Group Conscience Topics
GROW Archives
- Contents (1/06)
- Contents (10/04)
- Contents (10/04)
- Contents > Format (7/03)
- Contents > Format (1/00)
- Contents > Member Shares (10/05)
- Contents > Member Shares (10/05)
- Protocol > Archives Guidelines (1/06)
- Protocol > Access (10/04)
- Protocol > Establishing Archives (7/98)
- Protocol > Format (1/06)
- Protocol > Format (10/04)
- Protocol > Format (4/04)
- Protocol > Format (7/00)
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
Contents
GROW Archives > Contents (1/06)
Decision: Agreed that we want a summary of founders' history and, with permission from Grapevine Magazine, a copy of the story "Oreos and a T-shirt" posted on our g-r-o-w.com Archives section.
GROW Archives > Contents (10/04)
Decision: By consensus we decided:
1) We will continue providing the archive section on the g-r-o-w website.
2) The g-r-o-w website archive section will include a link to the Binhost archives;
3) The GROW archivist will continue to backing up the digests and saving them to a disk for safekeeping.
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
GROW Archives > Contents (10/04)
Decision: By consensus we agreed that the founder's correspondence should be maintained by the founders and not available for general perusal. (There is no consensus at this time as to whether said correspondence should be available to someone other than the founders for research purposes.
GROW Archives > Contents > Format (7/03)
Decision: Consensus was reached and our Archivist can now begin to archive our meetings in digest form.
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
GROW Archives > Contents > Format (1/00)
Decision: Adopted the following Archives
Proposal: The Archives are established to maintain a history of Grateful Recovering Online Women (GROW) in order to provide for an accurate rendering of the experience of GROW from its inception for the benefit of future GROW members and A.A. as a whole. Archives may include:
- Pertinent correspondence on founding of the group Listing of TS's Terms, who/when, service responsibilities (when, why and if changed)
- Quarterly reports from each TS Group Conscience decisions
- Form letters (Greeter, Welcomer, Listkeeper, majordomo, meeting format, 12 Step Chair, Topic Leader Chair, Sponsor Listkeeper, FYI, E-Mail Etiquette, etc.)
- Changes within the group structure (ex, listserver change) Steering Committee Actions (summary)
- Business meeting minutes and agendas
- Copies of the digest for a period of 2 years to be reviewed periodically to insure pertinent group history be preserved.
- A representative sampling of the archives will be publicly displayed as suggested by the GSO Guidelines.
These publicly presented archives will contain historical documents that may be of the greatest interest to the largest number its members. All other archives may be made available in a timely manner to current members upon request.
The current Archivist will serve as a nonrotating historian so that there will be a focal person for the collection. The Archivist will receive copies of Steering Committee mail and be non-voice receiver of correspondence.
The Steering Committee will select a recording secretary among its members to provide a summary of Steering Committee discussions and actions.
The Archivist shall ensure that any publicly presented material appropriately protect the anonymity of anyone mentioned. i.e., the standard of first name-last initial shall apply.
A rotating Co-Archivist will assist the non-rotating Archivist.
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
GROW Archives > Contents > Member Shares (10/05)
Decision: GROW will discontinue the archiving of shares to the GROW. Our decision to authorize our Archivist to save, at her discretion, specific GROW emails that could alter and/or further define GROW history with the understanding that these shares would never go public, applies to past, present and future archiving procedures. Anything not meeting our guidelines will be deleted/destroyed.
Comments: Nine members contributed to this discussion.
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
GROW Archives > Contents > Member Shares (10/05)
Decision: There appears to be consensus to authorize our Archivist to save, at her discretion, specific GROW emails that could alter and/or further define GROW history with the understanding that these shares would never go public. Several of the 12 who responded feel that it is unnecessary but will go along with whatever the group decides.
Comments: Archive Content: The Archive Committee submitted a report which included the opinion that we should discontinue archiving the individual shares posted to GROW. All agreed; however, there were two qualifications, which are being discussed in the present four-day period.
