[Businessmtg] List Administrator

Mon Nov 16 06:33:53 PST 2020

Hi everyone,

Thank you Anne for your service and for bringing up this topic! Thank you Steve for filling the list administrator role along with everything else you do. I’m pasting an email that Steve sent to the September meeting below (hope that is allowed). It’s quite long, but it really gave me some perspective on this discussion. 

I am in favor of keeping the List Administrator role as it currently is, without a committee or sharing the email responsibilities.  

However, I am in favor of more training for the incoming LA. Reading through this email below reminded me of training new employees in my work. There are things that I do that are second nature and I don’t have to think about. Take me no time at all. When I train a new person in these same things, it is always a surprise at how difficult it is at first for the new person and just how long it takes for them to get up and running close to my speed (months). Without that training, I’m not sure a new employee would ever get to my level of efficiency.  It sounds like Steve has this role figured out and so it takes him hardly any time to fulfill. But I can understand how overwhelming it could be to a new LA. So how can we better support the incoming LA? Steve, what training do you provide? Could there be a transition period where the outgoing and incoming LA overlap by a month (or some period of time) so that the outgoing LA can train the incoming LA in best practices? 

Thanks for listening. 
Hugs,
Lynne

Hi ASPers,

First, I think it is interesting - but no surprise - that the focus seems
to be on the BIG number; 3,896 emails in August.  OMIGOD, that’s so
overwhelming.  Not.  

What I believe is FAR more important is that less than 100 of those
actually needed to be read.  

Perhaps it needs to be said out loud so everyone understands. . . if I
don’t need to read it, I don’t read it.  

Of those 1,424 admin messages sent by the server, I never read any of them.
Zero.  Zip.  Why not?  Well consider that 505 of them in my folder right
now are server messages informing me that a Greeter had submitted a new
member request that Anne will process.  Another 512 are server messages
informing me that someone was subscribed (by Anne).  Another 312 are server
messages informing me that someone unsubscribed from ASP.  

The point is obvious - of the 2,012 messages in that folder right now,
1,329 are about members coming and going; messages that the List
Administrator receives but has NO reason to read.

What messages could I have read?  There are currently 286 bounce messages
in the folder; all of them are duplicates which means that there are 143
distinct bounce messages. Except that 72 of those are “reminders” that
the server sends out.  Subtract 72 reminders from 286 = 214 / 2 - 107
actual bounce messages.  Do I read them?  No!  

Why read a bounce message, when I know I’ll need to go to the server and
fix it there anyway???

Then, there were the 462 emails from members related to the ongoing purge
of the list.  This is something that we have normally done every couple of
years or at least once during each List Administrator’s term.  In other
words, this is a one-time anomaly that shouldn’t be considered as normal
part of the List Administrator’s workload.  

So, that’s 1,886 emails wiped off the List Administrator’s “To Do List”.

What about those 1,823 shares?  Where is it written that ANYONE must read
every share?  It’s not.  Sadly, we have a slew of newcomers that feel
overwhelmed or obligated to read every share. . . and leave ASP as a
result.  Sheesh.  I haven’t read every share since ASP was only a few
months old. That was over 24 years ago.  

What about those 118 admin emails that required action?  That’s a piece of
cake.  Yes, they required action, however there was no need to read them.
Reading them is a waste of time - instead log into the server and simply
handle whatever the server is holding.  I simply click on a link in my
browser’s bookmarks bar, and a second later I’m on the server at the page
where it actually shows me what needs to be done.  It takes about a minute,
maybe two to handle what’s there.  

Do you believe that the List Administrator needs to read every share to
make sure that every member is doing it right, not breaking some “rule”
or whatever?  If so, then you and I have a very different concept of what a
good leader in Al-Anon is.  The List Administrator has no more obligation
to read every share than anyone else in ASP.  Besides, my experience is
that if there is a real problem in the meeting someone will send me a note
about it.  

So, of the 3,896 emails I received in August, 3,350 didn’t need to be read
and 462 were anomalies that really shouldn’t be included.  

We are down to 84 emails that actually needed to be read.

Responses to Unsubscribe                                          15 (0.5
per day)

Correspondence to the List Administrator                 69 messages (2.2
per day)

Almost 20% (about ½ per day) are requests to be unsubscribed.  Previous
List Administrators included a link to the general Member’s Instruction
web page in the footer of every ASP share.  I changed that to a direct link
to the unsubscribe web page, which has resulted in many more members
successfully unsubscribing themselves and far fewer requests for help to be
unsubscribed.  Those requesting help email me directly which shows up in my
regular Inbox.  

↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

Which brings me to the final tally of email messages that the List
Administrator actually needed to read . . .

A very manageable 69 messages in a month from members about something else
that actually warranted reading and responding to.  Those messages range
from personal questions, personal requests for help, general questions
about Al-Anon, ASP, CAL, etc.  

Yes, that’s only a tad over 2 emails a day that actually need to be read
and responded to.  Two.  

↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑↑

Do I think it is even remotely needed for others to “help” me do my job?
Not even close.  OK, so it’s not “my” job right now, or perhaps more
accurately it shouldn’t be my job right now.  

Do *I* think that it’s OK for random members of the Steering Committee to
respond to those 69 messages sent to me as the List Administrator?  No.  

Which brings me to an aspect of Anne’s suggestion that concerns me.  

See, in Anne’s suggestion, members of the Steering Committee would access
a ‘shared email’ address and deal with whatever is there.  It was
suggested/assumed that this would occur on certain days of the week,
presumably at the convenience of said members of the Steering Committee.  

→→→  What is missing here is what is different between the Greeter
Committee and the Steering Committee and how that relates to what is being
proposed.  

