[Businessmtg] Elected positions

[Lynne]

Hi everyone,

I have really appreciated all of the discussion. With my Secretary hat on, I wanted to remind you that the discussion on this topic will end tonight - so you still have time to comment - and it will be back on the agenda for the next BM. I also didn’t mean to suggest there was consensus on any of these suggestions, just some support. 

The rest of this email are my personal thoughts on all of this. Sorry for the length. I keep coming back to the fact that we have not been able to fill these elected trusted servant positions for years, which means we need to change something since our current requirements aren’t working. 

It seems there are two barriers to a larger pool of applicants. One is attendance of the business meetings, as that is where our pool of applicants comes from. The other is the requirements or barriers for applying for these positions. I don’t think we can solve the first problem with changing ASP’s policies (?). But we can address the second. 

Our current requirement of 1 year of prior ASP service means that to be eligible, one must serve as a daily chair twice or a greeter once or as the recording secretary (although the length of that appointment was not set, so it could be 6 months or 1 year). I agree with others who have said that some service at ASP should be required as it introduces people to how things are done at ASP. In practical terms then, if we lower the prior service requirement to 6 months, the only thing we change is allowing people to be eligible after serving as a daily chair once instead of twice, and possibly for the recording Secretary to be eligible after 6 months. There would be no change for the greeters as their term is for 1 year. 

The upside of making that change would be that a larger pool of daily chairs would be eligible, which is our goal!!!  I guess I am struggling to see the downside of making that change. It would still mean that someone was at ASP long enough to feel comfortable volunteering to be a daily chair. And as Savannah mentioned, that can take a couple cycles to get appointed. And then they have served as a daily chair for 6 months. At the same time, that person is also likely to be attending the business meetings since that is the main way to know and learn about these positions. I just don’t see what we gain by requiring someone to be a daily chair twice. Especially when we desperately need to increase our pool of eligible applicants. 

In addition, we’re not throwing newly elected trusted servants into the deep end of the pool and asking them to sink or swim. There is a lot of support for newly elected trusted servants from the steering committee. I know that I leaned heavily on Steve and Anne and Kelley when I was learning the List Administrator position. And now I am getting the help and support I need in the Secretary position. And last, anyone applying does have to be elected by the BM!

As to counting outside Al-anon service. We couldn’t lower the ASP service requirement less than 6 months without eliminating it completely. So I guess I don’t see how we could add this in without it getting complicated. Unless the suggestion would be to change it to 6 months ASP service and outside Al anon service and leave it at 1 year for people with no outside Al anon service. But then we are limiting our pool of applicants further than if we just lowered the ASP service to 6 months, which I would be against.

I am very grateful to the members who pointed out that using the business meeting attendance would be a bit of a nightmare for the Secretary or other steering committee position who would have to track that - which I completely agree with! I would think that at least attendance of the BM would be kind of built in for most applicants since that is where the pool of applicants comes from? 

The length of service term is long. 3 years is daunting. But I can see why it is in place now that I have been on the steering committee. For the greeter chair, it means they oversee 3 sets of greeters. For the LA, Secretary and treasurer, it takes a while to really get comfortable in the position (my experience is at least 6 months). If we lowered this to 2 years, I would worry that we would get back to this position of being short handed sooner. That being said, people don’t always serve the entire time 3 years anyway. So I am conflicted on this one. 

Take what you like. 
Hugs,
Lynne

Sent from my iPhone