[Businessmtg] Steve's Input - Discussion

[Jerry]

Biz-Pals,

I'll begin with Tradition Two - "For our group purpose there is but one authority - a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience..."

        ASP's current Group Conscience does not simply authorize that our funds over our Prudent Reserve MAY be donated to our specified service entities in the proportions enumerated. It clearly directs any overage at the end of each fiscal quarter be allocated as described therein. There is no delegated authority by our Business Meeting to give an individual or group of individuals the right to act in opposition to our Higher Power's expression of His will as voiced in our clear Group Conscience.
        Does ASP have the ability to re-address how we choose to use our funds, excess or reserved? Of course we do: We hold a new Group Conscience to arrive at a new understanding of God's will for us as our circumstances change. Nothing is restraining us from making a permanent or temporary change within our GC authority as our operating environment vary.
        The flaw in Steve's position: He's twisted Concept 3's "The right of decision..." statement (meant to give some elbow room to service workers as to how they perform the tasks they are assigned) into, in this case, our Treasurer gets to autonomously decide whether to perform the assigned tasks at all. In other words against the Group Conscience's direction, against God's expressed will!
        And this when having a refreshing Group Conscience is a solution without controversy, and follows the traditional path Al-Anon groups worldwide accept as how these things are done.

I might add Tradition Four - regarding autonomy of groups "...except in matters affecting another group or Al-Anon or AA as a whole."

        As an electronic meeting, how we do our business may be passed through our members' voices in their other groups to all corners of the world. We are particularly responsible in this new environment to carefully interpret and example the best practices of Al-Anon principles.
        Having a Treasurer make an autonomous decision to circumvent a Group Conscience regarding the use of group funds is an exceptionally bad example.

I believe if we accept and allow the process Steve seems to be suggesting we would be willingly allowing controversy and harmful descent to seep into ASP's house, and suggest a solution can be found by following the normal Al-Anon group practices used by virtually every healthy group world wide:

 - - - - -
        As a member of ASP and ASP's Business Meeting where all ASP Group Consciences are held, and in according to Al-Anon common practice, I call for a new Group Conscience to address how we assign or hold our excess funds over our Prudent Reserves.
- - - - -

In service,
Jerry H.
-


        

On October 8, 2024, at 4:47 PM, Steve Rankin via Businessmtg <businessmtg at asp-afg.org> wrote:

Yes Mary, it is true that we have a group conscience describing the disbursement of funds in excess of our prudent reserve.  Unfortunately, it is also true that the landscape for electronic meetings has changed dramatically, especially for email meetings such as ASP.  

As we have discussed on more than one occasion here in the Business Meeting, these changes have resulted in what amounts to a catastrophic decline in the number of new members joining ASP.   How extreme?  A few years ago, we averaged over 80 new members/month.  Today, we've had a mere 68 new members join ASP over the entire year; an average of 5.66 new members/month.  That's a 91% reduction in the flow of new members.  Unfortunately, our discussions have not led to any solutions.

Concept 3 states "The right of decision makes effective leadership possible."   When Al-Anon trusted servants are faced with issues as significant as this, good leadership compels the trusted servants to make administrative decisions within their operational authority for the benefit of the group.  Concept 2 supports this "The Al-Anon Family Groups have delegated complete administrative and operational authority to their Conference and its service arms."  

The first responsibility of ASP's trusted servants, especially the officers serving on the Steering Committee, is to ASP; not to the District, not to the Area and not to WSO.  Maintaining our prudent reserve is a higher priority for the Treasurer than making donations to the Area and WSO, especially in times when both have excess funds.  

Please note that Motion #24 states: 
"2. Funds in excess of the Prudent Reserve are to be donated quarterly according to the following formulae:
"3. Interim: Until ASP belongs to an Electronic District.  District N/A, Area 60%, WSO 40%.
"4. Permanent: Once the conditions of (a) above have been met, the following formula for donating excess funds applies.  District 60%, Area 30%, WSO 10%."

