[Businessmtg] FW: Disappointed

[Steve Rankin]

Hi folks,

As I mentioned earlier this evening, I also attended the GEA Task Force presentation of their recommendation for districting in the GEA.  And as I alluded to earlier, I was not pleased with what I observed.  I strongly believe that the GEA’s districting plan will NOT result in a fair representation of the various platforms and languages.  Instead, at best, it will absolutely result in under-representation of minority platforms and minority languages.  

 

To make matters worse, EVERY district will be handicapped by fewer than 10 groups with elected GRs.  

 

This is by design.  

 

Do the math . . .

1.	There are approximately 840 electronic groups
2.	GEA Task Force recommends all groups be assigned a district, whether they have a GR or not.
3.	GEA Task Force recommends a MAXIMUM of 20 groups per district → 42 districts
4.	57% of the electronic groups do NOT have a GR
5.	Therefore, 57% of the 20 groups in any given district do not have a GR and therefore, are not active in any way in their district
6.	The result is only 8.6 GRs per district IF there is perfect attendance in district meetings – not enough people for a viable district

 

What about the Service Manual.  Further aggravating my concerns is the fact that the GEA Task Force recommendation is contrary to policy stated in the Service Manual.  At issue here is the policy that states that groups have choices, yet the GEA recommendation is that the GEA will make these decisions.  Period.  

 

Below is my letter expressing my concerns to both the GEA Chair and the Chair of the Districting Task Force.  I received this response from the GEA Chair “Thank you for your service and for your input!” and nothing from the Task Force Chair.  

 

Love and SERENITY,

Steve

 

 

 

To: Rosemary Binder, GEA Chair: Tom, GEA Districting Task Force Chair
Sent: Tuesday, December 12, 2023 6:33 AM
From: Steve Rankin <steve at serenitysys.com>
Subject: Re: Disappointed

 

 

On Tue, Dec 12, 2023, 4:42 AM Steve Rankin <steve at serenitysys.com <mailto:steve at serenitysys.com> > wrote:

Hi Rosemary and Tom,

 

I need to express my personal disappointment with how the GEA officers & Task Force members are handling the districting issue.

 

I attended the GEA meeting on December 2nd as our Alternate GR; our GR attended both the December 2nd and 9th meetings.  I had studied the Task Force recommendations in advance.  I had several concerns about the Task Force recommendations before the Dec 2nd meeting and shared them with my group’s Steering Committee and GR.  Unfortunately, our groups’ Business Meeting was in the midst of an important discussion and group conscience regarding the scheduling of our Business Meetings, which precluded our being able to discuss the Task Force’s recommendations prior to the presentations.  To my dismay, I learned later that this sort of thing was a non-issue and of no concern with the GEA’s Task Force.  

 

My concerns:

*	The extremely short notice for the GEA meetings.

It’s no secret that December is an unusually hectic month for many worldwide.  Scheduling meetings in December is an iffy proposition at best, and doing so with short notice strikes me as a questionable decision.  

The short notice made it impractical if not impossible for most electronic meetings to inform their membership of the Task Force recommendations before the meetings.

*	We couldn’t help but notice that the Task Force recommendation eliminating districting self-choice ran counter to the Service Manual.  

While I certainly understand our Tradition of group autonomy and its relationship to policies described in the Service Manual, I do expect groups that choose to differ with the Service Manual to substantiate those decisions with rationale based on sound Al-Anon principles.  That clearly was not the case in this instance.

*	We were gravely concerned by the recommendation to limit districts to 20 groups.

This recommendation is exacerbated by the recommendation that the districts include groups without GRs.  Since the GEA reports that 57% of the groups do not have GRs, it follows that 57% of the groups in a district would not have GRs, which means that if every GR reliably attended district meetings, district meetings would be limited to just 8.6 members; or 8 to 9 members at best.

Even if a district was as successful as we were in getting 100% of the GRs to attend, that would still only be 8 to 9 GRs in attendance, max.  Since every district needs at least 4 trusted servants: DR, Alt DR, Secretary and Treasurer (assuming no Coordinators).  With districts limited in size this way would likely result in a greater percentage of districts officers holding dual roles as a GR, leaving only even fewer regular GRs not holding a district service position.  This is not a sustainable structure.  

