Hello ASP members,
Thank you for letting me be of service. This is my first report as the Group Rep, so bear with me as I am learning. If there are any questions feel free to email me.
Below is the Group Rep Report for July 2025
Items from the Summer GEA (Global Electronic Area) Assembly on June 21, 2025:
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Over 200 participants
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Went over increases in the Area Budget.
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An increase for the paid Spanish and French translator, .30 cents a word a $10,000 increase. Google doesn't translate Al-Anon verbiage.
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An increase for the paid bookkeeper because our projected budget may go over $100,000 and require filing with the IRS.
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Set up a 6 month reserve fund
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Contributions have increased.
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2024 Income (Contributions) $48,531
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2025 Contributions to Date (3/31/25) $42,359
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Any motions incomplete moved to the Fall Assembly. The Consent Agenda and 2025 Budget were approved.
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Break - other GR topics:
* Cleaning House. On ongoing project has been ridding D53 of inactive groups and/or groups that we’ve been unsuccessful communicating with. Jerry has offered to go to as many of the phone meetings as possible, which may not be active, and do not have GRs. This is a big gift to D53.
* Group Participation. Amazingly, out of our 16 groups, we have 8 GRs and 3 Alternate GRs. At the May 2025 D53 meeting, we had 7 GRs/Alternates present which is a slight increase. In the past, we’ve been averaging 5 GRs/Alternates at or District meetings, which means that over 30% or the groups in District 53 are actually represented at our meetings. That is outstanding considering that 4 of the groups in District 53 are phone meetings and one is Spanish-speaking.
* Seventh Tradition. District 53 discussed the issue of our finances and the need for District 53 to have a treasurer and all the good stuff that goes with being financially responsible through the Seventh Tradition. Back in February, we elected a Treasurer and we now have a bank account and are accepting donations from the groups of District 53.
* Website. Few things are better than a decent website for making information available to the groups, their GR’s and even the regular members of the district. The GRs easily reached a consensus on our need to have a website, which is now live https://www.serenitysys.com/district53/ . The website provides a wide variety of info for the members of District 53: the groups of District 53 (group name, platform, GR name and email, how to contact the group and the WSO number of the group), contact information for all District and GEA officers, an archive of all District 53 meeting agendas & meeting minutes.
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District 53 has a mailing list for our GRs and District officers. This makes it easy for any of us to communicate with the rest of the trusted servants in District 53. With the mailing list, each of us only needs to know one email address for District 53 and the server handles the rest, and only the server needs to be updated.
The following items are District 53 items:
* The District voted unanimously to host its website on its own account, with its own domain, and in keeping with the Seventh Tradition, the District will be paying for this service. Below is a brief summary of the saving.
* Groups.io offers 3 plans: Basic (Free), Premium ($20 per mo) & Enterprise ($100 per mo).
* Esosoft, $8.95 per month, or $89.50 for a year (approximately $7.46 per month), $161.10 for two years (approximately $6.71 per month) Additionally, a $20 annual charge for District 53’s domain name, such as District53AFG.org which is available.
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Burt, our GEA Area Delegate, will report on the April meeting at the next big GEA Assembly meeting on June 21, which got postponed until the Fall Assembly because we ran out of time. Note. In theory, all Area Assemblies are ‘big’ because they include every GR and GEA Officer & Coordinator.
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Important news was that WSO, World Service Office, will not enforce policy on group names and hold a moratorium on this question until 2026.
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WSO is planning an electronic ALATEEN meeting, more to be announced in July. Big Al-Anon International Convention in Minnesota, July 22.
FYI. The Al-Anon International Conventions, like the AA International Conventions, are held every 5 years. The AA International Conventions include Al-Anon participation; for example, I was an Al-Anon speaker at portion of the 1995 AA International Convention in San Diego. The first AA International Convention was held in 1950; the first Al-Anon International was in 1998 in Salt Lake City.
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E-books for CAL are coming, but for now they have books for sale, and don’t want to undercut the book sales of developing AL-Anon programs, so are waiting to see when it will be appropriate to introduce them. The sale of CAL is the primary source of funding for WSO. As a result, WSO is very reluctant to do anything that will impact on the sales of CAL.
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AL-ANON’S 75TH anniversary is next year, 2026 and a new service manual will be forthcoming. The latest edition of the Service Manual is published every 3 years. Unlike other types of CAL, the Service Manual is revised frequently by WSO. For example, WSO has published the 4th version of the 2022-2025 Service Manual. The following link has the service manual and page changes. https://al-anon.org/for-members/members-resources/manuals-and-guidelines/
Thank you for letting be of service.
Kathleen H
ASP - GR