[Businessmtg] Service

[Mary A.]

Every day since we have been discussing service, I've written an email and
decided not to send it. None of them seemed to reflect the essence of what
I wanted to say. Having served on the SC, I come to the discussion with
insight but also with some bias. I still maintain, as I have said before
during our many, many discussions about service, that what we have is a
retention challenge, not a volunteer challenge. Many good minded, eager to
serve Al-Pals have stepped up to serve on the ASP SC. There have been many
resignations, including mine.

What this situation comes down to for me is the realization that the
business meeting can no more change the dynamic within the SC than we can
change the alcoholic. And as with the alcoholic situation, some people
figure out a way to stay and some have to leave.

So what can we do as a business meeting to help resolve this challenge?
I've spent many hours thinking about this service dilemma. What I believe
is that we need to think about the strengths within the SC. For example,
using the KBDM process may be based on only a few pages of text, but the
interpretation of that text is where things seem to go awry. Our Founders
have specific expectations and interpretations about how the KBDM process
should be employed during our meetings based on their long-standing ASP
service. My opinion is that we need to take advantage of that history and
knowledge in a way that fosters teaching the use of the KBDM process. By
having Founders run our business meetings, we all then have the opportunity
to learn how to use the KBDM process "correctly" through modeling. Perhaps
there are business meeting attendees who think that they might be willing
to volunteer for ASP secretary service but have become leery after having
watched one secretary after another resign. Perhaps such attendees would
have more confidence in the process by seeing the process repeatedly,
consistently done correctly. There would be other secretary
responsibilities that need to be divided up. Perhaps past SC board members
who have held the position of secretary could fill in to find daily chairs
two times a year. These are all short-term ideas/stop-gap solutions until
the SC can be fulling staffed again.

Of course, that presents another problem in that the members of the SC are
already doing double duty in trying to cover all of the ASP service
positions. I believe we all agree that this is not a good thing. However,
we have been focused on filling the list administrator and secretary
positions. I'm happy to hear Lynne report that things are going well for
her in the list admin service position. But instead of focusing on filling
the secretary position, I believe we should consider focusing instead on
filling the GR position first and then the treasurer second. Having those
positions filled, frees up a lot of service time for our Founders. Although
expectations also come with these positions, learning those service
positions is not a trial by fire like learning the "correct" way to use the
KBDM process. Anne O was a wonderful mentor to me while I was on the SC and
I think she would be a wonderful mentor in facilitating a transition for an
ASP business meeting attendee to take over the GR service position. That is
why I like focusing on GR position first.

These are just my thoughts. Take what you like and leave the rest. There
are probably other really good ideas out there about how to solve this
challenge.

Mary A.