Since ASP now belongs to District 53, Condition #3 no longer applies and Condition #4 takes effect.  In other words, 60% of our $594 excess funds is owed to the District → $356.40.  Unfortunately, the District has not yet addressed the issue of receiving donations, so while ASP does belong to District 53 invoking Group Conscience 24.4, it is not currently possible to make a donation to District 53. 

So, what about making the other donations in the meantime.  Well, that could be done, however, doing so could easily result in other problems.  First, donating the current excess to solely the GEA and WSO would violate GC 24.  That leaves donating 30% to the GEA ($178.20) and 10% to WSO ($59.40) leaving the District's $356.40 in our excess funds.  What prevents that $356.40 from being treated as simply part of ASP's excess funds the next time around?  Well, the Treasurer could track that as a separate account.  While that would be a minor accounting issue, what prevents that from falling in a crack, such as a future Treasurer interpreting that as part of ASP's excess, or someone in the BM pushing for donating those funds to the GEA and WSO in lieu of District 53?

From my experience in Al-Anon service, the District is the service entity that provides the most service to the groups, which is why groups devote the majority of their excess funds to their Districts.  Besides, the District's excess funds then go to the Area and WSO, so they never get short changed anyway.  

Lastly, you said "I also believe that if we drop below our prudent reserve, consistent appeals to the membership would garner more funds to cover those reserves."  What this means to me is that if ASP's funds drop below our prudent reserve, it becomes the Treasurer's responsibility to make [more frequent and] consistent appeals to the membership for donations.  I respectfully disagree.  Group problems belong to the group, not the trusted servants.  I have long said that no member of ASP has the right to be a consistent problem for a trusted servant of ASP.  Normally, this is about some members that are frequent flyers creating admin problems for the List Administrator.  However, the corollary to this is that the membership as a whole doesn't have the right to create problems for the leadership, whether by its action or inaction.  In other words, a lack of donations by the membership does not create a duty or liability for the Treasurer to increase his/her workload by increasing the frequency if their workload.  Tradition 7 applies to every member of Al-Anon, not just the trusted servants.

For everyone's convenience, I have copied a portion of my July Treasurer's Report below.

Love and SERENITY,
Steve


================================

TREASUER’S COMMENTS:  [July 1, 2024]
  * Donations have fallen this year.  Lest anyone go down the path thinking that this might be a result of the recent server purge, please note the following donations by month:
     January $90, February $30, March $173, April $350, May $75, June $79.    
     FYI, ASP's expenses total $133/month, so it is obvious that our ordinary donations do not support our expenses.
  * Donation numbers have fallen; both the number of members donating and the total amount:
     2023:  38 members made 69 donations totaling $ 2,426
                  4.2% of ASP members donate to the 7th Tradition
                15 members donated more than once last year
                  7 donations/month totaling $ 202/month average.   
     2024:  17 members made 25 donations total $797
                  6.2% of ASP members donate to the 7th Tradition → 93.8% of ASP members are not supporting ASP financially.
                  5 members have donated more than once this year
                4.2 donations/month totaling $133/month




-----Original Message-----
From: Businessmtg On Behalf Of Mary Abbott
Sent: Tuesday, October 8, 2024 4:13 AM
To: steve at serenitysys.com
Cc: ASP Business <businessmtg at asp-afg.org>
Subject: [Businessmtg] Reports


Thanks to our trusted servants for their reports. I don’t have any questions but a comment or two.

 I believe we have a group vote that ensures funds above our prudent reserves will be sent to our service organizations. We have a prudent operating reserve with lots of operating cushion. Until we have a group vote stating that use of funds above our reserves is up to the discretion of the ASP treasurer, I believe those funds should be sent. I also believe that if we drop below our prudent reserve, consistent appeals to the membership would garner more funds to cover those reserves. 

Mary

Sent from my iPhone
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To Unsubscribe, go to: http://www.asp-afg.org/mailman/listinfo/asp
The ASP web site with all kinds of info for ASP members is http://asp-afg.org/members/
For assistance with other ASP issues, contact Lynne, the List Administrator of ASP, at lynne at asp-afg.org