[Businessmtg] ASP Group Representative's Report

[Anne]

Good Morning Everyone,

 

I am the ASP Group Representative.  

 

Our Area, is the Global Electronic Area and we are Panel 62 of the Global Electronic Area.  

***The WSO defines Panel in the following way Panel—A panel consists of one-third of the Delegates attending the World Service Conference (WSC). A panel is elected every year for a three-year term. The elections of the three panels are staggered so that a Conference always includes one panel of Delegates with two years’ experience. A non-panel Area is one that has not yet joined the Conference. Terms Used in Al-Anon Service—WSO Notes - Al-Anon Family Groups <https://al-anon.org/blog/terms-used-in-al-anon-service-wso-notes/> 

 

Our Area Delegate, Burt P. has been preparing materials and holding sessions for GRs to attend both ahead of and after the WSC.  Unfortunately, my schedule has prevented me from attending any of the sessions.   I will share some information about this at the end of my report.

 

Note that Panels are on a 3 year rotation and the GEA panel rotates out at the end of the year and so there will be Area openings that will need to be filled at the end of the year.

 

District News – We are in District 53.  There are 20 groups assigned to this district, we have 6 active GRs attending this meeting and hope to see this number grow.  The district meets monthly, on the first Saturday of every month.  I did not attend in May but did in June.  We elected a DR and at our last meeting, she said her plan was to visit all meetings in our district.  Her challenge is that she is in South Africa where she only has a landline telephone.  Making some meetings out of reach for her, phone meetings in particular.  We will discuss this again on Saturday when the district meets again.  A few solutions to this dilemma were discussed including how groups might be able to make financial contributions to any long distance charges she would incur.  More to come on this after the next meeting on Saturday.

 

And finally, as we (I) continue to grapple with how best to share District and Area news with ASP, the Steering Committee has discussed this and we agreed a webpage might be the best solution.  So an announcement from me to the recovery meeting, with a path to the page where updates could be shared seemed like a good solution.  This will allow us to bring business related information to the recovery meeting, without overshadowing the topic for that day.  Lynne got the page setup for me, I just need to carve out the time to get content in place.  😊

 

And with that I will close with our delegate’s topic, and then hope to provide you with a summary of the outcomes from the Area’s meeting where the delegates report was presented along with a variety of other topics.  The goal being to get all of this on the page that I am responsible for!

 

Looking forward to feedback and questions……

 

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*****Burt’s WSC topic:

 

Many members of the GEA are interested in promoting translation services.  Currently the only languages supported have been English, Spanish and French.  As a global electronic area, there are far more languages in need of translation.  Burt chose this topic to bring to the conference.  

 

Name

Grant non-WSC meeting language Electronic Groups individually and in groupings permission to translate and distribute the Service Manual where no GSO-translated version is practicably available.

 

Rationale

All Groups in the WSC structure need to understand and follow the Service Manual’s policies, guidelines and spiritual principles. Current policy grants CAL translation and distribution rights, including the Service Manual, to GSOs. GSO’s may have different Service Manuals and such a GSO likely does not translate the (WSO) Service Manual. Thus, some WSC-structure foreign language Groups have no translated (WSO) Service Manual to guide them and lack the power to initiate its translation. 

Name

How can Conference Approved Literature (CAL) be made available globally, accessible in various languages, in an electronic format or other reasonably affordable manner?

 

        Rationale

Thousands of GEA and geographic Area Groups meet electronically. Many members who reside outside of the WSC geographic boundaries face exorbitant shipping costs and duties for printed CAL. Some do not have a GSO nearby. This creates inequality in accessing CAL. Tradition 1’s principle of Unity requires that CAL be available and accessible to anyone, anywhere (Al-Anon Declaration) and necessitates WSC’s involvement to “carry the message to others…” (Step 12).

 
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Yours in Service

 

Anne O

ASPs Interim GR

District 53