[Businessmtg] Concerns about the bylaws - minutes, treasurer reports, etc

[Steve Rankin]

Hi ASPers,

I'm going try to address the concerns I've heard about the draft bylaws.

1.  Regarding Business Meeting Minutes.

You suggested "Minutes of the Business Meeting will be recorded by the
Secretary and posted on the ASP website."  While this sounds simple at face
value, there are many unintended consequences that would result.

A.	First, it is redundant.  ASP recently passed Motion #22 which
requires that the Secretary "Records Group Consciences of the Business
Meeting".  A record of the decision made by the organization is what is
required to document any changes needed to be made to the bank account. 
B.	A complete change in how ASP records what occurred in our Business
Meeting.  The archive of the Business Meeting has been the record of the
Business Meeting since May 2006; over 16 years.
C.	This would impose a significant new responsibility on our Secretary.
The stated purpose of this change is to create minutes to facilitate changes
to the ASP bank account by the Treasurer, however as I noted about, the
necessary documentation is already contained in a SMALL part of the Business
Meeting Archives.
D.	Minutes of meetings are frequently subject to interpretation,
internal politics and personal agendas.  It is not unusual for some members
to attempt to amend the minutes after the fact to reflect what they wanted
to say rather than what they said.  A member of my f2f home group is
currently serving as the Area Secretary and he was talking this evening
about how some members of the Area pressure him to change the minutes to
reflect something other than what actually happened in the meeting.  As for
the depth and scope of business meeting minutes, that tends to be highly
dependent on what went on in the meeting, how controversial it was, and how
vested individuals are in having their point of view and perspective
represented in the minutes.
E.	OTOH, it is difficult to argue against the accuracy of the Archive
since it is literally a transcript of the Business Meeting created
automatically by the server and includes the full text of everything said in
the Business Meeting.
F.	This change would create a legal liability for both the Secretary
and the others on the Steering Committee.  Unlike Mary's suggestion that
would change how ASP operates, the draft bylaws were written reflect our
actual practice.  While technically it isn't required that the bylaws
reflect actual practice, it IS required that our actual practice comply with
the bylaws.  Please re-read that sentence carefully.  In other words, if the
bylaws state that the Secretary take minutes of the Business Meeting, then
the Secretary is legally required to take minutes.  Additionally, the others
on the Steering Committee would become legally required to enforce it.
Failure to comply can result in legal complaints to the Secretary of State,
resulting the loss of non-profit status or worse. 
G.	Minutes written by the Secretary require approval before they become
official.  Approval means a vote, which the Founding Policies require a
week-long poling period.  What about the time and energy spent on the
corrections and amendments?

There are many service positions in Al-Anon that interface with the real
world requiring the member identify themselves with outside organizations,
whether it is the bank or the facility where the meeting is held, or the
copy center that printed the event flyers or meeting schedule, or . . . 

Al-Anon is not a secret organization.  Many members believe that Tradition
of anonymity prevents and protects members from any need to identify
themselves.  That may be true for the member that does nothing more than
attend meetings, however that quickly goes away when the member becomes
involved in many service positions.  For instance, to be a Group Rep for
ASP, the GR is REQUIRED to provide their name, complete address, phone
number to WSO.  Refuse and you are not allowed to be seated in the upcoming
Assembly.  The Al-Anon Service Manual even discusses the requirement for
trusted servants to provide their personal information, including full name,
address and SSN.  Perhaps, the biggest example is when a member wishes to
serve as an Alateen sponsor, which REQUIRES an annual background check with
state law enforcement agency.  

Banking laws require proof that ASP is a legitimate business.  The group
conscience is to apply for 501(c)(3) status.  We may receive 501(c)(7)
approval first, which is OK.  Both are tax exempt; the difference is that
the 501(c)(3) status denotes a charitable organization.  Once we have
received either status, along with our business license which is also part
of the process, we will have the documentation necessary to satisfy the bank
that we are a legit tax exempt business entity.  

FYI, I belong to a local (WA state) 501(c)(7) non-profit corporation that
decided to change banks just a few weeks ago.  As the Secretary, I drafted a
document listing our officers, and the club's decision to change banks,
which the President and Treasurer then used to open the new bank account at
Sound Bank without any difficulties.  The entire archive, or even sections
of the archive of the business meeting are not necessary to document
decisions of the Business Meeting - only the announcement message of by the
Secretary of the decision is needed to document the decision; or a print out
of our Group Conscience page.  

2. Regarding our financial practices.  

First, I fail to see how the bylaws define any procedures in a way that
limits flexibility.  In fact, the bylaws were carefully written to be
generic in most situations. Take the words "print" and "email" for example.
Those words are quite generic today.

You stated that you were "able to access statements online and to print
those statements but NOT save those statements to an electronic file."  This
is not accurate.  It is extremely easy to print the statements to a PDF
instead of a physical printer, and which saves the document as an electronic
file.  I did exactly that a few days ago when I emailed PDFs of the bank
account webpage reports to Anne who is currently acting as our Treasurer.  

You stated " specifically state "print" and "email" assumes that those
technologies will be the best way to ensure appropriate checks and balances
20 years from now."  

This raises several issues.  

A. The technology issue: Please remember " A Serenity Place (ASP) is a
closed, online Al-Anon email meeting."  ASP is not a chat room, or a phone
meeting, or a Zoom meeting, or anything else.  This has been true for over
25 years and I don't see that changing anytime in the foreseeable future.
The point being that ASP is an email meeting, so if email is no longer a
viable communication technology, it follows that ASP wouldn't be around
anyway.  OTOH, if the contention is the "best" way, then that would be
subjective.  There may be other means of communication that are "easier" but
they fail to provide the requisite documentation, especially regarding
financial reporting. 

B. The best way to ensure appropriate checks and balances.  AKA following
appropriate financial procedures and publishing financial reports.  Print
and email are superior methods of documenting reports, which is necessary
with financial reports.  In fact, email is so prevalent in the financial
world that it now dominates the processing of loan and insurance claim
documentation in the real world, except for the final phase - the final
signing of the loan docs, which are emailed to the borrower, then printed,
signed, notarized and snail mailed to the lender.  Other contemporary
technologies such as phone, chat and video conferencing (ie. Zoom) are great
for conversing, but lousy at documentation.

C.  The best practices for money handling and financial reporting have
changed very little for decades.  The key difference between the Treasurer
and the other service positions is the Treasurer's access to money.  That
this is Al-Anon doesn't change that in any way - money is money.  Again, the
fellowship recognizes this reality and the Service Manual recommends 2
signatures on every check and 2 to 4 members with access to the bank
account.  If anyone here thinks that being Al-Anon somehow makes this
different, I hate to break the news.  It doesn't.  I personally know of
Al-Anon treasurers that stole $27,000, $15,000, and over $300.

Back in the early days of 1996 when I was putting the concepts in my mind on
what ASP should be in writing, my goal was to create a platform that would
be a safe and stable place for members of Al-Anon to gather and share their
Al-Anon experience, strength and hope via email.  Safe and stable Al-Anon
was the priority.  I wasn't concerned about simple, what might, or might not
happen in 5 or 10 years.  Much less 20 years.  It didn't even occur to me
that it would still be here 25 years later.  My priority at ASP has not
changed - it is to create a safe and stable platform for our members.  Like
so many other things in life, I've learned that doing it right is rarely
about doing it easy or doing it simple.  If it was, the world would be a
very different place.

Should it come to pass that technology changes or ASP changes in a way that
the bylaws need to be updated, then we update the bylaws.  It's not that
difficult to do.  

Love and SERENITY,

Steve