The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I got into an argument at the online alanon meeting tonight about sharing.
I don't yet know who the ops are or what the rules are in the meetings.
Do we share when the op opping calls on us, or when ANY op calls on us?
I raised my hand tonigh and did not get called on in the regular way. The whole room told me to share but I was waiting for the op to call on me.
Someone told me they called on me.
one person called on me first, but I didnt' know she was an op and I didn't know that an op who was not opping still counted as someone calling on me.
I understood that one person was leading the meeting tonight, so I waited to be recognized by her.
When that didn't happen, I went ahead and said, "Okay, I won't share then." but my text showed up on the screen after the op finally recognized me.
She told me she was "new". i have seen her before opping.
She did a good job, but I left feeling misunderstood and misunderstanding.
I have another question:
Does everyone here have a right to share?
Regardless of whether or not anyone wants to hear them share?
Again, the rest of the room called on me and so did two other ops, but only one other of them was "opping up" and the other I did not know she even was an op.
I got very confused.
I was even afraid the main op did not want me to share.
ty,
Carol
-- Edited by living_with_my_a on Sunday 12th of December 2010 08:43:26 PM
PLEASE go back again! It does get confusing sometimes!This is nothing new.
There should be only ONE op who keeps things inline, more than that confuses us.
People may have been trying to help you, not realising they were making it harder.
It is suppose to be.
OP asks anyone want to share? People send an exclamation point. The op is suppose to keep track of who comes in after the other. They then welcome them to share, person shares about five min.
then the sharer ends share.
Op calls the next person.
Just keep sending your exclamation point until the op invites you by name to share. They say Hi lilly please share, then lilly shares...
Does this help? Ignore everyone else.
Don't be afraid to try again! We all have to learn!MOre important to come back.
glad you tried, don't take it personal please! Its not really its not!
It is confusing, as my first day on this website or board, I went to the chat room, as you were leaving, because I thought the posting said the meeting was over. Then no one was talking at all so I started talking, and got scolded.
How are new people supposed to know or find the protocol or rules for the meetings if we don't know what to do ?
I felt like an idiot, I apologized, but felt like I a complete dork.
Arriving at solutions for me takes practice, practice, practice and when I first got to the rooms of the Al-Anon Family Groups one of the principles I was led to work over and over and over (practice) was "don't take it personal and being confused is a life time event for which comes with slogans..." Turn it over...Let go and let God...Easy does it...When in doubt; Don'T (Don T was an early sponsor). The op said she was new... which paints a huge picture of honesty. I think under the circumstances you did well. Time to go put the feelings of fear on paper and then in your God box...if you don't have one, make one. Empty shoe box or even better cigar box (sigh...I just love cigars but then....). Tape it shut so that you or no one else can get into it (only a power greater than you...therefore God) and cut a slot in the top. What you put in it (stuff you have no control over) cannot be snatched back from it. Feeling bad is an option...you can feel almost anything you want to feel at any time. YAY!!
Sometimes it can be confusing in the beginning You may be the next to share and often people will start welcoming you before the OP gets the chance to welcome you to the floor. If there are 2 or more people waiting to share the OP will usually post the share queque they may say " share queue name#1 then name #2" so the people in the room are usually on top of who is up to share. Again if there is no one ahead of you people will jump in and start to welcome you before the OP has a chance. Remember the OP is leading the group, keeping track of the share queue and welcoming people that enter the room, and answering questions in PM from people etc so we are multitasking and we are not always as fast as we would like to be. Also some of us may have computer problems, our screens my freeze or we might even get dropped out of the room. So please don't take offense that the OP wasn't as quick as you would have liked. And of course we would love everyone to share and everyone is welcomed to share. Sharing is how we learn, even from new people. We aren't perfect and we try to make the meetings as smooth as possible but there can always be a glitch. And if some one interrupts a share the OP will put up a reminder that a meetings is in progress. Please Don't be offended if it was your first time here and came in and started talking and were given the reminder that a meeting was in progress. I am pretty sure it has happened to almost all of us when we first got here. Anyone can "chair" a meeting as long as there are 2 or more people in the room who desire a meeting so you may have seen th OP last night voluteering to chair a meeting if no OP was present but last night was her first offical meeting she was chairing as an OP. I am an OP and don't have the capacity to download the beginning or ending scripts so all my meetings start and end with the serenity prayer unless there is another OP in the room willing to run the scripts for me.
