[Businessmtg] 7th Tradition & our Prudent Reserve

[steve at serenitysys.com]

Hi folks,

 

I'm hearing two persistent threads in this discussion and one implied
thread.

 

A.	Passing the Basket.  

Everyone seems to be in agreement that passing the basket will generate more
donations.  It's a bit obvious, as well as consistent with our past
experience.  The corollary to this is that passing the basket less often
results in less donations. . . and not passing the basket at all tends to
lead to no donations at all.  

The point is that passing the basket regularly is essential to the financial
health of ASP.  

I'd go so far as to say that regularly passing the basket is the primary
duty of the treasurer and significantly more important than creating
financial reports.

What about the 'message' and timing?

Some have suggested talking about the Seventh Tradition more regularly in
the meeting.  IMHO, that sort of thing tends to be unpopular which results
in fewer shares which results in the meeting being less popular in general.

Some have suggested that some kind of spiel be included.  IMHO, the passing
of the basket in Al-Anon is traditionally a simple act.  Most Al-Anon
members understand that it takes money to make the world go-round.
Education is not the problem; reminding members to donate by simply passing
the basket is the issue.

In other words, keep the text simple and direct. . . quote the 7th Tradition
and inform the members about how to support ASP.  

Some have suggested passing the basket on certain days.  I respectfully
disagree.  See, what I've learned about our members is that many read our
shares on their schedule, not ours.  Some members may only read Sunday's
shares on Sundays, or Monday's shares on Mondays.  Whatever.  Therefore,
when I was serving as acting Treasurer, I intentionally posted the
Treasurer's 7th Tradition basket share on various days of the week, without
any set schedule.  Besides, I'll note that I don't believe it's OK for the
group to start telling the Treasurer that she has to do such'n'such on
Fridays (or any other specific timing).

 

B.	Adding a third payment service to our Seventh Tradition basket.

Please let me remind everyone of a couple of Al-Anon details:

a.	Tradition 10 tells us "The Al-Anon Family Groups have no opinion on
outside issues; hence our name ought never be drawn into public
controversy."  In other words, AS A GROUP, we have no opinion on outside
issues.  That includes brands, individual companies, etc.  
b.	ASP's Motion #22 tells us that the members in the Business Meeting
have the authority to make policy decisions, however it is the Steering
Committee that has the authority to decide how to implement ASP policy.

Please remember this when we're discussing issues in our Business Meeting.

 

Now, about passing the basket & adding another payment method.

 

Everyone seems to agree that passing the basket more often such as twice a
month would resolve our Prudent Reserve issue.  Great.  

Unfortunately, the basket hasn't gone around the room since January 19th.
That means that our actual problem is that the basket hasn't been passed.
Another payment app would not have changed anything.

 

C.	The Seventh Tradition.

"Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside
contributions."

The Seventh Tradition tells us that we are responsible for being fully
self-supporting, and that we must decline outside contributions.

However, the Seventh Tradition does NOT in any way tell us that we are
responsible for raising money for the fellowship.

Yes, we routinely donate our excess funds to our service arms, but that is
not mean that our purpose is to raise funds for those service arms.  

Since we are fully responsible for being FULLY self-supporting, it follows
that we need to fund ourselves at least 100%, but it is unlikely that we
would fund exactly 100%.  Hence, it follows that if we do the basics
required of the 7th Tradition, we will also accumulate some excess funds
that we then donate to our service arms.

 

My point is that it is NOT our responsibility to accumulate a larger excess.
Whatever excess we accumulate during  the natural course of taking care of
ourselves is the RIGHT amount.  Intentionally conduct ASP's 7th Tradition
with the intention of increasing our group's excess funds is in fact, a
violation of the 7th Tradition.  Instead, those individual members that wish
to increase donations to our service arms are free to make such donations
personally - it is not our group's responsibility to support our service
arms beyond what is ordinary.

 

The bottom line as I see it is simple.  Pass the 7th Tradition basket twice
a month.  Come back in 3 months and see how it's working.  If it's working,
then we don't need to fix it. 

 

Love and SERENITY,

Steve