There appears to be consensus to authorize our Archivist to save, at her discretion, specific GROW emails that could alter and/or further define GROW history with the understanding that these shares would never go public. Several of the 12 who responded feel that it is unnecessary but will go along with whatever the group decides. The issue of saving individual meeting topic leads without authorship is still under discussion.
This was a continuation of the previous question about archiving topic shares in which all who responded agreed that we should discontinue the archiving of GROW shares. Two members qualified their support with the following exceptions:
- That we save the individual weekly topics with authorship removed. Reviewing past topics could be useful during a group inventory and can help identify if our group drifts away from the primary purpose.
- That we authorize our Archivist to save, at her discretion, specific GROW emails that could alter and/or further define GROW history. This would be done with the understanding that these shares would never go public, and would be for the use of the Archivist only to insure an accurate GROW history is maintained.
Although several of the 12 who responded felt that it was unnecessary, they agreed to support the decision to authorize the Archivist to save specific GROW emails as outlined above.
Twelve members also responded to the question of saving topic shares. Most agreed with the exception that several felt saving a list of topics would serve the same purpose as archiving the shares, and no one out and out disagreed. Those who responded to the question of a timeline for maintaining shares felt that two years makes sense, given the stated purpose of helping with our group inventory. However, another member reminded us that it is part of the Meeting Leader Listkeeper's job description to maintain a list of topics and to pass them on to the next holder of the position. This reminder put a new twist on the discussion, and it will be continued for the next 4-day segment.
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
Protocol
GROW Archives > Protocol > Archives Guidelines (1/06)
Decision: GROW ARCHIVE GUIDELINES - January 2006:
- The Archives are established to maintain a history of Grateful Recovering Online Women (GROW) in order to provide for an accurate rendering of the experience of GROW from its inception for the benefit of future GROW members and A.A. as a whole. We also recognize that archives serve a technical purpose in an online environment.
- GROW shares are automatically archived on the binhost server, and available to subscribed GROW members with a unique password which is disabled when the member is unsubscribed from GROW.
- GROW-BUS shares are automatically archived on the binhost server, and available only to GROW-BUS list members during business meetings.
- GROW and GROW-BUS archives are never publicly available. They are understood to be the property of the email list and will be deleted from the binhost server if or when the GROW email lists discontinue services with the binhost provider.
- Archives maintained by the Archivist and posted in the password protected members' only section of g-r-o-w.com will include:
- A history written by the founders of GROW.
- A listing of trusted servant job guidelines, and current trusted servants and terms.
- Quarterly reports for the most recent 2 years from Treasurer, Listkeeper, Secretary, OIAA, GSR and Steering Committee Secretary.
- All Group Conscience decisions
- Current letter and format templates used by or for Greeter-Welcomer, Listkeeper, email list provider, meeting format, 12 Step Chair, Topic Leader Chair, Sponsor Listkeeper, FYI, E-Mail Etiquette, etc.
- Business meeting agendas and minutes for the most recent 2 years.
- The GROW Archivist will maintain in her posession electronic back-up of those items listed in Section 5a through 5f.
- The GROW Archivist is authorized to destroy pre-binhost personal shares in her posession. She is further authorized to save, at her discretion, specific pre-binhost GROW email that could alter and/or further define GROW history with the understanding that these shares would never be made public.
- The GROW Archivist shall ensure that any non-binhost archived documents protect the individual anonymity, and shall work with the web keeper to ensure these documents are appropriately displayed on g-r-o-w.com.
Proposal: Regarding collecting documents of interest about the history of GROW: While Jean L. thought these might be of some interest, mostly to those who were part of the process at the time, Sally S. voiced her opinion that such a history of the group would be appreciated by many members of the group
Comments: Archives: Accessibility & Security - Discussion. The Chair reported that among those who had responded, there appeared to be consensus that the Binhost archive feature addresses the concerns brought up in the Archive Committee Report. Gigi has volunteered to organize the earlier the pre-Binhost Archives. She asked:
- Does everyone agree that the Binhost Archive feature addresses the concerns brought up in the Archive Committe Report?
