[Businessmtg] LA Position

[Jerry H.]

Biz-Pals,

I recently resigned as ASP's List Administrator (LA) about a half-year short of my 3-year term. I believe some of what's being discussed, committees, backups, term period, etc., does not directly address the causes of stress in the LA position.

If the LA had only the outlined LA duties and had the training and the simple authorities given to the LA to perform those duties any member with the required ASP experience and moderate computer skills could do the job without stress.

The problem, at least in my experience, is that ASP is not sufficiently self-supporting administratively. By that I mean that ASP members who attend the Business Meeting, the pool from which ASP officers are elected, do not make it a practice to stand for whatever officer service positions are open at the various levels.

Because ASP set administrative practices which require a minimum of 1 year of prior ASP service before members are eligible to stand for Officer/Steering Committee vacancies (with good reason) the pool of BM members eligible for SC positions is very small, and at times there are none willing. If more members attended the BM's and performed other ASP service the pool of eligibles would be larger likely meaning that more people would be able to stand for office.

What this has led to is the doubling or tripling up of the various officer responsibilities onto those few who do serve. That Steve right now is holding down three: 1)one of ASP's two Founder seats, 2)ASP's List Administrator Seat, and 3)ASP's Secretary position is astonishing to me and should be to any Al-Anon familiar with Al-Anon Traditions and the reasons behind suggesting a group member holds only one position at a time.

Steve is the only remaining ASP Founder. He holds down one of the two Founder seats on the SC. That and his BM membership and on any sub-committees ASP may form should be the limit on his service. It doesn't make any difference if he is able to hold down all three of these Steering Committee positions and do an excellent job at all of them with one arm tied behind his back. He's over-serving - not by choice, but as the result of other members not going through the process of accumulating the necessary prior ASP service requirements in order to qualify for the positions and then being willing to stand for service.

So those few who are qualified and willing to serve have been scrambling to cover all the service bases. The Topic Meeting is not producing members who understand the personal and group benefits of not only service, but the rotation of service. That would help a great deal.

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So why did I, one of the qualified and willing members find it necessary to leave the LA position early? Primarily because I became unwilling as the workload got bigger than the LA position as presented when I originally stood for the position.

One of the goals I had upon joining Al-Anon over 35 years ago was to "get a life." Turned out that wasn't as easy as I had initially hoped. But I stuck with it and eventually arrived at a time when I could maintain serenity with some leeway left over. That leeway went into Al-Anon service at the Group, District, Area, and Alateen levels. Some time later I added ASP membership, and, as others filled those F2F positions as I rotated out - and with nary a digital bone in my body - I stood for ASP's Treasury's 3-year position in 2006. I served my 3 years and almost two additional because the BM didn't get around to addressing elections for my replacement.

Years later, when we lost our secretary while I was ASP's LA, and because the LA is the "backup" for the Secretary duties, I found myself obligated to "temporarily" fill the Secretary's duties while a replacement was elected. That would have worked temporarily, but it didn't work out that way in practice since nobody was both qualified and willing to stand for that position.

After a while the extra burden used up all the leeway I had and required even more. When a group requires its trusted servants to do more than is appropriate it's up to the trusted servants to think of their own well-being.

Either ASP comes up with a means of interesting its members to enter into group service or I fear service  will continue to flow more and more to the remaining few who continue to fill our service positions well beyond reasonable expectations.

"Together We Can Make It" implies we all lift part of our burdens. That's not happening. Relying on a few to do all the work just isn't the Al-Anon way.

In F2F Al-Anon, when the group fails to have members stand for service problems invariably arise sometimes resulting in groups falling apart. There's no reason to expect on-line Al-Anon to be any different.

We need to find a way to get more folks into group service so we can begin to have regular rotations of our service positions.

Jerry
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