[Businessmtg] Prudent Reserve - Motion 11 AND Motion 10

[Anne O.]

Good Morning all,

I have been struggling with this topic.  I believe that our current prudent reserve has served us well and covered us during the ups and downs of donations.  Also, to my untrained eye the increases to our expenses since our prudent reserve was defined,  have been negligible and covered by whatever amount is part of the incidentals.
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Tradition 7 | ASP Members Only Web Site (asp-afg.org) http://asp-afg.org/members/tradition-7/
Our A Serenity Place meeting expenses are typically $1301.00 per year [$108.42 per month] (US Dollars).  Our expenses include . . .
* 
o Regular expenses
+ Dedicated Server:  $99.00 per month – which houses our Mailing List as well as our web site at no further costs to us (we also paid a one time $99.00 set up fee)
+ Domain registration: $20.00 per year – or $45.00 for 3 years (we paid for 3 years)
+ Post Office box: $62.00 per year
+ Bank account:  no regular fees or monthly charges
o Additional occasional expenses
+ Internet access–extraordinary Internet access costs for List Administrator when traveling
+ Long-distance telephone calls–once in a while there is some concern that needs to be handled by telephone rather than email
+ Postage–correspondence with WSO, bank, etc.
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After reading the traditions and warranties on prudence, I can agree that we will be using sound judgement in preparing for some new unknown expenses.  My concern is that the costs to our group will be variable and may not ever materialize.  We are a virtual arm of Al-Anon.  We may only find our GR participating via video chat and that our only expense will be the Annual conference and travel.  There are geographical locations that make this impossible to estimate.

So based on that, holding donations for a defined period of time might make sense.  I am in favor of reviewing disbursement of funds first.  Breaking out distribution to District and Area first and perhaps sending a much smaller % to the WSO.

ASP Group Consciences | ASP Members Only Web Site (asp-afg.org) http://asp-afg.org/members/group-conscience/

And finally, Steve is working on the incorporation of ASP - Motion 10, a project that has been in the works for many years and now closing in on becoming an active project with some large expenses.  We should factor that in to the prudent reserve discussion.  Like Mary and Jerry have suggested this could be a separate collection or a temporary reserve for one time or occasional expenses.   I see funding the GR to the Annual convention falling into this bucket as well.

Hugs,

Anne O.