Structure Committee Report

The Structure Committee met at the Area Committee Meeting in Mankato on August 10, 2002. Alternate DCM’s and a new GSR were in attendance from Districts 3, 8,13, 20 and 26. Thank you to those who participated, without you we wouldn’t have a committee or a committee conscience. Although, we do have 26 districts in our area and only five chose to participate. Come join us for our next committee meeting on November 30 in Mankato and have your districts’ voice heard.

We started our meeting with some reminders of upcoming events, and the importance of all districts getting their new trusted servant information to the area after district elections this fall. It is important that the area updates their database and will then send that information on to the General Service Office in New York.

We had a short overview on LCM’s (Local Committee Members), what they are and how our area has benefited from their efforts in the past. This was followed by each district sharing a little about their efforts in reaching more groups and items of interest within their district. One of the districts visited all the groups in the district (100plus) and had 40 GSR’s at their last service meeting. One district shared that they are trying to keep their groups records updated and have been sending postcards to all the GSR’s reminding them of the District meeting. The committee is still working on the goal to compile a written list of ideas districts use to generate more participation from groups and GSR’s.

There were no items of Old Business to cover at the meeting, but we had plenty of New Business to cover. New Business items discussed included:

Changes to the Trusted Servant Guidelines. Some of these changes included: 1) adding the new guidelines for addressing SMAA business passed at the March Assembly, 2) updating the diagram structure of the area and adding the new area committees, Website and Remote Communities to the verbiage, 3) possible changes to the Area Chair responsibilities, possible changes to the Newsletter guidelines including adding the editorial policy, and updating responsibilities for the Structure committee, 4) adding a section on Voting Members of the Area Committee and the Area Assembly. The committee will continue to discuss possible changes and updates to the guidelines and will present specific changes in their entirety to the Area Committee.
Based on the editorial policy discussion for the area newsletter, The Pigeon, it was the sense of the meeting that we ask the newsletter committee to review and evaluate the editorial policy. This discussion was based on some concerns from area members regarding submissions of unrelated service material and disparaging remarks published in the newsletter.
The committee began discussion on the motion passed at the June Assembly and sent to the Structure Committee stating: “Have the Structure Committee look at the feasibility of moving either the area assemblies or committee meetings to the Twin Cities and also look at moving one of them to a more central location – that is – more to the west”. The committee will continue to discuss options regarding the area calendar at our next meeting.
The Stayin’ Alive Plan was distributed and will be discussed further in November. This plan is a list of possible agenda items for the 2003 General Service Conference compiled by our area to ensure ongoing discussion of conference agenda items.

I’d like to invite all Alternate DCM’s to join us on November 30, 2002 in Mankato for our next committee meeting. We need your input! This will be our last committee meeting for this rotation, so I would like to thank Area 36 for the opportunity to serve as the Alternate Delegate and in doing so chair the Structure Committee. It has been a learning, growing and rewarding experience! See you at the Area Inventory on September 7th at the Hennepin Technical Center in Eden Prairie.