[Businessmtg] Districting

Thu Jan 18 20:09:23 PST 2024

Hi Lynne,

IMHO, there's nothing wrong with your thinking at all.  

In the interest of simplifying the discussion, I'm going to put the
electronic groups into two generalized buckets: Legacy groups and new groups
using new technology, such as Zoom groups.  Legacy groups include email,
phone, bulletin board and chat.  
Due to the prevalence of Zoom groups, I'm calling the new tech groups "Zoom
groups". 

1.  NEW TECH GROUPS, such as Zoom groups are almost exclusively recent
spin-offs of f2f meetings; one of the fallouts of COVID.  As such, a large
majority of Zoom groups are serviced by the schedules printed and
distributed by their f2f districts.  Some Zoom groups have reverted back to
their f2f status, some have decided to continue as hybrid groups, and some
have decided to leave their f2f counterpart in the past.  Many have
affiliated with their f2f Area, and hence their f2f District.  Some have not
and are of the GEA.  Some have taken advantage of the chaos and done both.
It is quite messy now and will take some time to clean up.  At the current
time, there is no way of the ordinary member of Al-Anon knowing whether a
Zoom group is affiliated with a geographic area or with the GEA.

2.  LEGACY GROUPS & Internet Presence.  The Legacy groups DEPEND on a
stand-alone Internet presence, generally speaking.  What is notable about
the Legacy groups is that the service is not free.  
BULLETIN BOARD groups depend on someone hosting the Bulletin Board (BBS) on
the Internet AND some way for others to find their BBS group.  BBS still
exist, however their popularity declined rapidly with the advent of the
World Wide Web (WWW) in 1995.
EMAIL GROUPS.  Y'all know what an email group is, so I'll skip that intro.
However, know that an email group requires an email server & mailing list
software; both arranged by the group.  For about 20 years, Yahoo Groups
hosted "free" email groups; that went away in December 2020.  To the best of
my knowledge, most email groups today use a paid service and almost all
email groups have their own website.  
CHAT groups use a technology called Internet Relay Chat which allows members
to see what other members are typing in real time.  As with the other Legacy
technologies, there are costs involved with Chat.  It appears that most
current Chat meetings are hosted on SnapChat, a recovery-oriented site that
is funded by voluntary donations.
PHONE groups, like the Chat groups, mostly use a service hosted by an
organization started by members of Al-Anon.  They have their own website,
domain, and associated expenses, and depend on voluntary contributions, and
donate excess funds to WSO.  

3.  ZOOM groups.  Zoom groups, including the Al-Anon App (actually a Zoom
group), Discord, Facebook, Free Conference Call, Google Meet, Second Life,
Skype, Voxer, and WhatsApp are commercially branded businesses that offer a
limited "free" service limited to the number of participants and/or the
duration of the meeting, OR are funded by a paid subscription.  Other than
choosing a service such as Zoom, there is virtually nothing to do beyond
signing up for the service.  There is no ability to host a website, accept
donations, or advertise the group's meeting without using an additional
service.  These groups are dependent on an external organization, or word of
mouth, to attract members.  
Additionally, as a result of the simplicity of starting a Zoom (etc)
meeting, and the lack of other features common to the Legacy groups, Zoom
meetings tend to have far fewer trusted servants than we have at ASP.  
Last, but not necessarily least, the new-style Zoom groups (etc) have no
control over who joins the group's meetings.  Log in information is posted
on WSO's public website for all to see.  There is nothing to prevent
non-members from crashing a meeting.  The administrator may be able to mute
or delete a member, however there is no ability for the trusted servants to
discuss this prior to muting or deleting a problem member.  In other words,
unlike what we have at ASP, the administration of these new meetings is very
autocratic.  

In addition to the difference you described, there are other issues that
differentiate the new style Zoom meetings:
*  No archive of group consciences
*  No archive of group documentation
*  No separation of the Business Meeting from the Recovery Meeting.  
*  No passing of the Seventh Tradition basket that goes to the group, and
then is distributed to the service entities per the group conscience.  FYI,
the Al-Anon App does have a built in feature on the home page for donating
to WSO, but no ability to donate to the GEA or District.  
*  Never faced with the issue of a host service vanishing, being bought out,
etc.  All of these issues have affected ASP at least once, yet here we are
today, operating just as we did back in May 1996.  Unlike the new
technologies, ASP merely has to find a new host for our domain, restore our
website and mailing list, and poof!  We are back in business - and the only
thing the members had to do was either (a) absolutely nothing, they never
knew we'd changed, or (b) wait a day or so while us admin folks worked
feverishly behind the Wizard of Oz curtain.  
*  If the host business of Zoom changes or goes away, that Zoom meeting is
dead and gone.  This happened to the Yahoo Groups meetings back in 2020.  
*  Last, but not least.  Some of these new tech groups require the members
to sign off on a User Agreement that you might not like, if you read it.
For example, the Al-Anon App states "You retain copyright and any other
rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display on or
through, the Services and grant AL-ANON a perpetual, nonexclusive, worldwide
license to use such Content in connection with its business purposes."
In other words, Al-Anon Family Group Headquarters, Inc. has the legal right
to publish anything any member posts in an Al-Anon meeting on the Al-Anon
App.  So much for "Who you see here, what you hear here, let it stay here."

Love and SERENITY,
Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: Businessmtg On Behalf Of Lynne
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2024 8:44 AM
To: steve at serenitysys.com
Cc: ASP Business <businessmtg at asp-afg.org>
Subject: [Businessmtg] Districting

Hi Anne,

Thank you for your email and all your work on this. Why do I think ASP
should be in a district with other email or 24/7 meetings? I have been
thinking about this and I settle on that we face such different issues at
ASP than f2f or zoom meetings (which are basically f2f). The SC is currently
re-doing our website, I'm about to start a purge of inactive members, and
we've been dealing with a dropoff of new requests to join. 
Those are 3 issues we are currently facing that I don't think a  zoom (or
other f2f-like) meeting GR would be able to offer any ESH for.  
These are issues that are inherently different to our platform. And having a
district with few like meetings would mean we don't get any benefit from
being in a district. It is an inherent difference that should be accounted
for in the districting structure from the beginning. 
Maybe I'm thinking about this the wrong way, but that is where I am right
now.

Hugs,

Lynne
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