[Businessmtg] Discussion Topic 2

[Marilyn Booms]

Hi biz-pals,

Thanks to Lynne for the in-depth explanation of meeting searches on the
Al-Anon website and the recent changes that may have caused dwindling
subscriptions to ASP. I imagine that the reopening of f2f meetings after
Covid lockdowns has also played a part?

One comment I've heard from new members in my greeting committee service is
that they are overwhelmed by the amount of *daily* emails in the recovery
meeting, and unsubscribe quickly because their inbox overflows So I wonder
if it would be possible to include an option to only subscribe to receive
the meetings on specific days of the week? For example, a newer member
might benefit from the Step or topic days, but not get much out of the
Traditions or Concepts until later in recovery. Or, some may only have time
to read the shares on the weekend after working all week and want to
participate only on Saturday and Sunday. This might out too much burden on
the Greeting Committee, Secretary, and List Administrator to make those
website changes, but I wanted to throw it into the ring for discussion.

I think Jerry's suggestion to list meeting times versus 24/7 is brilliant!
I personally don't see a downside to this and it seems to be something that
could be accomplished fairly quickly with a decision by the BM and
submission of the change to WSO. In searching electronic meetings recently,
I noticed a WhatsApp group that did exactly this. There may be aspects to
this that I am not seeing however.

I also agree that it would be beneficial for the email (and other 24/7)
groups would be more likely to have our voices heard by WSO if we presented
a united front. The GRs having a discussion on mutual challenges could only
help.

While the news that our membership is dwindling is concerning, I'm grateful
that at present, ASP has great member participation in the recovery
meeting. When I joined ASP 3 years ago, I also joined 2 other email groups
to try as many flavors as possible. I'm still subscribed to those groups,
but in my experience, they have very little member participation. I don't
know their total membership, and without taking their inventory, I will say
that there may only be 1-2 shares per day, and in one only 1-2 shares per
week. Many of those are members venting, not what I would consider
"recovery" shares. So at present, my experience is that ASP has better
participation/health than other similar groups out there.

I fully agree that redesigning our website to be more inviting and user
friendly is long overdue. I see that Betsy made some updates and  that's
wonderful (thank you!), but more is needed. The question is, who would be
responsible for this, and who has the time to commit to the project?

Apologies for rambling on, thanks for reading my thoughts!
Marilyn