While on this topic, I’ll mention other issues with limiting districts to 20 groups:

There is no corresponding policy in the Service Manual or face-to-face districts.

The number is arbitrary.

I believe the logic supporting this limit is faulty.  I understand that the Task Force was concerned about DRs needing to visit Groups within their District.  

First, we need to accept that the Service Manual states “may” visit groups in their district; visiting the Groups within the District is not presumed to be a duty of the position.  

Second, there is no burden associated with visiting the electronic groups within the district compared to visiting the face-to-face groups within a District; there is absolutely no travel time or expense involved.  

Third, I’ll note that there were 42 groups in my district when I was DR.  Today, I see there are well over 100 in the face-to-face Los Angeles District. 

Fourth, I should mention that if the GEA expects DRs to visit the groups in their district, then it follows that the members of the GEA should be able to have an equal or even greater expectation that the Area Officers will visit the districts within the GEA.  

I should mention that a natural result of the implementing a 20 groups/district policy is the unmitigated dominance of every district by the plethora of Zoom meetings; in most cases, each with no more than one meeting using a different platform.  I understand that the GEA Task Force discounted the significance of platforms in districting, however it is obvious to us that different platforms have distinct problem sets directly related to the platform.  For example, the GRs of Zoom meetings have no understanding of how an email meeting works for the members, much less the very different technical and business side of an email meeting.  As a result, it is highly likely that the Zoom meeting GR would enjoy considerable technical and business-related support and benefit from attending district meetings, yet unlikely that an email group’s GR would find anything of the sort for them in the district meeting.  

As I recall, the non-English speaking meetings were sorely disappointed by WSO’s decision to create only one electronic area, instead of several that would greatly facilitate communication among the more common languages.  While I wasn’t surprised at WSO’s decision, I am disappointed that the GEA districting Task Forse has not offered any suggested solutions to the language issue beyond the possibility of creating a few Spanish-speaking overlay districts.  

*	The Task Force did address and quickly dismissed the issue of groups registering as face-to-face groups with their geographic Area and their Zoom counterpart registering as an electronic meeting in the GEA.  The statement was made that this simply could not happen as a group would only be able to register with WSO as one or the other.  

I respectfully disagree.  Prior to 2020, my estimate of the number of electronic meetings of all kinds was well under 100.  Barring data from WSO supporting some other count, I’ll stick with that.  Subsequently, there was an explosion of new Zoom, Al-Anon App and similar groups that total nearly 1,000 today and that number is growing.  If there are 900 new electronic meetings registered in the last year or so, did an equal number of face-to-face meetings die off completely?  For certain, some did, however I have little doubt that many hybrid meetings simply registered with WSO as a new electronic meeting.  In any case, it is also apparent that most of the new Zoom meetings have a geographical historical basis, along with a geographical commonality in their membership.  This is a lot messier than many are willing to admit.

*	I was concerned by the prominent focus of the Task Force on unity in the GEA, and the nearly complete failure address the corresponding purpose of 

Consider the Service Manual’s statement. . . 

“The District is the first link from the groups to the Area, the WSC, and the WSO, connecting the groups in unity and for mutual aid.” Page 153

It is not the purpose of the districts to create unity within the GEA or the greater fellowship.  Instead, the district’s purpose is to connect the groups.  Whether unity is achieved or even improved depends on how well the districts serve as a source of mutual aid for the groups within the district.  If the district fails to provide mutual aid to some groups, there will be no unity with respect to those groups.  If either the internal politics or the structure of the district disenfranchises some groups, then there is little chance of unity.  

*	The Task Force presentation included no discussion of alternative districting alternatives, such as language, platform. 

The message that I got from this was that the intended purpose of presentation was to push or sell the Task Force’s recommendations on the GRs rather than inform the GRs of the options and let the GRs reach an informed group conscience.  This was supported by the Task Force’s push back regarding questions during the Q&A session.  

*	It is not the primary purpose of the districts to create unity within the GEA or the greater fellowship.  

