Proposed by Brian@work at the SMR Business Meeting, January 2026
Issue:
I move that the SMR Meeting Chairs make a verbal announcement noting the service vacancies, at the end of the meeting during the 1st week of each month. This may be as simple as reading any service needs announcement posted in the chat at the start of the meeting. Seconded by Sue.
Background:
The Reports offered during the January business meeting, as seen in the meeting minutes (linked here) clearly illustrate the group needs of member participation. All the standard positions are vacant. The group has created a moment at the beginning of the meeting when service needs can be posted in the chat. This motion would continue our dedication to promoting service to the group.
NOTE: Currently an Ad hoc Committee is looking at the current service position descriptions in the hopes of making service less daunting and more inviting. This may include organizing around small groups of members working together to accomplishing the various tasks associated with the service position.
13 thoughts on “Motion 26-2: A Verbal Announcement of Service Vacancies and Needs”
Yes, let’s verbalize the service needs.
The announcements that “we” are having “our” such and such meeting today implies that these meetings are endorsed or a part of SMR when they are not. They were started and run by one individual. They are not “our” meetings. They are not run by “us”.
Yes, and not announcing it daily, but one week out of the month. If we don’t know that a service position is available, it’s going to be hard to fill. This meeting runs like a well oiled machine and there are many people who make this happen. Informing folks briefly would be helpful in filling these positions. And I believe what we read at the end of each meeting, service benefits recovery.
Yes, I agree. This meeting is a “well oiled machine” and runs like clock work. AND there are positions that I’m not aware of that make this meeting happen. By announcing these unfilled positions would give people a chance to be aware of some service opportunities. And I agree, service benefits recovery.
This seems like a good proposal, but hearing how many service positions are empty, it seems like there ought to be – and maybe there has been – an effort to understand what the obstacles are to doing service for this group.
I am doing too much service in another group, along with a few other people. We haven’t been able to figure out how to change that. It seems like people are more willing to volunteer when you have a personal relationship with them.
….continued…maybe the service team needs to have great (Zoom) parties or some other type of perk. It’s really hard. I do know one group that claims to have cracked the service problem. I’ll put my email in case anyone is interested.
I totally agree.
I totally agree.
Agreed entirely. I would suggest we add some language encouraging participation, briefly noting the benefits to recovery, as well as note service is not nearly as challenging as it might first appear.
I think we need to hear the service positions. The meeting has no Treasurer and collects 7th tradition, with no 7th tradition report, which is a pretty serious violation of the 7th tradition. This position, among others, should be announced until filled, rather than on chat, where people don’t see it. The huge number of vacant positions says that there is a need to do something differently. If we keep doing the same thing, we will keep getting the same results.
I would prefer hearing it at the end of each meeting—something like: “Our meeting needs your help. Please check the chat for the link to available service positions.”
I believe hearing, not just reading the current vacant/open service positions might be helpful to actually filling those vacant positions. For example, does the majority of our meeting group of over 200 plus people, each day know that we need a group treasurer, a group secretary, a group delegate, a training coordinator, a master-list scheduler/coordinator, a newsletter or communications secretary, a web servant, and another business meeting chair? I think that people have to know before they can volunteer, otherwise it begs the question, why can we not find volunteers?
I support this motion because I think that hearing the vacant/open SMR service roles at the start of the meeting or by the chairperson might be a great way to fill some, if not all, of these VACANT roles.
There are too many verbal announcements at the end of the mtg. Could the other announcements be shortened or eliminated? All the announcements takes time away from the unity of closing the meeting and the same people announcing every day is verging on personality over principle.
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