I hope you give us another chance. we are always thankful for new people who find us and we want to you feel welcomed and comfortable here. Blessings
I have been an operator in our chat room, and also have chaired many a meeting in there as well. Because Alanon is a 'volunteer' program...sometimes a chairperson is not available to fulfill their regular scheduled meeting, and someone in our chat room will step in to help out and chair the meeting. Either way, an OP chairing, or another member in our chat room can become confusing...New people are not quite sure how a meeting 'runs' and are not aware of 'cross-talking' while someone else is sharing. All of this is generally handled expeditedly by the chairperson who is holding the meeting - IF they are familiar with the protocol.
A chairperson opens up the meeting with the scripts that are run after they announce the meeting is to begin.
A chairperson then chooses a topic or topics, or asks the room if anyone is interesting in offering a topic. The topic is then posted for all to view. Anyone coming into the room after all this is posted - the Chairperson will Private Message them a Welcome to the Meeting and the topic that has been chosen.
If you are interested in Sharing - you raise your hand (!) and the Chairperson will call on each of the sharers by order of their raising their hand indicating they would like to share on the topic. When it is your time to share, the meeting offers you approx. 5-7 minutes of share time so as to give others in the meeting an opportunity to share. It is helpful to remain on topic with your share, but many allow and offer "Open Topic' if you feel the need to share on something pressing in your life. This is ok to do, but generally we tell others that our share is not on topic - so others know that one will be sharing other than the chosen topic for this meeting.
Sometimes the Chairperson is busy with someone else in Private Messaging - thus they are not quite up to speed in calling people, or greeting people as they come into the room, or thanking a sharer. This is when it is helpful for the Chairperson to also have in line a 'designated helper' for their meeting...if the Chairperson cannot call the next sharer in line, this helper might do so for them. Many times prior to the start of the meeting, a chairperson will already have asked or set up another helper for the meeting...sometimes there seems to be no need as the room is quite small at the start of the meeting but, then gets busier as the meeting moves forward - and others will 'step in' to try to help....We do our best to maintain the protocol of each meeting held in our chat rooms as best we can - but 'things happen' and situations can get a bit confusing. There USED to be a protocol where an "H" was placed before a chat room name - indicating they are the 'HELPER' to the chairperson during meetings...but, it seems as though that situation has been either forgotten or lost during changing of Operators and Chairpersons.
A sharer shares, others in the room thank them for their shares, and then the Chairperson calls on the next person in line who has indicated they are interesting in sharing at the meeting.
When newcomers come into a meeting, not knowing that a meeting is being held - they MAY inturrupt a share - if this happens, the chairperson generally will either Private Message them or send a 'silent message' into the room telling them a meeting is happening and please 'no cross-talk' (which means talking in the room if a share is going on). If a newcomer does NOT know how to receive/read a Private Message....they may continue talking - not understanding why they are not being said hello to or why no one is responding to their questions. This is an inturruption for sure - to the sharer...but by no means a fault to the New Comer - as they are not familiar to the protocol. A chairperson will clarify as best they can to them that a meeting is happening - and everything ensues from there.
Once you are done sharing, people will Thank you for your share, may even offer a tid-bit of support with a special comment directly to you - this is ok as well Once the sharer has been thanked by a number of other attendies in the meeting, the Chairperson will then call on the next request of a sharer. And the beat goes on.....
