[Businessmtg] requirements for chairing meetings

[Linda F]

I am in favor of, as expressed in Jerry's first email, giving the
secretary: "the leeway to choose topic chairs from either those who have
extensive prior Al-Anon experience (though having less than the currently
requires 6-months of membership) OR by asking current topic chairs to
extend their topic chair service for an additional term.

I understand from the last round of discussions that there are good reasons
for making sure our chairs have a good amount of time actively
participating on ASP before they serve in this capacity, I don't think,
though, that having a week less than 6 months makes enough difference in
their ability to serve.  Maybe if someone has less than the currently
required 6 months of membership, we can still look for minimum 5 months
active participation on ASP plus years of time in Al-Anon including service.

I would like to hear more about what concerns people have about having
someone chair "too soon".  The main reason I see for people having actively
participated in ASP for some time before chairing is that people need to
have a sense of the flavor of our meetings and the technical know-how to
post a meeting.  Both of those things require some active time on ASP, but
I don't see that people would need 6 months to get that if they've already
been active in Al-Anon f2f for years.

I think we benefit from hearing from more voices.  Even if ASP only has a
few hundred active participants, that's way more than most f2f meetings
have access to, and they're able to keep their meetings going with
different chairs.  I would rather see new chairs than the same people
extending, and wonder whether we could shorten the length of time that
someone holds the chair position from six down to four months at a time.

HUGS (Helping Us Gain Serenity), Linda