[Businessmtg] 7h Tradition - Passing Those Baskets!/Prudent Reserve

[steve at serenitysys.com]

Hi Jerry,

I have a different perspective regarding your comment ". . . but at the same
time we'd be moving further away from an ability to support our service
arms."

We need to look at what happens if ASP raises our Prudent Reserve from $1600
to $2000.  
     a. the threshold for calculating excess funds over the Prudent Reserve
increases from $1600 to $2000. This is a one-time adjustment.
     b. ASP saves $15/month, or $180/year. . . or $45/quarter.
That's it.  Nothing else is applicable in this particular question.

In other words, if ASP set aside an extra $400 once, and as a direct result
our expenses would decrease by $45 every quarter.
That means ASP would have an extra $45 every quarter to donate to D53, the
GEA and WSO.  

But what about your comment "Fine and good until it grows to a point where
donations fall short - the point where we become unable to show excesses
which allow us to donate to service arms"?

ASP's ability to donate to our Al-Anon service arms is dependent on ASP
having healthy surplus cash flows.  
It is not dependent on ASP increasing, or decreasing our Prudent Reserve.
If ASP increases its Prudent Reserve, there will be a temporary one-time
decrease in our donations.  This is no different than if ASP decided to
reduce its Prudent Reserve; there would be a temporary one-time increase in
our donations equal to the reduction in the Prudent Reserve.  

Love and SERENITY,
Steve


-----Original Message-----
From: Businessmtg <businessmtg-bounces+steve=serenitysys.com at asp-afg.org> On
Behalf Of logmark--- via Businessmtg
Sent: Friday, April 24, 2026 9:27 PM
To: steve at serenitysys.com
Cc: ASP Business <businessmtg at asp-afg.org>
Subject: [Businessmtg] 7h Tradition - Passing Those Baskets!/Prudent Reserve

Biz-Pals,

The 7th Tradition basket:

I think there's little question that reminding our members that we have
group operating exp,enses and service arms to support which need member
donations. Like Steve, I, too, as treasurer saw the correlation between
making announcements and the money coming in.

Regular 7th Tradition announcements in the topic meeting is essential. Every
two weeks should do the trick.

The Prudent Reserve:

A bit of a sticky wicket.

On the one hand we're not to have dues or fees. On the other we gotta have
money. As expenses rise up goes the amount we set as our Prudent Reserve
(PR).

Fine and good until it grows to a point where donations fall short - the
point where we become unable to show excesses which allow us to donate to
service arms.

In theory raising our PR to $2,000 to save money on bank fees sounds
prudent, but at the same time we'd be moving further away from an ability to
support our service arms.

I'd suggest some cheerful notes of encouragement along with our bi-monthly
basket passing to get our balances regularly above the $2,000 mark before we
set a higher PR level.

In service,
Jerry
-





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