- Does anyone feel we need to discuss this further?
- Does anyone object to Gigi organizing the pre-Binhost Archives?
- Karen asked for clarification. She referenced last meeting's decision to turn off the Binhost archive feature for GROW, and stated that she wanted to go on record as being opposed to turning off the archives because there is no good reason to do so. Karen pointed out conflicting decisions and questioned the authenticity of the group conscience regarding Binhost.
- Both Karen and Cheryl provided records of key points in recent Archives discussions and Cheryl suggested that we review our current Archive Guidelines, and be reminded by our listkeepers exactly what Binhost can and can't do for us. She further stated that with Karen's concerns, we did not have consensus and would, therefore, continue the discussion.
- Karen then asked the Archive Committee to provide a clear answer about why we are discussing archives accessibility and security when we aren't supposed to be archiving anything and why we have decided to turn off the Binhost archives.
- Our archivist responded that the discussion from October 2005 to turn off the archives refers to the main list shares because we had determined that individual shares to GROW are not appropriate to save. The questions from the Archive Committe report were written in July 2005 before we agreed to turn off the GROW Binhost archives.
- Laura wrote that Binhost archives should not be turned off. Annette suggested that we are trying to "over-guideline" the work of our Archivist and referred us back to our Archives Guidelines for direction. The Archivist explained that she wanted to index archive items so that they could be referred to easily and was finding it a daunting task without specific guidance. Most members participating in the discussion expressed frustration and confusion.
The four days were spent discussing the Archives Guidelines draft submitted by Cheryl T. A motion was made and seconded to adopt the guidelines as presented. Discussion included whether to include sobriety length guidelines for the Archivist position and whether to specify Binhost as our host/server. It seemed to be agreed that the sobriety guidelines for Archivist should be included and that specifying Binhost in the current version is best; if and when the time comes when we change hosts, we can amend the guidelines as needed.
On the Archive Guidelines, there were 13 yes votes with one qualified yes regarding the inclusion of sobriety guidelines being placed in this text rather than appearing only in the Trusted Servant position description. Therefore, at this time the guidelines are considered approved except for items 5 and 6, regarding the length of sobriety and GROW membership suggestions for the positions of Archivist and Co-Archivist. We will continue for another four days to allow the points raised by the qualified yes vote to be completely made and understood, and hopefully at that point will be able to proceed with a final version of the Guidelines as approved by the members of the Business Meeting list.
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
GROW Archives > Protocol > Access (10/04)
Decision: We have consensus that we should continue posting some archives on the GROW website as outlined in our group conscience of April 2000. As no one spoke out against it, a link to the Binhost site will be placed on the Archives pages of www.g-r-o-w.com. We have consensus that our archives are appropriate and in keeping with Traditions.
We have consensus that the Archivist position should remain non-rotating.
Proposal: It is the suggestion of this committee that all of the pertinent GC decisions, as detailed below, be available on our web site, via a link on our Archives page.
Comments:
Our original members were Jean (Archivist), Gigi, and Louise. We began this committee in order to find a way to preserve our archives in another format, in addition to being backed up on hard drive and saved to CD-R. Jean, our Archivist, wrote to the Grapevine 4 June 2004, but to date has had no response.
When GROW found a new server, Binhost, this committee was asked to consider the archives available through this service. The qualities of an online searchable database appear to be met within the default parameters of Binhost's archive properties. The archives are searchable by date, topic, author and thread of conversation; they are password protected as well. Other hosting services were quite expensive and/or offered no technical support, essential to our members. We are offered up to 20 MB of storage before another pricing scheme needs to be looked at; that is adequate for our needs at present.
Another challenge posed to us was when Timi signed on as our co-archivist in early July. She felt that the way GROW keeps our archives was not correct. Archiving shares was questioned even though approved by GROW in past business meetings. (Shares are not posted on our web site; any item that is posted is stripped of all identifiers, and the usual standard of first name, last initial is used.)
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
GROW Archives > Protocol > Establishing Archives (7/98)
Decision: To archive group history
GROW Archives > Protocol > Format (1/06)
Decision: No decision was reached on this proposal.
