[Businessmtg] CMA, Alternate GR, and At-Large Discussions - 2

[Jerry]

Biz-Pals,

CMA position morphing from a simple mailing address into a deliberative position:

This caught me entirely by surprise. That the person whose job it was to simply pick up the mail and drop it off to the group all of a sudden was elevated to someone who was fully ensconced in a forum which was discussing the future of electronic meetings' place in Al-Anon floored me.

After all, Al-Anon has long had a structure in place for working complex things out which included our links in service, but it seems that rather than go through those links (through the Delegates, District Reps,  and Group Reps with person-to-person communications) the WSO elected to communicate electronically using the CMA address (best guess: many/most electronic groups didn't have GR's because we never needed one before; who knows?) Perhaps because many meetings, f2f and electronic had no GR this seemed most effective at the time. Dunno.

In any case I'm strongly of opinion that group GR's should be the sole contact the WSO should be using for contacts with groups and that if groups choose not to have a GR then they've chosen to be out of the loop. These CMA "service people" are not elected by groups to serve beyond group level and I don't see them entrusted by groups to do more than pick up or receive mail and deliver it to their groups. Not involved in decision-making. Keep the traditional links of service the same for f2f and electronic meetings.

THIS GOES TOO for a group's need for an Alternate Group Rep. Very often Alt. GR's are assigned to attend AIS (Area Information Service) meetings where reps from local groups cooperate in common activities and functions. PERHAPS this served as the model the WSO chose for communicating with groups, but uses the CMA person listed instead? In any case I think ASP should create an official Alternate Group Rep position elected by the BM for a term equal to our GR. The AltGR could be assigned as the name on the CMA forms and cover those bases. Both would serve on the SC with voice, but only one, the GR (or the AltGR in the absence of the GR), gets a vote there.

My next email will cover my position on the two At-Large positions.

Jerry
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