Minutes
Monthly EC Skype Meeting
Saturday, September 5, 2015
14:00 p.m. CET
Skype access information: The meeting will be held under the Skype name acaeurope. If you would like to take part in the meeting, please contact acaeurope 5-10 minutes before the meeting starts.
Please notify the secretary at [email protected] with changes, additions, or motions for this meeting.
A. Call to Order: Please be sure that any background noises in your area are eliminated since the sounds make it difficult for participants to hear. When speaking, please say your name first. This will help us record your name with your input. Thank you.
1) Open with the Serenity Prayer
2) Tradition Nine: Adult Children of Alcoholics, as such, ought never be organized, but we may create service boards directly responsible to those they serve.
B. Roll Call of European Countries: Majbrit, Denmark, WSO European Chair;
Will, Germany, WSO European Committee Secretary;
C. Establish Quorum
D. EC Members Reports: I will ask each European Country Representative to introduce themselves and tell us briefly how the groups in your country are doing. I will start, ….
Will – Munich: There are currently two groups, an open-discussion group on Thursdays and a step-working group on Saturdays. The fellowship is growing in Munich, and they are talking about establishing an Intergroup, although they’re not yet sure if it will start out for Munich or for more of Germany.
Manfred – Cologne: There are currently wwo groups in Cologne. Thursday is an open group. Sunday is also a step study group. They are using the yellow workbook and another workbook, so they do writing and then share what they just wrote. The groups are between 3-5 people and slowly growing. They will be taking flyers to places where there may be interest in ACA.
Ferenc – Hungary: There are groups in 5 cities with many members. Only a few people have sponsors, and only a few people work the steps.
Jeffery – Prague: The English-speaking meeting has been going on for about 20 years. It used to be bigger, but it has dwindled down in the last few years. They are trying to be more proactive and get things going again. A big issue seems to be awareness, because there are certainly a lot of people who would benefit from the program. As in many things, it probably has more to do with desire than need. In any case, they have a new member here.
Majbrit – Denmark: They have a large fellowship, 42 meetings. Next week they are going to institute a new IG. The fellowship has been around for over 20 years, with its own literature in Danish. But the new IG will help them get a discount on ordering Big Red Books. They will place this order soon, and it will be the second edition of the BRB in Danish.
E. Guests Introductions: Guests, at this point we would like to invite all of our guests to introduce themselves by first name only and perhaps telling us which country you are calling from. Guests, please introduce yourselves:
After the introductions/reports: We respectfully ask that guests hold their comments until the end of our meeting. Only European Committeerepresentatives (you may want to relax this rule at the beginning) may talk while we have discussions. We ask everyone to mute their Skype if you are not speaking. If someone needs to talk further, they may do so after the close of the meeting.
F. Minutes: Motion to approve the August 1, 2015 Teleconference Minutes (Will) (needs a second)
seconded and approved
G. Committee Reports: I will ask the Committee Chairperson to give their reports. (5 minutes each). If no one is serving in these roles, you can note this on the record that you have “no trusted servant and no report.”
- EC Chair, Majbrit
- EC Treasurer,
- EC Secretary, Will
- EC Literature Committee,
- EC Members and Public Service Committee,
- EC Hospitals & Institutions Committee,
- EC Intergroup Liaison Committee,
- EC Website/Database Committee,
- EC 2015 ABC Committee,
H. Old Business:
- Round-up of the European Meeting in Helsinki (28-30 August)
Majbrit spoke to Larry (Chair of the WSO Board). She had been under the impression that fellowships could send PDFs of translated literature to be put onto the website, but this will be clarified in more detail further down below.
In the near future, a company will make offers for translating pamphlets and booklets, so ACA can get these all up on the website. She pushed for Germany to be the first country for this service, so the German fellowship could start with getting the trifolds. With this kind of company, the translations are almost 90 percent correct, but a group of people in the fellowship would need to correct the last 10% and then we could get them up on the webpage for free downloads. This could be an option for Prague as well.
The Board is also looking into the costs of translating the whole Big Red Book by machine, so that only a minimum number of corrections would need to be carried out by the individual fellowships.
The groups in Cologne have translated a lot of the literature themselves. Tübingen also has some translations. For the most part, the translations are still somewhat rough. For now, we are thinking of how to get on. We would like to make it available to other groups. There has been a request from the Düsseldorf group, but we do not know how to pass on the literature because of the copyright issues.
The German groups could distribute a “draft” of translations, but it must be clearly marked as a “DRAFT” and sent out in paper form (not as a published book). It should also say that this is not an approved piece of WSO literature. Once the fellowship has approved it, the draft then goes back to the translation committee at ACA WSO. If the German groups provide Majbrit with what has already been translated, Majbrit could also check on a price for doing a machine translation of the rest. Groups are encouraged to make the literature theirs. Of course, they should keep as close to the English translation as possible, but there are linguistic and cultural differences that need to be taken into account.
(The minutes from the August 29th face-to-face meeting in Helsinki were read also aloud).
I. New Business:
If anyone is interested in doing World Service, you need to attend seven consecutive Board Teleconferences. This can also be done via computer, in order to save on the costs of calls to the US. Each Teleconference is taped for record. Also, the WSO is in the process of changing the OPPM, meaning what is necessary to get an understanding of how to serve. This will hopefully be coming out before the ABC for approval.
The WSO is trying to have each country approve machine translations, and then it will put all pamphlets and booklets on Amazon. This is a new piece of information since the EC meeting in Helsinki. The ABC voted no on making pamphlets free, but it can be brought forward again. The people putting this forward would need to attend the ABC, to help stress the importance of these trifolds in native languages.
Guest Comments: To allow that all of our guests have a chance to share, we will limit guest comments to 3-5 minutes. If someone needs to talk further, they may do so after the close of the meeting.
Lisa – Finland: Finland has an IG for over 30 years, with groups in 30 cities. They have also translated the BRB, which has helped. After the last ABC, there was some discussion on having a Forum for ACA members, with moderators from ACA. Lisa has reserved the forum acaforum.info. This will not be an official ACA site, so it will not be sponsored by the WSO Board.
The board is also thinking of how to approach this type of service. Hopefully, this will be discussed in more detail in November at the next face-to-face meeting in the states.
Information on the monthly ACA WSO Teleconference.
Access number for the WSO Teleconference: 712-432-0075, Pin 427266#. Press *6 to mute or un-mute.
You can also attend the Teleconference using your computer. For more information, please visit https://www.acawso.org/teleconferences/78-wso-board/162-teleconference-flash-phone
Announcements: The next EC Skype Meeting is scheduled for October 3rd, 2015 at 14:00 p.m. CET.
A motion to adjoin was seconded, and the meeting was closed with the Serenity Prayer
