only once did the Secretary advertise the Daily Chair
position more than once.  That tells me that almost every time, advertising
the need for Daily Chairs once gets the job done.  The single exception took
3 times to get the job done.  OK, not ideal but how hard is that?  It’s
easy.  Seriously.  

 

Then, there’s the marketing side of this.  If I send a notice to the meeting
that we need 7 Daily Chairs, I’ll probably get a larger of responses than if
I announce that we need 1 or 2 Daily Chairs.  The first method suggests that
we need lots of volunteers, which is far more likely to result in lots of
volunteers than asking for a limited number of volunteers.  Think of it as a
self-fulfilling prophecy. 

 

It seems that some people might think that the Secretary should only need to
advertise the openings for the Daily Chair just once, and if that doesn’t
result in enough qualified volunteers, then we have a problem and the
Secretary should be able to lower the bar for serving as a Daily Chair.  I’d
like to point out that our procedure for advertising the Business Meeting is
to send out 2 notices.  Most of the members of this Business Meeting
responded to the first notice, but about a half-dozen responded to the
second.  My point is that two notices is the norm for advertising Business
Meetings and that does make a difference, so why would we think that
advertising the rotation of Daily Chairs needs to be done only once?  And
if, we’re still one or two people short after advertising the Daily Chair
vacancies twice, how hard is it to send out a third notice?  It’s not.  

 

Personally, I’d much rather the Secretary send out a 3rd notice than
lowering the bar for serving.  If we lower the requirement for serving as
Daily Chair, even if it is supposed to be just a flexibility thing, there is
no doubt in my mind that some Secretaries will simply use that as a reason
(or excuse) to accept a volunteer with less than the usual amount of service
required.  Let’s say we decided to allow members with 4 months to serve as
Daily Chair IF the Secretary couldn’t fill the slots with members with over
6 months in ASP.  There is little doubt that a Secretary would go straight
to accepting someone with 4+ months on the first go-round.  Remember, our
trusted servants are Al-Anons and Al-Anons are people pleasers and really
hate to say “No”.  And then, there would be the question of “What about
someone with 3 ½ months?

 

The answer is simple – those that want to lower the bar for serving or want
more flexibility will most likely be quick to lower the bar even further.  

 

I’ve seen many groups go through all sorts of machinations to make serving
EASIER, up to and including even telling them they didn’t have to do
ANYTHING at all.  I’ve never seen it work out well.  It’s called the law of
unintended consequences.  

 

 

There is the related issue of alternate or space Daily Chair persons.  

 

1.	Who gave the Secretary the authority to appoint people to positions
that don’t exist?
2.	It sends the message that it’s OK for a Daily Chair to skip a
meeting or bail on the whole thing.  “Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered
with an alternate just in case it’s not convenient . . .”  Bad juju.
3.	I suspect that most members that volunteer to serve as Daily Chairs
actually want to do the job and serve.  What about the alternate has been
told they have a service position, yet they never get to serve.
4.	What “credit” does an Alternate Daily Chair get for “serving” as
alternate?  On the one hand, they probably didn’t do a diddly thing during
that 6 months, yet on the other hand, the Secretary appointed them to a
“service position”.
5.	What happens when a Secretary appoints a couple of alternates in the
last 6 months of their term as Secretary, but neither of them ever got to
serve?  Is the incoming Secretary obligated to give them the job the next
time?
6.	What happens when an “alternate” who never did a thing stands for
List Administrator and says they did a couple of stints as “alternate” Daily
Chair?

 

Last, but not least, I’ll point out that it’s yours truly that’s currently
holding the bag for recruiting new Daily Chairs, and I’m suggesting that we
do nothing to make it easier. 

 

Love and SERENITY,

Steve