[Businessmtg] Seventh Tradition Issues

[Steve Rankin]

Hi Marilyn,
I also think it has been asked before, but it is still a good question.  
It is very true that face-to-face Districts, Intergroups and Areas have geographic boundaries.  For example, most Areas boundaries are identical to the state boundary they represent.  However, some of the large and populous states have more than one Area. 
The basic 'plan' is that there will be one new "Virtual Area" which will not have a boundary.  However, I've seen some push back on the idea of a single Virtual Area, primarily from non-English speaking people.  As far as I know, the issue of Districts and their possible boundaries hasn't been discussed yet as that discussion will take place in the new Area. 
The latest information is that the new GRs of the Virtual Area will be voting on a DATE to hold a meeting to elect a temporary Chair to lead the Area through the process of electing its first officers.  Note, the sole job of the temporary Chair is to run the election Assembly of the new officers in January.  The deadline for the GRs to vote on the date of that meeting is December 3rd.  I just forwarded the announcement from WSO to Alison on Wednesday.  
WSO published a timeline a few weeks ago describing how the process is going to move forward.  I posted the Timeline on my website at http://serenitysys.com/A_Serenity_Place/Business/nbm/CMATimeline_10.23.21.pdf  
or  
https://tinyurl.com/27ks98jz 
You will notice that some of the dates are more like time frames than specific dates.  
The best I can figure from WSO's timeline is that we will elect the temporary Area Chair at a meeting sometime between Dec 3rd and 15th.  Then, about a month later the new GRs will receive a link to the first Assembly of the new Area to elect the Area officers.  
Now, having said all of that, as best I can understand it from what I've heard in the webinars with WSO is that it may be OK for electronic meetings to affiliate with a geographic area instead of the Virtual Area.  It's rather confusing, but my hunch is that this may be the result of many f2f groups having a Zoom component during the pandemic.  Some of this stuff is pretty goofy right now.  For example, I was talking on the phone with someone last night who lives on the East Coast, she just joined a f2f meeting via Zoom that is several states away that she has never been to, then the people in that f2f meeting got her into their f2f Information Service and elected her to a service position.  Yes, a f2f service entity elected someone that lives several states away and has never been there, and all of this happened the first time she attended via Zoom.  My head hurts.  😊
The webinars were 2 hours long each, and sometimes hard to follow.  For example, it wasn't always clear if WSO was talking or if it was a CMA talking, when points were made or questioned.  My point is that I'm pretty clear on some parts of what's going on and where we are headed, but just don't know about a number of other things.
As for your question of whether ASP has an "official" office.  Yes, we do; it is my home in Washington state.  Could ASP choose to affiliate with the Washington Area?  Maybe.  That's one of the things I don't understand yet.  OTOH, I really don't know why we would want to.  For example, why would we want to be part of the Washington Area when our GR lives in Colorado?  FYI, our first List Administrator lived in Canada.  
I think the saying is "more shall be revealed".  
Hugs,
Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: Businessmtg On Behalf Of Marilyn Booms
Subject: Re: [Businessmtg] Seventh Tradition Issues

Well said Steve.  I agree with your thoughts on recalculating updated expenses before further donations to WSO.

If this has been asked and answered before,  my apologies.  What "district " and "area " does an online group such as ours fall under? In a f2f meeting, district and area are geographic. Does ASP have a home office per se that would determine our district? Just trying to understand better.

Regardless,  I think we need to keep our group solvent first, by rebuilding our PR.

Thanks,
Marilyn