[Businessmtg] Elected position discussion/Lynne

[Jerry]

Thanks, Lynne.
My current (and evolving) thoughts on your questions follow:

>1. There is support for reducing the previous ASP service for elected trusted servants from 1 year to 6 months, although some would prefer the List Admin, Secretary or Treasurer to still have 1 year prior ASP service.

       First, I'm not certain how to interpret the statement "There is support..." Yes, some have expressed support, but that's different than the consensus necessary to put something into a motion (a majority of current BM members having expressed agreement to a defined change.) Has the majority of this full BM stated they favor a change to a 6 months' prior ASP service requirement for standing for office, or do you mean "some have supported?"

>***Question for further discussion: Why would people be in favor of 1 year Vs 6 months for specific positions?

     Principally we're only addressing this because for some time now we haven't had enough volunteers standing for our timed-out or vacant elected positions. Al-Anon suggests that members hold only one office at a time. We're not able to follow that recommendation so we are currently officially disregarding a suggestion which Al-Anon experience has proven to be wise.
     One part hindering a solution to this is ASP's (practice or policy, I can't remember which at the moment) is that in order to stand for an elected position, first one has to be a member of the particular Business Meeting being held where candidates are being considered and voted upon. So the eligible field is not the entire ASP membership, some of whom may have extensive other Al-Anon service experience and qualifications, but only those few who choose to attend a very small BM - most of whom (?) don't have the prior ASP prior service qualifications, or are already holding an elected position.

I believe the responsibilities of our elected offices, considering both the individual tasks each office requires and as members of our Steering Committee where they are charged with overseeing ASP's future and creating the BM's agendas, requires a minimum of 1 year of prior ASP service experience. A 6 month minimum is not, in my mind, sufficient to assure a leadership which can guide us through the conditions found in this electronic format. (Please, though, note my exception expressed below in >2.)
      
>2. There is support for including other Al anon service as part of the service requirement in addition to or in lieu of time at ASP (multiple combinations have been suggested).
>***Question for further discussion: Why was prior Al anon service not originally part of the requirements for ASP elected trusted servants? What are the pros and cons of this?

     When ASP was founded, on-line Al-Anon, let alone the common use of the internet, was uncharted territory. Few if any people in the greater Al-Anon structure had a clue what to make of us. Add to that one of our original founder's experience with the Al-Anon hierarchy, the WSO, wasn't exactly welcoming and friendly, so, not unusual that our policy was set according to the needs of the group as seen at that time. Our founders had a greater understanding of what it took to run an on-line Al-Anon meeting and of the differences between face-to-face and on-line meetings' needs. The founders had long experience in f2f Al-Anon and in Al-Anon service at many levels before ASP's founding where members of f2f meetings and those all the way throughout Al-Anon's service structure including the WSC and the WSO had no or little understanding of on-line's needs. So it was natural then to exclude non-ASP Al-Anon service in our internal structure. ("Each group is autonomous..." )
     Pros: There are ASP members who have been here at ASP for many years and who also have extensive Al-Anon service experience, sometimes decades of it. These ASP members DO have the understanding an appreciation of on-line recovery and ASP in particular. Given that we have continuously vacant elected seats, these members are quite likely to be perfectly capable of keeping ASP's best interests in mind while in elected ASP service. What level of this other service we should count? I'm not sure. District Rep and above I think yes. Group Rep? Hard to say since many GR's are in name only and attend District and Area meetings only sparingly if at all.
     Cons: We have no way to assure that candidates have accumulated extensive service knowledge, or if their titles do or don't reflect their participation in these other positions.

>3. There is a suggestion to count participation in the business meeting toward the ASP service requirement for elected trusted servants. 
>***Question for discussion: Has this been considered previously? What are the pros and cons of this?

     I don't believe this has been considered before.
     Pros: I see nothing which advocates in favor of having simply attended a BM as a qualification for our elected offices.
     Cons: Having to continuously take the role at BM's, track individual member's email comments, track their voting, and having to set minimum standards for determining what then qualifies one to use that BM participation level as part of the qualification to run for elected office sounds like a nightmare!

>4. There is concern that the 3-year commitment for elected trusted servants is too long and could put off prospective people who might otherwise apply. 
>***Question for further discussion: What is the reason for the 3 year commitment and what are the pros and cons of lowering this?

     In the beginning there was no on-line Al-Anon. A few people, seeing a possible way to bring Al-Anon recovery to the world set up meetings on-line and, in ASP's case, created our originating practices and policies based on how Al-Anon's Areas, Districts, and Group Representatives were run. Elected position terms for those who interact outside of the group level all have 3-year terms. Because on-line meetings operate worldwide, not like local meetings, the 3-year standard was followed.
     Pros: The only pro for lowering the 3-year prior ASP service requirement is to qualify more members for vacant officer positions.
     Cons: As evidenced by our current predicament, having an in-depth knowledge of the interworkings of ASP is essential to keeping us up and running. Having held the List Administrator and Secretary positions simultaneously (whatever one's feelings on the job I did), I can easily say that the service experience needed to do the job(s) can be considerable and that the learning curve is longer than I'd like to admit. Any lowering of the 3-year standard would also run the risk of lowering the level of service ASP has come to rely on. (Please, though, note my exception expressed below in >2 above.)

>5. There is a suggestion to lower the ASP participation requirements for the appointed positions to allow a possible faster path to service as an elected trusted servant. 
>***Question for further discussion: I think there might be conflicting guidelines for this between 1 year and 6 months. Could someone who has been here for a long time offer some clarity?

     Faster path isn't the goal. Being able to fully serve ASP's needs is. As long as only 20-30+/- members attend the Business Meeting (including our already elected officers and some no doubt who have no interest in being on the SC) thereby limiting the number of folks who can stand for elected office, this is in my estimation going to be an ongoing problem - unless we find a way to get more members to attend the BM's AND lower eligibility requirements long enough to bridge over until we have many more members who qualify for our elected positions under our current standards.
     If lower standards are decided upon I suggest we do so for a set, temporary period after which we would need to revert to current standards, re-approve the lowered standards, or pen new ones.

In service,
Jerry
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