[Businessmtg] ASP Group Representative Report

[aohara77 at comcast.net]

Hello Business meeting friends,

 

I will do my best to keep this report reined in, hard to do justice to the
work that is going on in the area - despite years in Al-Anon and group level
service, this is new territory for me.  

 

The GEA - Global Electronic Area, is Al-Anon's newest Area.  It was created
and established to serve virtual Al-Anon groups.  ASP is just one of 875
virtual groups registered with the Al-Anon World Service Organization (WSO).
The first area meeting took place in late 2021.  I stepped into the Group
Representative (GR) role in January 2022.   I am new to the role, having
served as a GR when  I was very new to Al-Anon in the early 1990's.  The
definition of the GR hasn't changed much - the GR will attend meetings and
assemblies.  Per the service manual, the GR should be an informed member of
the Al-Anon family groups and be familiar with the service manual.  The GR
will be the voice of their group bringing information from the group to the
meeting and then bringing information from the meetings back to the group.

 

In my short time as GR for ASP, I have learned so much about myself and how
this program works in much larger forums than our meetings.  I have a
dedicated email box where there is a lot of Area activity.  Lots of
questions being posed in that forum.  Unlike ASP, many of these groups are
new and were an outcome or result of the pandemic - some GR's have  a lot of
operational questions about their meetings.  

 

What this new area doesn't have is districts.  Districts in the F2F meeting
world are broken out by geography.  Several groups in a geographic area roll
up into a district, simple.  There is a District Rep (DR) that elected by
the GR's in that district, and the DR holds meetings in the district.  The
DR is the liaison between the groups and the Area.  Without geography, how
do we create districts?  Each GR was asked to go back to their groups for
input and thoughts on how we could create districts.

 

Several months ago, in our ASP business meeting, we discussed districting
and how this new GEA could design its districts.  After some discussion, I
went back to the GEA with some of the thoughts that came out of the
discussion.  The basic recommendation from ASP was to layer the group
types/platforms into districts - there are 23 platforms that support virtual
meetings.  

 

Now I watched Al-Anon at work through another lens.  To determine how the
districts were going to be created, a District Thought Force was assembled,
I was honored to participate in these District Thought Force meetings that
took place weekly.  Skillfully facilitated by one of my peers, we spent
about 8 weeks discussing and documenting thoughts and considerations.
Outcomes from the Thought Force have been summarized and will be shared at
the next Area meeting on March 4th.  I believe those outcomes will be the
foundation of the next phase of discussion which will be a District Task
Force.  It is the task force that may bring the discussion to the next level
and possibly a vote.  

 

On March 4th, I will attend the Area Assembly, our Area Secretary prepared a
43 page packet that has been distributed to the GR's - that packet contains
a complete update from the Area Treasurer, minutes from the last Area
Assembly, the names and "resumes" of GR's interested in becoming the
Alternate Delegate for the Area and more - at the meeting Saturday,  we will
vote on the Area budget and elect an Alternate Area Delegate.  

 

I am happy to answer questions anyone might have, particularly if there are
more details you are interested in.

 

Yours in Service,

 

Anne O.