In the Greeter Committee:

*    The Greeter Chair appoints the Greeters.  
*    The Greeter Chair determines the schedule. 
*    The Greeter Chair trains the Greeters.  
*    The Greeter Chair oversees the Greeters.
*    The Greeter Chair has the final say in whether a new member
actually meets the requirements to join ASP.
*    The Greeter Chair that actually finalizes subscribing the new
members.  
*    The Greeter Chair may replace any Greeter that is problematic, such
as failing to follow directions, failing to do the work, etc. 

OTOH, what is being proposed here is

*    The List Administrator has no say in who “assists” with
responding to email sent to the List Administrator.
*    The List Administrator does not determine when that assistance is
provided.
*    The List Administrator does train the “assistants”.
*    The List Administrator has no oversight over the “assistants”.
*    The List Administrator has no recourse regarding how those
assistants respond to emails sent to the List Administrator.
*    There is nothing to prevent an “assistant” from cherry picking
emails and responding to those they want to respond to and not responding
to others.
*    The List Administrator has no recourse to deal with a problematic
“assistant”.  

The bottom line for me is this:

1.    The List Administrator doesn’t NEED any help.  Perhaps, others may
have needed help, but my take is that the best help they could get would be
to learn what they actually needed to do, and what they didn’t need to do.

2.    The List Administrator doesn’t need to be told what help they need
or who will provide that help they didn’t ask for, or what that help will
be that they didn’t ask for.  

A few other details. . .

A.    It is true that it’s unlikely that I’ll live forever.  I turned
74 a few days ago so my days of being a spring chicken are long gone.  Who
knows?  I could be around for another 20 years, or I could get hit by a
logging truck tomorrow.  One day at a time; it’s not my decision to make. 
B.    Jerry mentioned the Founder serving as the permanent Chair of the
Business Meeting.  As I recall, that is something that Jerry & I talked
about in sidebar conversations a few years back. However, I believe the
suggestion that Anne made was for the Founder to be the permanent Chair of
the Steering Committee.  If you believe that the LA job is overwhelming,
then Anne’s idea of giving the Chair of the Steering Committee to the
Founder makes sense.  OTOH, Jerry’s idea of giving the Chair of the
Business Meeting to the Founder does nothing to support the LA.
C.    Rotation of leadership.  Yes, there is a tradition of rotation in
leadership in Al-Anon groups.  However, there is also a similar, although
far less talked about, tradition of some positions serving for decades.
Take the Executive Director of WSO, for example.  Another example are Al-
Anon’s Past Delegates.  Once a Past Delegate, always a Past Delegate.  
D.    Jerry’s list of trusted servants:
E.    Jerry said:

======================================

Following this Core Policy our elected Steering Committee (SC) officers
should be:

~ List Administrator

~ Secretary

~ Greeter Chair

~ Web Master

~ Treasurer

~ General Member #1

~ General Member #2

To which we add:

~ Any Chairpersons of Committees

~ Founder #1 (or those most nearly so)

~ Founder #2 (or those most nearly so)

Totaling a minimum of nine (9) members plus any Committee Chairs.

======================================

That's partially true, but not completely.

See, the Founding Policy states:

"The Steering Committee is the primary business committee of A Serenity
Place. The Steering Committee is composed of all elected officers, Chair
persons of committees (but not sub-committees), two ‘founders’ (the
original founders of A Serenity Place or those most nearly so), and two
general members of A Serenity Place."

When I read this carefully, the policy tells us that we have the following
persons on the Steering Committee:

1.  Elected Officer(s)

2.  Two Founders

3.  Two General members

That’s it.  Our Founding Policy does not specify any required elected
officers.  We could in theory have no elected officers at all.  In fact,
that’s pretty close the way ASP ran for the first 10 years:

I served as the List Owner.  

We always had a Greeter Chair, however that position was appointed.  When
we needed a new Greeter Chair, I sent out a note to the meeting and the
first person that volunteered got the job.  We sometimes had a Secretary,
and if we did, she recruited and trained our Daily Chairs.  If we didn’t,
then I did that.  When my wife and I were traveling and out of contact (the
Internet wasn’t available everywhere 24 years ago), the Greeter Chair and
Greeters ran ASP.  When, the Greeter Chair was on vacation, the Greeters
did their job and I filled in for the Greeter Chair.  I can remember
standing on the roof of my truck outside Whitehorse, Alaska talking on the
phone with the Greeter Chair as she briefed me on what had gone on that
week that she and the Greeters handled.  Cool!

In truth, it only takes a small number of people to run ASP behind the
scenes.

List Administrator

Greeter Chair

2-3 greeters

Treasurer - not needed before May 2006 since ASP ran on my server & I paid
the bills.

That is only 3 elected trusted servants.  

So, what actually happens when we try to fill all of those service
positions?  

A.    Five members need to be elected every 3 years.
B.    Two people need to be elected every 6 months (equivalent of 12 more
people every 3 years.
C.    That is 17 people every 3 years.  In other words, we’d need to
SUCCESSFULLY elect someone every Business Meeting.  
D.    The bottom line is that we spin our wheels trying to elect people
to positions that rarely if ever do anything.  No body is happy and we burn
up a lot of good people doing nothing except elections.  A previous List
Administrator and Secretary tried going down that path a few years ago and
it didn’t work.

By far, the biggest mistake I made in setting up the Founding Policies and
structure of ASP was to write in too many service positions.  What can I
say?  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  Several years ago, I
realized the solution was simple.  Just don’t try to fill every vacancy.
Only make an effort to fill those positions that actually need to be
filled.  Sort of like, only read the emails that actually need to be read. 

Hugs,

Steve

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