Third 3-Day Period
During the third 3-day session of the April 2018 GROW Business Meeting, we voted on four proposals and discussed five more proposals. Your votes were unanimous on all of the proposals. We are, therefore, adding four more new Group Conscience decisions. While there was broad agreement on two of the five proposals being discussed, three proposals generated some conversation.
Results of Voting
Proposal 1.2: OIAA Representative Job Description
GROW will participate in the OIAA monthly meeting by providing the following anonymous data about our group: (1) Total membership number and number of new members and (2) Total amount of sobriety for members celebrating sobriety birthdays.
The OIAA Representative will ask the Listkeeper to provide the number of new members each month and will use the Birthday Listkeepers end-of-month summary to collect the anonymous sobriety birthday information.
Sixteen (16) participants voted “I agree” (no one voted “I disagree”) on the proposal to provide anonymous data about GROW to OIAA each month. Therefore, the proposal passes.
**** The Chair now realizes that the proposal did not include adding anything to the OIAA Representative’s job description to reflect this decision. We will discuss a new proposal that adds a new bullet to the job description during the fourth 3-day session of our meeting.
*** The Chair further realizes that, in order to provide the information, our Listkeepers will have to keep a tally of new members each month to give this information to the OIAA Rep. We will discuss a new proposal that adds a new bullet to the job description during the fourth 3-day session of our meeting.
Proposal 2.2: Treasurer Job Description
Amend Treasurer’s Job Description to reflect actual practices and constraints: (a) Delete line item directing Treasurer to submit monthly reports to the Steering Committee. (b) Change period for distributions to GSO from quarterly to semi-annual consistent with our Business Meetings.
Eighteen (18) participants voted “I agree” on the proposal to delete one task from the job description and to change the frequency of distributions to GSO from quarterly to biannual consistent with our Business Meetings. There were no “I disagree” votes on the proposal. Therefore, the proposal is unanimously approved and adopted.
Proposal 3.2: URL Reminder
Add language about not using URLs in messages to blank “Topic for the week” section of the Weekly Meeting Format Letter.
Recommended Language (add to the Weekly Meeting Format Letter as shown):
Topic for the week: [ Introduce the Topic of the Week – Remember that we do not include URLs to sites outside GROW except links to the AA, Grapevine, and GROW websites.]
Eighteen (18) participants voted “I agree” on the proposal to add a reminder to our Weekly Topic Leader Message form letter that GROW discourages the use of URLs in messages to the list. No one voted “I disagree” on the proposal; therefore, it is approved and adopted.
Summary of Discussions
On two of the five proposals being considered during Session 3, comments were in general agreement. These were Proposal 7.2 (Greeter Job Description) and Proposal 9.2 (Weekly Leader Listkeeper Job Description). There were comments that disagreed with or that would amend the proposal for Proposal 6.2 (Listkeeper Job Description – Roll Call), Proposal 8.2 (Grapevine Representative Job Description), and Proposal 10.2 (12th Step Volunteer Listkeeper Job Description).
Some commenters on Proposal 6.2 (Listkeeper Job Description – Roll Call) felt that conducting a roll call every year is a valuable service. That we have decided to submit information on the number of members to OIAA each month underscored this point. A few participants questioned the need for doing a roll call at all except when there are problems with the list.
Update on Proposal 6.2: The person who submitted the proposal decided to withdraw the current language and substitute language that roll calls of the GROW membership be done only when there are disruptive email issues, as recommended by oso-aa.org technical support. Therefore, we will consider this change as a new proposal (13.4) during the fourth 3-day session. We will not vote on Proposal 6.2.
Comments on Proposal 8.2 (Grapevine Representative (GVR) Job Description) generally agreed with the proposal but would amend it on the question of what to put in the “Subject:” of messages on the Grapevine topic. Commenters agreed that the GVR should not lead a meeting every month but that she should send a monthly message to the group about the Grapevine theme and featured article.
The proposal called for the GVR to invite members to share on the theme or article, and commenters suggested that the invitation should include a request that members include “Off Topic” in the subject line of their shares. Several commenters felt that the subject line should include “Grapevine Topic.”
Agreeing with the latter, the Chair has modified the proposal to include the suggested language in the revised Proposal 8.3 for purposes of voting during the fourth 3-day session. Please do not vote on this proposal until you receive the “Call for Votes” message.
On Proposal 10.2 (12th Step Volunteer Listkeeper), questions arose as to whether the Greeters/Listkeepers are the appropriate Trusted Servants to notify if the 12th Step Listkeeper is temporarily unavailable to monitor messages and notify the committee of need for support. A participant pointed out that the Secretary already maintains a list of committee members and is the appropriate person to handle TS-related absences.
The Chair has changed the proposal to reflect the correct Trusted Servant (changing Greeters/Listkeepers to Secretary) responsible for managing TS absences. We will vote on this revised proposal during the fourth 3-day session. Please do not vote on this proposal until you receive the “Call for Votes” message.
During the fourth 3-day session of our meeting, we will vote on four proposals. We will discuss two new proposals that represent areas where job descriptions need to be changed to reflect Group Conscience decisions made earlier in this meeting: Proposal 11.4 (OIAA Job Description) will add monthly reporting to OIAA to the OIAA Representative’s job description and Proposal 12.4 (Listkeepers Job Description) will add providing a monthly tally of new members to the Listkeeper job descriptions so they can provide this information to the OIAA Representative. A third new Proposal 13.4 (Roll Calls) has been submitted that would eliminate regularly scheduled Roll Calls and authorize the Listkeepers to determine when a Roll Call is needed due to excessive problems with the mailing list or to cull members who no longer participate in GROW.
The Chair will request your comments on these issues during the fourth 3-day session in upcoming messages.
Respectfully submitted, danna M | Business Meeting Chair dmcd.grow@zoho.com