This motion was adopted.
There were 19 votes with 17 Yes votes, 1 No vote, and 1 blank vote. Motion passed with 89% Yes votes on June 5, 2024.
The Town Hall has not yet been scheduled. Watch the Latest News section of this site for more information.
This motion is being recommended by the Safety Policy Study Group
Issue: We make a motion to hold a Town Hall to explore the policies around the SMR Contact List and the ramifications of misuse.
Now, Offer Your Vote! – The polling will be open until June 4th.
Background: On or before Sunday, March 24th, an SMR member downloaded from our website a copy of the fellowship’s contact list. They copied all 800 names and emails, and broadcast to each member their personal opinion disparaging the service of fellow members and the good faith efforts of some committees. Members were CC’d, so that everyone saw each other’s name – in many cases, full names. Such misuse has never happened before.
There has been a general understanding (verbalized in the daily script) among the fellowship that the list is there as a service to individual fellows who may want to reach out for recovery and support. This recent action not only breaks the anonymity of fellow travelers, it also undermines group unity and erodes safety, especially as perceived by the newcomer.
As trusted servants of this group, we acknowledge an obligation to take action to address this issue. With this motion, we request a Town Hall discussion of possible remedies and solutions with regard to an individual’s actions or our collective practices that may restore our group’s high level of trust, safety and comfort.
Please offer comments below – pro or con, questions or suggestions or personal experience. Please advise as to your willingness to participate in a Town Hall. You may also add any comments that will comprise additional discussion of the issue, to include minority opinions. If the motion has not been seconded already in the comments, please note if you would second this motion. The comment period will be open for 3 weeks.
Comments close on May 18, 2024.
Thank you for participating in reaching a Group Conscience to hold a Town Hall Meeting. (NOTE: It may take a day or two for your comments to appear on the webpage.)
I took my name off the contact list a couple years ago for fear of this kind of thing happening. I have encountered a few people who did not feel safe to me over the years and have met some wonderful fellow travelers by simply private chatting. It’s worked out fine for me.
If I want to contact a fellow traveler, I simply send through chat my request and ask them if they are comfortable with me contacting them.If so please include their phone number with their reply. Has worked comfortable with all.
I put my name on the list over 3 years ago when our group was much smaller. Also my name is common, so it is not very useful to have it on the list. It seems overwhelming at this time to have 800 names. I would like to remove my contact information. How do we go about doing that?
This has also been my process. I changed my email address & phone #, and have not added either to the Contact list. I feel safer reaching out individually via chat if I want to talk with a Fellow Traveller.
Agree with motion
I personally can reach out or be reached and feel no need for a group phone list
Thank you
I was very surprised when I got that email that was referenced above. I will not be participating in the town hall meeting as I do not have time for this right now. I do think it is better not to have a group list after seeing how our trust could be breached. Thank you.
Second the motion.
TO REMOVE YOUR NAME FROM THE CONTACT AND/OR MAILING LIST: Find any old email from the group (it comes into your inbox as ACA MORNING, then scroll to the bottom and chose either UPDATE YOUR PREFERENCES or UNSUBSCRIBE. You can stay on the mailing list but not be on the contact list, or you can opt out of both.
Perhaps the contact list should be suspended and not made available until this is resolved and perhaps a new contact list created with the awareness of possible misuse. If people want to be contacted they can indicate that in the chat for now or rename themselves with a phone number. A personal chat could also be used to request an individual’s contact info. thank you
If I can attend a Town Hall meeting on this issue I will, but can’t be definite given my commitments.
Thank you for raising this issue.
I recall that when the incident happened I suggested that a letter go out to members on the mailing list who may have been confronted with the letter. Unfortunately we had no Communications Secretary at the time (the position is available).
Perhaps we cancel the contact list. Instead we could have suggestions on how to reach out to others in fellowship or for some type of sponsorship, like the ideas generated here.
I think a Town Hall or series of focused discussions would help the group reach consensus.
I second the motion
I felt a very strong negative reaction when I received that email on that weekend morning, sent to me and cc’d to all 800+ people on the list. In my decades of experience in the for-profit world, abuses like this can cause threats of legal action – which is always expensive to defend even when we ‘win’ the dispute. And I know lawsuits are escalating in the US against for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. For that reason, I am glad we are doing something about this – even it is is just deciding to stop this recovery-supporting practice (which would sadden me greatly) or to have a stronger warning, or even taking action when this privilege us misused. In any case, look forward to discussing and determining next best steps.
I was sorry to read this happened. I did have a somewhat similar experience in another fellowship very recently, but in that case the list was not one accessible to the group, as in SMR. Rather, in that meeting prospective attendees were required to email to request a password for the meeting and it was that list that the administrator(s) had collected over time that they mistakenly used cc’ing everyone instead of bcc’ing. It felt like a punch to the gut to see my name exposed like that.
I appreciate that the motion is to have a meeting to address whether having a list available to anyone, but would also encourage the administrators to keep in mind privacy and email etiquette so that a similar error does not occur here.
I support a town hall discussion on this topic. As far as my use of the contact list – I would not put my full name on it (just first name and initial of last name, and an email address that would not reveal other than my first name). I would not put my cell number. I think that the contact list is important and I support keeping it, especially for a newcomer to be able to reach out to somebody without having to ask in the chat (and risk rejection at a delicate time), but I see it as up to the person putting their name out there whether they want to include their full name and/or phone number.
I support this motion.
Thanks for everyone’s thoughtful comments on this important issue. I agree with the idea of cancelling the contact list now that we’re such a very large group, and instead having suggestions about how to reach out to fellow travelers.
The contact list is very very long. My name is on it but I don’t use it. If I want to call someone I chat during a meeting and get their phone number.