Steering Committee Agenda – 1/28/2024
SC Feedback Items:
- Reporting harassment or inappropriate behavior during a meeting
Trish: I have been targeted in meetings Several times in the last ninety days!!!! As a proud member of AA and a Delegate of the online safety committee I am disturbed by the behavior of two service members for myself and AA as a whole! The practices of these Service member have been offensive and unkind to my recovery ❤️🩹 and others! I have had to return to therapy for the betterment of my mental health and don’t foresee it being for a short period I am traumatized!
Notes:
Trish presented the issue and her point of view to the SC.
Trish: This is not personal, I have no personal opinion about what I am going to discuss, I don’t need any witnesses, I don’t need a judge. I am under psychiatric therapy since the other day and in that I’ve been in GUTS 95 days. I will give you only facts, it is two members that felt the need to single me out in a business meeting on the floor, single out my friends and find a problem with me. This is not about me, I am doing this for those who come after me, I am doing this for AA as a whole. Who am I? I am an alcoholic, but I am also central office district 45 online meetings. So, I’m going to just break it down real quick because if you know the traditions you know them, they have said that ignorance is not an excuse for homicide of one person. I was singled out and questioned like a police officer, never have I had that happen to me ever before. The person said I want to know why you say this, thank God there were elders there, they held me and thank you GUTS. Tradition One, singling out someone, you have no right to single me out, check page 129. Tradition two, ultimate authority is a loving God, you don’t need to know why I say what I say, you don’t have to tell me about any members that left a group, because I am not that powerful. If somebody leaves, they leave, they come they come. We have no say on anything; that would be a bleeding deacon, read it, my requests of the chair and GSR of this meeting. Requirements of a membership, there is none. Their only requirement is a desire. Why would I have to ever answer somebody’s question and why would you all have to single me out in front of my family. Check the concepts and the principles. Honestly, I don’t have to do anything, nobody manages us, that is not real and I am under psychiatric help again and my family is right here. Tradition four. AA central office said they do not agree. If you all need to see them they will be here and in that you will have a group inventory. Primary purpose is to carry the AA message, not your message, no one should’ve been harassing me and to tell me that members are leaving because of my presence? How dare you! Tradition six prestige. I don’t know what prestige of the service board but the results of this is that the AA says you should have a working knowledge of the traditions, concepts and the principles and that’s what they recommend if you’re sitting on the service board because the service board does not decide who comes and goes. Nobody does. Alcohol, uh let me just make sure that’s six because I got this, I can speak for myself, I am an educated black woman and that has nothing to do with it. Ok tradition 12. I come in the meeting because I have sponsees. I came here knowingly. I don’t have to give you a reason. I don’t need to be in anything, I need to be in AA for 15 years and I need everybody to remember one thing – principles before personality has nothing to do with you. If you don’t like the way I talk that is not a reason for me to be singled out in front of my family and be questioned and people screaming that people don’t like me. You know I have no opinion on outside issues, if a sponsor can not get somebody sober and can’t make them drink how the hell is my presence keeping someone from staying on the meeting. That is insanity and the last thing I say to the group is that my sister was murdered, you guys know what I did, you guys have been amazing and I took this time to do it this way because I didn’t want to hurt my friends. I get up at four in the morning with this group. The people that done this come up once in a while, and I don’t want to get personal but my work in AA stands. AA has asked you all to resolve this by telling this group to please follow traditions and if not, this inventory will be done by them. There will be two elders that will come in and they will cite the group. Your GSR number will be gone, why? Because this is not healthy. I have prisoners that come in there, they don’t have to hear about where the chat is disgusting and in that everybody has a right to say what they want. These two members have felt that they condemn control, for her to have scream out that my presence is keeping people from the meeting and why do I say the word bias, that I act like you all racist. You racistly slurred me and in that I’ve never practiced racism, my mother is sitting here, my children are sitting here and they’re holding me up and I don’t want to know why, please do not put anyone on to battle this. We cease fighting everyone and everything, I don’t have to be accepted to come into a meeting. None of you have that right. And I suggest you get sponsers and try to work the program and then and only then use it, but me? is an outside issue of you I don’t have anything to do with you, these people never spoke to me, they close the chat when I talk and I said that’s ok. I have friends in here today and for that GUTS I appreciate you, the time is up and AA said thank you for this time.
Christian: Thank you, Trish. Appreciate you coming on here and giving your point of view. I do not feel this is a business meeting issue.
Dennis: Thank you, Trish for sharing. You’ve answered some of the questions I had. What I would suggest, and I agree it doesn’t need to go to the business meeting. But we might want to have either on a Sat morning or next Sun before the BM a short steering committee meeting to discuss if anything needs to be done. I think we ought to at least see what needs to be done. The idea of targeting makes me mad, of anybody. Shouldn’t be targeting people at all. The question might be whether we really consider it targeting.
Christian: I will make a motion to not bring this to the business meeting. Kristen seconded.
Motion passed to not bring to the BM: 6-0 in favor with 2 abstentions.
Dennis: Do we want to have a special meeting to discuss this issue? Dennis motioned for a special steering committee meeting to address Trish’s issue. Barbara seconded.
Kristen: I think we need to get more information before we have that meeting. Reach out to OIAA and stuff like that. I know Trish had a correspondence but we haven’t had that, in order for us to move forward we will have to do that as well. I say we hold off until we have more information.
