Minutes
Monthly EC Skype Meeting
Saturday, October 3, 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 Ten: Adult Children of Alcoholics has no opinion on outside issues; hence the ACA name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
B. Roll Call of European Countries: Majbrit, Denmark, WSO European Chair;
Will, Germany, WSO European Committee Secretary;
Veronica, Zurich, Switzerland, Secretary and IG Rep
Ausra, Lithuania Translation Group Chair
Jeffrey, Prague, Czech Republic
Manfred, Cologne, Germany
C. Establish Quorum
D. EC Members Reports: I will ask each European Country Representative to introduce themselves and tell us briefly how the groups I your country are doing. I will start, ….
Majbrit – Denmark: The deadline for ABC proposals was September 30th. Danish, Finnish, English, German. The proposals will be analyzed and translated by machine by a separate company. One of the official languages in Switzerland is high German, but Swiss German is a dialect. As it is expensive to translate these proposals, the WSO has selected a few languages to represent the largest body of members in Europe. The 7th tradition from every country is very helpful for this process. The WSO’s main priority now is to get these proposals out to see what will be discussed in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, the last weekend in April 2016. Hopefully, Europe will be represented there by as many members as possible, as this meeting will decide what the board will work on from 2016-2017. They are also holding rooms at the Duncan Center in Ft. Lauderdale, which offer certain discounts based on the group rate. Majbrit has been talking to the Lithuanians and the Greeks. The Greeks are really moving ahead with their fellowship: Translations, doing Public Information work, etc., and they started a new face to face meeting in Greece, the first of its kind since 2003.
Will – Munich, Germany: there are two meetings in Munich, an open-discussion meeting on Thursdays and a step-working meeting on Saturdays. The fellowship is currently in the process of establishing an IG. The first unofficial IG meeting has already been held, and another meeting will be held towards the end of October.
Manfred – Cologne, Germany: there are two groups, Thursday and Sunday, also open meeting and step-working group. The groups are trying to translate the red book. They have already combined different translations from different individuals and then started to fill in the missing parts by translating them.
Ausra – Lithuania Representative (but based in the UK). She is responsible for the ACA translations and is the Chairperson of the committee. Yesterday was their IG meeting, which was established a year ago. They had never had an IG before. This was a big step forward. Over the last year, the meeting was held almost every month, and the members were usually quite active. They had one or two members from a group in Lithuania going to the IG as voting members. At the moment, there are 9 groups in Lithuania in the biggest cities and the smaller towns. Over the course of this year, two new groups were established, and they also have a regular online meeting, like a separate group, as it’s for the people who cannot attend the face-to-face meetings. They also have two-step working meetings, held every week as well. The main problems surround translations, as they have an unofficial translation of the big red book, but many different people were translating it just for the sake of having some literature, rather than not having any. That is why they established a translation committee. The process was long this year, but it has been moving forward and by the end of this month, editing of the big red book should start. Then they can send the translation to the trusted servant at the WSO. Now this process seems to be a bit clearer. Originally, they had 10 translators, but now they only have 3. She just sent out an email asking a few more members to help, so hopefully more will be joining. At this point, Lithuania does not have any representatives to the WSO. They are not currently sure what this representative should actually be doing. The information about the Lithuania meetings is not on the WSO webpage. The information was updated a few months ago, but it has not yet shown up on the Internet. She has now updated the information again, and she saw that some of the information has already gone live on the website.
Note from the Chair - ([email protected] is the best way to get in touch with Gloria, our special worker handling the meeting information on the WSO website.) Also, when you are a WSO representative, you attend a monthly conference call from the WSO and report that information back to your country. Also, you represent your country by voting at the ABC (Annual Business Conference) on a world level. [email protected] is the email address from the EC Chair, Majbrit. She would be happy to help new groups starting out with experience strength and hope on formats and growing meetings.
Veronica – Zurich, Switzerland: the group started in May and has had an unofficial room since June. Around 3-6 members, they are still glad to get some support with the format, because it’s new for most everyone. It’s an English meeting, more like a beginner’s meeting. She would like to learn more about establishing a format and helping the group grow. The group is stable, which is definitely good. There is also an English group in Geneva, so it could be good to cooperate with that group as well.
Jeffrey – Prague: they are a small group that meets every Friday. It ebbs and flows, a bit of a holding pattern in recent time.
E. Old Business:
- Establishing a Region
In order to establish a region, two Intergroups need to make motions to create a Region. The EC was established to carry the message and help connect with the European fellowship. The EC is a committee from the WSO Board. A European Region would be autonomous and self-supporting through 7th tradition donations. A Region would also look into establishing a distribution center in Europe to handle international literature orders, as well as helping IGs share experience, strength and hope with each other.
- Shipping ACA Literature
The WSO has looked into various options for handling international orders. At the moment, they are focused on putting barcodes onto all the literature, so it can be sold and shipped through Amazon. Amazon has a huge distribution center in Germany, for instance, so this should make the process easier for Europe. By the end of November, more information should be available. For now, IGs can also receive a 30% discount on literature orders. In order to get a 30% discount, an IG needs to be registered on the WSO website and also have an individual registered with the WSO as the official literature contact for that IG. Then the IG can receive the 30% discount.
- Translating ACA Literature
- How Intergroups can stay in touch with the EC, the WSO, and the fellowship as a whole
The Finnish, Polish, Spanish, and Danish books are in the process of being added to Amazon. This may most likely result in better prices for the members purchasing over Amazon. The WSO is going to translate pamphlets and the proposals by machine. These machine translations are about 85% accurate, which means it would be much faster to translate first by machine, and then have editors review the translations. The WSO currently does not have the funds to translate on a global scale. IGs would need to look into how to approach this.
Any members who did not receive this agenda are encouraged to send their email address to [email protected] to be added to the mailing list. Further information on the monthly WSO teleconference can also be found below in bold.
Furthermore, the WSO is in the process of sorting out how to best link the official ACA webpages of the local countries to the WSO webpage, to help carry the message.
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.
Is it against the traditions to have host speaker tapes on ACA webpages? This is fine if the speaker has given permission to be recorded and hosted on the webpage. The EC will double-check this with the board and get back with an answer.
Does someone need to be sober for at least 18 months before starting ACA work? ACA does not require this, however, if someone is disrupting a meeting by being drunk or under the influence of drugs, the group can ask them to leave. ACA is not a substitute for other 12-step fellowships focusing on substance abuse problems; however, ACA works in conjunction with all 12-step fellowships.
How can we keep track of emotional sobriety in ACA, as other fellowships have coins commemorating the amount of sobriety? Most people celebrate the first meeting they went to, and individual groups celebrate different occasions in different groups. The amount of time of emotional sobriety itself is not necessarily commemorated by coins.
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 following EC Skype Meeting is scheduled for Saturday, November 7, 2015 at 14:00 p.m. CET.
A motion to close the meeting was seconded, and the meeting was closed with the Serenity Prayer.