Proposal: We are near consensus on this. Most people who responded feel that the Binhost archive feature addresses the Archive Committee's concerns regarding up-to-date, accessible and secure archives. Gigi has volunteered to organize the pre-Binhost archives.
Comments: Archives: Accessibility and Security - Discussion. The Chair offered a revised draft of Archives Guidelines for four days of discussion. She stated that any items appearing to have a consensus would be incorporated into a final draft. Most of the discussion revolved around the Binhost archives. Comments included:
- Binhost archives are valuable for the Listkeepers in the event of computer and/or server glitches.
- Members returning from an absence can refer to the binhost archives to catch up.
- Some members can't receive email at work but can read the posts online.
- Someone who wants to reply or follow up on something can refresh their memory by reviewing the archives.
- Listkeepers rely on the archives to give clues to problems and how best to communicate with tech support.
Regarding concerns about privacy and security:
- Binhost archives are accessible to GROW members only by password unique to each member. Former or non-members cannot access the archives.
- The ultimate in privacy and security would mean not sending email at all, but requiring everyone to read GROW shares on a secure server.
Eleven participants reponded, with two clearly agreeing with the draft stating the Binhost archive feature would be turned off and eight who feel the feature should be left on. One individual didn't address the issue specifically. In addition, Jean expressed concern that items maintained by the Archivist and published on g-r-o-w.com could go further back than archives.two years in order to show the changes in our group over the years, but stated she was not concrete in her thinking.
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
GROW Archives > Protocol > Format (10/04)
Decision: We have consensus that we should continue posting some archives on the GROW website as outlined in our group conscience of April 2000. As no one spoke out against it, a link to the Binhost site will be placed on the Archives pages of www.g-r-o-w.com. We have consensus that our archives are appropriate and in keeping with Traditions.
Proposal: Our original members were Jean (Archivist), Gigi and Louise. We began this committee in order to find a way to preserve our archives in another format, in addition to being backed up on hard drive and saved to CD-R.
Jean, our Archivist, wrote to the Grapevine 4 June 2004, but to date has had no response.
When GROW found a new server, Binhost, this committee was asked to consider the archives available through this service. The qualities of an online searchable database appear to be met within the default parameters of Binhost_s archive properties. The archives are searchable by date, topic, author and thread of conversation; they are password protected as well. Other hosting services were quite expensive and / or offered no technical support, essential to our members. We are offered up to 20 MB of storage before another pricing scheme needs to be looked at; that is adequate for our needs at present.
Another challenge posed to us was when Timi signed on as our co-archivist in early July. She felt that the way GROW keeps our archives was not correct. Archiving shares was questioned, even though approved by GROW in past business meetings. (Shares are not posted on our web site; any item that is posted is stripped of all identifiers, and the usual standard of first name, last initial is used.) By July_s end, Timi had to resign as co-archivist, due to her health considerations and time constraints.
Susan joined us as co-archivist 14 August. Louise had to leave due to time constraints at the end of August. Our membership now consists of Jean, Gigi and Susan.
On 25 August, the Secretary sent a detailed message, giving background for our Archives discussion, to have been discussed in our July biz meeting.
It is the suggestion of this committee that all of the pertinent GC decisions, as detailed
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
GROW Archives > Protocol > Format (4/04)
Decision: We will form a committee to further explore archival methods.
Proposal: Our Archivist requests a discussion on a safe way to archive.
Comments: Our Archivist happily reported that Annette had located all of our original documents from the formation of our group. Jean will now be able to re-build our archives. She described her work as Archivist. Several members made suggestions about searchable storage and the need to define a purpose. Cheryl T. posted the group conscience decisions currently in place for the GROW Archives. Gigi and Annette support the idea of forming a committee to explore the possibilities and costs involved with different archival methods.
Top of Page
Back to GC Contents
GROW Archives > Protocol > Format (7/00)
Decision: By consensus, adopted the Archives Committee report and recommendations for the archives Storage and Display.