Instead, the district’s purpose is to connect the groups.  Whether unity is achieved or even improved depends on how well the districts serve as a source of mutual aid for the groups within the district.  If either the politics or the structure of the district disenfranchises some groups, then there is little unity.  In other words, the two major functions of the districts is to provide a conduit for the flow of information between the groups and the Area, and to provide a source of mutual aid for the groups in the district.  If those two functions are done well, then there will be unity within the groups of the district.

*	My GR submitted a request for a copy of the PowerPoint slide show that was used in the presentation so that our group could be better informed regarding the districting plans in the GEA.  I’m certain that she was not alone in making this request.  Not only was it was denied, a request for the graphics used to illustrate the Task Force’s recommendations was also denied.  I fail to comprehend any Al-Anon principle that justifies denying background information to the groups on important issues to the impacted fellowship.  How can GRs be expected to inform their groups about issues if the GEA refuses to provide the GRs with the supporting documentation.  Recall that the purpose of discussions in Al-Anon business meetings is to reach and informed group conscience.  
*	It has become clear that the GEA and Task Force have demonstrated little interest in providing the Groups with the information necessary for the electronic groups to discuss pending issues within their Groups structure before they are expected to take part in discussion and decisions, especially on such a critical issue as districting.
*	Last, but certainly not least, is the treatment of the GRs by the members of the Task Force in the meetings, especially the December 9th meeting.  I understand that not only were the Task Force members abrupt and rude to the GRs, but actually referred to GRs as “ignorant”.  Would it be great if GRs were well versed in the Service Manual, Al-Anon policy & history.  Of course.  However, not even the most arrogant members of Al-Anon that I’ve known in my decades of Al-Anon service would have treated the GRs as occurred during the Task Force meetings.  The fact of life in Al-Anon is that GRs are the novices in our service structure.  As novices, any experienced member would know that precious few GRs are well versed in the Service Manual.  From my observations in the forums, this is especially true in the electronic AFG community.  So, while may be that our GRs are ignorant in the technical sense, there is no excuse for the GEA leadership to dismiss a GRs comment or questions as “ignorant”, or worse referring to a GRs question as “ignorant”.  That is nothing less than calling out the GR that asked that question “ignorant” and chastising the GRs in general for asking ignorant questions.  

In conclusion, I need to say that I am extremely disappointed in the Districting Task Force’s recommendation, how the Task Force handled much of the presentation, the failures of the Task Force to inform the GRs on the alternatives, the failure of the Task Force to address the holes in their recommendation, and the arrogance of some Task Force members towards the GRs.  Additionally, I am very concerned and disappointed by the GEAs failure to schedule GEA meetings and Assemblies well in advance.  It is well established that meetings experience the best attendance and overall success (aka unity) when they are held regularly on a schedule known to all well in advance.  At the Area level that simply means that every GEA meeting and Assembly for 2024 should available to the GRs many months, if not a year in advance.  For example, my face-to-face Area held quarterly Area business meetings, annual Assemblies. an annual Al-Anon conference, and an annual Alateen conference.  A notice of merely a couple of weeks before a critical presentation on a critical issue, and a mere six weeks’ notice before an Assembly where a major decision by the GRs is expected is unreasonable at best.  

Lastly, I am concerned that the GRs will feel pressured to make a decision on January 20th.  I’ve heard some talk about the idea of making a temporary decision, however my experience is that temporary decisions quickly become permanent. Sometimes this is intentional, and sometimes it’s simply a matter of momentum.  For example, the first Guidelines for Electronic Meetings stated “On a three-year trial basis (1996-98), on-line meetings were being listed with the World Service Office (WSO) Group Records so that members or potential newcomers interested in attending electronic meetings will know how to access them. These meetings have a group contact and receive WSO newsletters, announcements and the WSO Appeal Letters as all registered Al- Anon/Alateen groups do in order that members attending these meetings or the meeting itself can support the WSO (Seventh Tradition).”  As Ric B., Executive Director of WSO, told me personally in February 1996, that 3-year trial basis would be renewed again and again. . . effectively becoming permanent until COVID and the WSC motions of 2020.

Love and SERENITY,

Steve Rankin