I've spent a lot of time trying to change groups and meetings fundamentally. Firstly, it (largely) doesn't work. Secondly, it aggravates everyone along the way.
Now, there are two types of change that are legitimate and helpful. Firstly, if there is a real problem, it might need to be fixed. Secondly, there might be a genuine improvement to the format that would help people.
Everyone could find a hundred things about the meeting that they don't like, a hundred little improvements. If everyone brought all of these up, there would be no time for the meeting, what with all of the discussion and wrangling.
On his pastoral governance in Venice, Roncalli (Pope John XIII) wrote about the following rule, coming from Gregory the Great but also attributed to St Bernard, that he as a young priest knew as a motto of the bishop of Bergamo, Giacomo M. Radini-Tedeschi, 'Omnia videre, multa dissimulare, pauca corrigere'. 'See everything, disregard most things, change a little.'
What's an example of a problem that needs to be fixed? The layout of the chairs is such that the people at the back literally can't hear.
What's an example of a genuine improvement to the format that would help people? Adding a monthly workshop with speakers to discuss topics chosen by the group.
Although it's important that the legitimate needs of newcomers, the suffering, and the otherwise vulnerable need to be accounted for in the format (e.g. making sure the script is comprehensible to someone who has never been to AA; ensuring there are friendly greeters posted to greet, welcome, and direct those arriving), if every gripe, offence, and sensitivity of a group's individual members were to be manoeuvred around or adjusted to, there would be no time for the actual meeting what with all the group consciences. Sure, the point may be valid in its own, small way, but someone is bound to disagree, and we could all make a list. The Al-Anon motto 'How important is it?' comes in handy at this point.
One of the big lessons of the programme is this: adjust to the world rather than getting the world to adjust to me. I would practise this and continue to practise this in the groups I attend: I adjust myself to the group rather than getting the group to adjust to me. When I'm in my right mind.
If I really don't like it: don't try and fix it; start my own. Which I've done, several times!
I've seen groups horribly bogged down in group consciences and the contention and acrimony they unfortunately invariably generate. I've also seen healthy groups:
There was a group I went to around, oh, twelve years ago. They had a two-minute sharing policy. You could share for two minutes, then your time was up, and you'd be told your time was up. The script referred to a 'timeshare policy' rather than a 'timed shared policy'. A timeshare is obviously a legal arrangement whereby a holiday property is partly leased by a large number of people, each of whom is allocated, say, a two-week slot each year. Every week, it bothered me. 'Why does no one fix it?' I asked myself. Ten years later, I started going back, and the script was the same. I was actually reassured. This was a healthy group: clearly there hadn't been one busybody in the intervening ten years who had seen fit to fix it. Everyone just left it be.
In groups where people just leave the meetings be, in my experience they tend to leave the individuals be, as well, which makes it what really makes it a safe place. In groups where there is constant interference via the group conscience process, the individuals are usually next ... 'Safety' for vulnerable and damaged people is not, in my view, about complex and nuanced scripts or Byzantine hierarchies of group rules and regulations. It's this:
We don't care how crazy, weird, or offensive you are: you're totally welcome, you don't have to change one bit for us to love you, and no one is going to try to fix, change, or control you. Although we'd super appreciate it if you didn't shoot up in the toilets and kept your sharing to under five minutes ... But we do love you anyway and we want you to come back.
That's what safety looks like.
Of all the approaches to groups I've seen, the best, in my experience is this: keep it simple; keep the script brief, get on with it, and let it run. That leaves more time and space to look after the people themselves.