[Businessmtg] Districts / Overlay District

[Steve Rankin]

Thank you, Jerry!

I think Jerry is spot on.

While there was a handful of electronic meeting before, it wasn't until the
advent of the World Wide Web in the early/mid 1990's that email meetings
started and developed significant number of members.  Except for the fact
that WSO refused to allow us to participate in the greater fellowship's
service structure, the email meetings seemed to be the major type of
electronic/virtual meeting for the next 26+ years.  Then COVID-19 came along
and the world hasn't been the same since.  

Face-to-face meetings were shut down.  A huge percentage of f2f meetings
switched to a virtual video conference format (aka Zoom) as well as swarming
the existing online meetings.  Membership in ASP exploded for several
months.  Now, as the COVID-situation has receded, many members are returning
to their face-to-face meetings.  In terms of personal recovery, I see that
as a good thing.  However, many groups have either switched to a hybrid
format (some members attend f2f while others via Zoom), many groups are
affected by some members splitting off from their old f2f group and sticking
with the Zoom format.  Some are even hijacking the f2f meeting's WSO
registration number.  The result is a significant fall off of members
attending face-to-face meetings, which is not a good thing.  

I'll note again that last December, WSO announced that over 500 Zoom
meetings had registered in recent weeks.  In other words, a very large
majority of the Zoom meetings are very new.  If the posts that I have seen
on the CMA Connects Forum are representative of Zoom meetings, a very high
percentage of Zoom meeting have no clue how Al-Anon service works, how to
support the overall service structure and not merely WSO, etc.  

Like Jerry, I am concerned about the balance of power issue if the 500+ Zoom
meetings, especially if they are subdivided.

I am also concerned about WSO's failure to follow the Traditions and what is
written in the Al-Anon Service Manual.  The Service Manual specifically
talks about how meetings should NOT include the name of the place they meet
at to avoid the implication of affiliation.  Yet, WSO segregates electronic
meetings by the brand name of the technology used by most electronic
meetings.  For example, "Zoom" and "Free Conference Call", "Google Meet",
"Skype" and others are all video conferencing apps  Any member of Al-Anon
with the ability to use a video conferencing app can access any one of them
just as easily as a face-to-face member can access a different church for a
meeting.  Of course, we don't differentiate meetings that meet in churches
from Alano Clubs or recovery centers or other places.  

On a related note, the only electronic meetings that seem to have challenges
participating in the WSO and GEA Webex assemblies are the phone meetings.
It seems that they can participate but without video.  FWIW,s the phone
meetings also seem to have significant behavior problems, as some of their
members tend to be extremely disruptive.  

That's my 2 cents worth for today.

Hugs,
Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: Jerry H.
Subject: [Businessmtg] Districts / Overlay District

Biz-Pals,

Looking at the numbers of zoom meetings it is pretty darn clear to me that
the paultry number of email meetings by comparison will end up shouldering
us to the sidelines if Districts aren't aligned by type.

Locally, Covid caused many face-to-face meetings to change their formats to
zoom meetings. Some more permanently than others. Our f2f meetings are still
suffering lowered attendance as the "ease" of zoom over f2f continues to be
attractive to former members. In at least one case the zoom meeting has
attempted to usurp the name and WSO# of the f2f meeting they've exited.
Others have become hybrids having both zoom and f2f.

Zoom has a different set of problems and needs than email meetings, and, in
order to be effectively represented, I believe the solution for ASP and
other email and similar groups is to belong to an Overlay District as
described in the Al-Anon Service Manual which would serve us better rather
than be wedged into a District which includes all those Zoom meetings.

An appropriate Overlay District for email meetings would have to be created
by the Area's Assembly, then ASP would have to agree to join that Overlay
District by Group Conscience. My position is that this is what ASP should be
seeking.

In service,
Jerry