When the meeting closes....'scripts' of meeting notes will be posted...the chairperson may be involved in Private Messaging while these scripts are running, but generally will watch for the actual last part of the scripts - and announce a thank you to their attendies and type some note stating 'The meeting is now closed, Chat is now open!' ... this is an indication that others may talk about anything and everything - ask questions about Alanon or some other subject - say hello to friends and greet more personally any new comers to our chat room.
It sounds as if there may have been a bit of chaos/confusion during your time in our Meeting...Please do not let this sway you from joining us - we are there to help you, offer you support, give you guidance and become your friend! Many of us are 'regulars' in that room, and have a rappour with others who are regulars as well....MANY conversations can be happening at the same time, but we generally pay attention to New Comers and those who have pressing needs - but you might find other 'banter' going on even if you DO have pressing questions or concerns....someone(s) will ALWAYS 'take you under their wing' and offer you utmost attention with your need.
If you ever find you are confused, need help, are harassed by another, have a question or concern about a topic (during a meeting or in open chat), are in need of any assistance - just double click on a nickname to the right of your screen that is listed first in our chat room - Operators are categorized by a @ symbol before their nickname... A private message shows as a small red box below where the area that you type things in to send to the room (in Java), and/or a new window will open for you to chat privately to that person (in Mirc). This is also confusing to new comers who are not familiar with either Chat Relay...so they may not recognize the Private Message window for them...it is always polite to ask (in open chat) if you can "PM" someone specifically, During meeting times, so as not to 'cross-talk' you can just click on their name to talk privately with them. IF an Operator is not present during your time in our chat room, someone will pitch in to help you.
I hope you continue to use our Chat Room, Our Message Board...and our support. We are Here For You - you are Never Alone in Alanon.
Hope this clarifies much of your confusion and explains what may.... Keep Coming Back!
Lacewing ~!~
-- Edited by lacewing on Monday 13th of December 2010 05:36:22 PM
__________________
...He compared his weathered hand to mine and said, ... GROWTH OF THE MIND AND HEART are the best offers you can give.my Grandfather (Keeper of Stories), to me
PLEASE go back again! It does get confusing sometimes!This is nothing new.
There should be only ONE op who keeps things inline, more than that confuses us.
Carol says: One of the ops said she was leading. I was waiting for her to call on me.
Carol says: Everyone called on me. I only answer to the op.
OP asks anyone want to share? People send an exclamation point. The op is suppose to keep track of who comes in after the other. They then welcome them to share, person shares about five min.
Carol says: That happened. She asked for the next share. I went "!". She did not call on me right away, others did. Then she did, after my text appeared, saying, "okay, I won't share then." Then she calls on me, on my screen.
Does this help? Ignore everyone else.
Carol says: I did ignore everyone, except (NAME removed to protect identity, but reference to a New Chairperson). I was waiting for her to call on me, while everyone else was.
Carol says:
Maybe there's a way we can reduce confusion and have better communication between ops and members during meetings. If one op is having computer issues or issues with a member, let's deal with it. ty,
-- Edited by lacewing on Monday 13th of December 2010 06:46:57 PM
If you will read the "Message Board and Chat Room" section of the FAQ's at the top of this board (#4 talks about meeting format) there is great info on how the chat room operates during meetings and during open chat.
Don't take things in the chat room too personal. Takes time to get it all figured out. And it is soooo hard when you can't see facial expressions to go along with the words.
Welcome to Al-Anon and the online meetings. Yes, everyone is welcome to share and each person who wants to usually gets a chance, even if they are not called on right away. Especially newcomers. The online meetings are usually 8 - 10 people (max 20) so they are pretty informal.. and there is plenty of time for everyone to share. As long as someone raises their hand with an (!), they are called on in order.
Waiting until the chair calls on you helps to give everyone a turn. The purpose is to give each person undivided attention, without interruption and to really make them feel that what they have to say is respected & understood.
