[Businessmtg] Fwd: May 2023 ASP Group Representative Report

[Anne]

HI Tori and All,

This is all related to the Area we are affiliated with - Global Electronic Area (GEA) is a catch all for every virtual group registered with the WSO.  After several years of discussion, the GEA was formed in late 2021, and it was formed without Districts or service positions in place.  It has been a long journey to establish this Area and is a work in progress.  We do have Area officers and  It is now in the next phase which is defining the structure in the context of the virtual world.  The GEA does not yet function like other Area's but will.  Note: prior to the GEA, ASP and other electronic meetings did not have a voice in Al-Anon above the meeting level.  We did not have a District or Area to link to and we were recognized only as a meeting (Steve  is better at explaining this than I am!)

Anyway, an Area Assembly's attendees are usually District Rep's.  The GEA has not yet established or defined how to create Districts, so we don't have District Rep's - this means the Group Rep's attend the GEA Assembly meetings - that is a lot of people to meet, review/discuss and vote on procedures - it has been a challenge!

It is critical that Districts get setup in the virtual world.  Unlike the other Area's that simply look at geographic boundaries to define a district, the GEA has more layers to consider.  The District Task Force will be presenting a summary of the research done on Districts to the GEA in an Assembly next week.

Hopefully I have answered your question and I invite Steve or others to chime in to correct anything I might have presented incorrectly.

Hugs,

Anne

-----Original Message-----
From: Businessmtg <businessmtg-bounces+aohara77=comcast.net at asp-afg.org> On Behalf Of Tori Sciacca via Businessmtg
Sent: Thursday, May 4, 2023 12:21 PM
To: aohara77 at comcast.net
Cc: ASP Business <businessmtg at asp-afg.org>
Subject: [Businessmtg] Fwd: May 2023 ASP Group Representative Report

Which District and Area meeting was this brought to? GEA? I assume it’s an electronic meeting?
> 
> Tori 👩🏻‍🌾🧑🏽‍🍳
> 
>> On May 1, 2023, at 12:24 PM, Anne <aohara77 at comcast.net> wrote:
>> All,
>> At our last business meeting, I gave some Group Representative (GR) 
>> background as well as some information about the Area.  As noted 
>> then, the Global Electronic Area (GEA) is very new and is lacking 
>> some of the established outlines and procedures that the geographic 
>> Areas use.  The lack of districts being most apparent and the focus 
>> of the GEA - again I was honored to be a part of the District Thought 
>> Force committee, this group completed their research and then made a 
>> recommendation for districting that will eventually move to a 
>> District Task Force committee.  This next Task Force will be charged with taking the final recommendation and coming up
>> with an implementation and execution plan.    
>> The District Thought Force did not have an opportunity to present 
>> anything at the Area assembly in early March, however, a summary from 
>> the Thought Force was shared with the GR's as part of the published 
>> agenda and associated supporting documents.
>> After the Area Assembly in early March, the Thought Force was invited 
>> to present their findings to the Area officers.  Now the Thought 
>> Force participants will be presenting to the Area at an Adhoc 
>> Assembly in May where all GR's will be invited to hear from the 
>> District Thought Force Committee.
>> Thought Force notes..
>> What rose to the top as the most important considerations for districting:
>> :Languages - participation is the key to harmony, those non-English 
>> speaking GR's and DR's will not be able to participate easily in an 
>> English speaking district.
>> :Platforms - although overlaying different meeting platforms was an 
>> important consideration, there may be reasons to keep some platforms 
>> together.
>> :Time zones - accommodating 24 time zones is tricky but can be done 
>> with enough forethought.
>> Other considerations:
>> :Number of groups to a District might need to be limited due to the 
>> expectation that the District Representative (DR) visit the groups in 
>> their districts.
>> And then potential barriers to participation in Districts either as a 
>> GR or a DR:
>> :Language
>> :Technology
>> ****note - barriers are nothing new to Al-Anon meetings, prior to 
>> virtual meetings, members faced barriers re: accessibility when they 
>> were based in rural areas that had no meetings, or if they were housebound.
>> And finally, although NOT part of information brought forward as part 
>> of the District Thought Force's summary, we discussed with the Area 
>> officers the need for the GEA to be broken out into smaller areas.
>> Please let me know if there are any questions.  
>> Hugs,
>> Anne O.
>> ____________________________
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>> The ASP web site with all kinds of info for ASP members is 
>> http://asp-afg.org/members/ For assistance with other ASP issues, 
>> contact Steve the Founder of ASP, at steve at serenitysys.com


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