[Businessmtg] Districts / Overlay District

[Jerry H.]

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
-