Christian: It sounds like we’re going table having a special meeting on Saturday.
Dennis: Motion is to have a meeting at some time in the future (not this week). Barbara seconded.
Motion Passed 8-0.
Christian: Issue will NOT be brought to the business meeting, but we will explore the group inventory and we will also explore having a separate steering committee meeting concerning this issue when appropriate.
The group thanked Trish for coming on and reporting her issue.
Issue will not be sent to the business meeting
- Topic for business meeting agenda:
Sarah-Sky: I would like to limit the length of the business meetings to 2 hours. If there is a compelling need to go over 2 hours, an on-the-spot group conscience can be taken to extend the meeting for “x” minutes. An example of a compelling need? The group is close to coming to an agreement on a topic, but the 2-hour mark has been reached. The group can then vote to extend the meeting by 10 minutes, for example, in order to get it done.
Notes:
Mark P: Proposed to limit one share per issue in the BM.
Mark M: Agreed that one share per topic in the BM is sufficient to get your point across.
Mark M: Would like to post somewhere all of the tabled issues so people have more transparency into why issues may not be getting done. Many a time issues get pushed off due to more urgent issues that are brought forth.
Dennis: The importance of the items on the agenda are in order as reported. But we can put the most important ones first and the others put off to later.
Suzie: Great idea for a two-hour limit. The length of meetings end-up burning people out and it gets tough after 3 hours to think clearly on issues. Suzie in support of BM time limit.
Kristen: We as the steering committee can prioritize the agenda before hand for BM so we can indicate the top issues in need of immediate attention and tag issues of less importance for tabling.
Motion to bring to the Business Meeting – Passed 8-0
- Topic for business meeting agenda:
Mark M: We need a secretary for the Business Meeting.
It’s too much for me to do in addition to moderating the Business Meeting.
Plus, I’m a horrible typist and I just don’t like MS Word.
Notes:
All in agreement that a Secretary for the BM is a critical position. Dennis will put a request out to the whole group to ask for nominations for the position of secretary.
SC determined this is not an issue for BM.
- Topic for business meeting agenda:
Y: Wondering about the daily topics. I really focus on AA approved literature and constantly see a lot of outside sources. Is this something we could look into?
Notes:
SC voted to bring this request to the BM. The group may decide to change the GC to just use AA Literature. Currently the GC allows for AA material as well as related literature that applies to our recovery.
Motion to discuss source of topics during the BM passed 8-0
- Feedback on service team:
Jason S: Verifications: in announcements we asked all the time in Chat can we let them know the Verifications is before the meeting ends in announcements
Notes:
Request to clarify our verification process
Suzie: Some hosts are already stating that verification links are put in the chat during the last ten minutes of the meeting.
Kristen: Jason is asking for this to be an addition to the script so it is said out loud to the group.
Mark P: The introduction is already long and I fear to add anything to the intro script. Putting in the chat should be sufficient.
Motion to bring to the business meeting to discuss where this belongs in the host script passed 7-0.
- Feedback on service team:
Natalie W: Hey, I was removed from the 8 o’clock meeting last night after I typed ‘pa pa pa’ which is a term young people in AA say after someone says that they are from YPAA. Not sure why, and tried to join again but it said unable to join because I’d been removed. I’m not sure if the host just had not heard of that term or what? I did have my camera turned off because we had people at our house and didn’t want to be disruptive with the movement in the background, so maybe they thought I was a bot? I’d like to be able to join that meeting again, I’ve been on it sporadically through the last 2 years and was very sad to be removed for literally saying an AA term.
Thanks
Natalie
Notes:
Mark M: Please allow people to get themselves booted before we as a host/co-host take action.
Christian to send an email to Natalie apologizing for accidental removal.
Motion to not bring to the BM passed 8-0.
- Feedback on service team:
Amy C: The proof of attendance isn’t working. just spinning and I’ve tried all times of day, this morning etc. Then when I went to the drop down and found “contact us”, It went to a screen to send money only! How can I get proof of service?
Notes:
Group decided that a technical person needs to be identified to help with this issue and with the website in general.
Elle: Confirmed that some services are paid for, such as web hosting, annual payment for InterServer made in OCT. We just started a monthly payment for MailPoet and February has an expense for another component for the web service in WordPress.
Sarah-Sky to reach out to Steve in order to find out the specifics of our website maintenance.
Issue tabled until Sarah-Sky and Steve have a conversation. This will not be going to the BM.
- Jeremy’s Replacement
Notes:
Dennis will open up nominations for a new steering committee member.
- Final Comments:
Dennis asked whether or not we want to discuss the Group Inventory and the GSR number at the BM
Kristen: Our group inventory has been on the to-do list for over a year and a half. We have had outside people that were willing to do it. For various reasons this has been put off repeatedly. We should bring up a GI again.
Mark M: Will put this issue on the BM agenda, which include the tabled items.
Meeting closed with the Serenity Prayer.
Tabled Items
Topic for business meeting agenda
Mark P: I am proposing 3 changes to GUTS going forward: 1) Have Chat CLOSED from Intros through the 7th. (Most online meetings either don’t have Chat open, or only open last 10 minutes) 2) 10-Minute Share Limit, including LNG, same across the board. (Most online meetings only have 3 to-5 minute time limits. This was already tabled from last BM) 3) One Hand per hour, unless it’s a Burning Desire of a Newcomer struggling. (Most online meetings only allow one share per hour) Thank you. 🙏