Adult Children of Alcoholoics®/

Dysfunctional Families

World Service Organization, Inc.

December 12, 2015

ACA WSO Teleconference Meeting Minutes 

Chair Larry A. called the meeting to order and opened with the Serenity Prayer and the read the Twelfth Tradition:  Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all of our traditions ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.  

 

Attendees:  Larry A, Mary Jo (Absent), Ines Z. and Majbrit – Quorum was established.

Guest Introductions:  Precious (X259); Paula (Golden CO, X=15); Mikko (Denmark X=2); Eileen (X=1); Pam (Central Coast X=2 years); Patty (Evergreen CO, X=4); Laura (Southern CA, WSO Rep for 1162, X=68); Marietta (CT, X=19); Mona (Chicago X=54); Don S (Oshkosh WI, from N. E. Wisconsin Intergroup, X=Several); Bonnie (Texas, X=18); Mack (Pittsburgh WI, W. Gr. Lakes Intergroup as Secretary, X= 8); Wayne (Toronto Can.); Denise (VA); Jim (Del Rey Beach); Jeffery, Prague, European Committee for Literature and Finance and help other committee for Lit and Fin. X=4); George (London X=1); Joanne (Brooklyn X=?).

Minutes: 

Motion to approve the minutes of the October 10, 2015 ACA WSO Teleconference Meeting as amended. (Ines.  2nd Majbrit.)   APPROVED UNANIMOUSLY

BACKGROUND:  Minutes not approved at last meeting due to questions regarding the Executive Committee Report.  The item in question was approval of the purchase of 100 Perfect Bound Workbooks that would be used for hospitals and institutions.  This quantity was not a larger quantity then ordered in the past.  Minutes stated the incorrect amount which was 126 rather than 100.  Minutes amended to reflect proper quantity.  

Proposed Amendment (Ines):  Question about amount of time that one of the people who attend the Board Meeting regularly, how it was listed will be addressed.  Approve minutes with that additional correction.  Suggested that during guest introduction, guest should announce name, where they are from and how many times they have attended, for ease to the person transcribing.  Approved

Motion to table minutes of November 14, 2015 Teleconference Meeting. (Larry) APPROVED W/O OBJECTION

BACKGROUND: A new service was approved for hire during the November 14th 2015 Teleconference to transcribe minutes of the TC (Teleconference) and board working sessions.  The transition caused delays.  Minutes should be available for approval at the January 2016 Teleconference.  

Committee Reports

Treasurer’s Report – Mary Jo:  REPORT TABLED / Larry read report as submitted on the repository.

Per the Treasurer, you may notice slightly different look to the financials because we are now rounding the numbers off to make them easier to read.  To get the specifics, the balance sheet for last month has changed a little.  And on the website itself, in the repository you can click on the words “balance sheet” and the balance sheet will populate your computer.  The profit loss statement which is also a hypertext link, explains that for the month of November, sales less the cost of goods was about $29,500.  This figure does not include what was collected and paid for shopping. The distribution set to income after expenses was $13,647.  Our second cost center which covers income and expenses not related to the distribution center, shows 7 tradition contributions of $6,025.  Specific November’s contributions are shown under the “donations” tab in the left margin of the repository.  Audio Book sales were $1,039 and eBook sales were $2,795.  After expenses this cost center had a net balance of $4,977.  Reflected in this balance is a net credit of $2,360 for the cancellation of hotel arrangements for the Board’s Strategic Planning Meeting held last week.  Less expensive accommodations were found and will show in the December financials.  Over all the net income for November was $18,623.  Regarding the Finance Committee, I welcome Jeffery from Prague as a member.  We have yet to have a meeting but that should happen soon.  If anyone has questions, they can contact me at [email protected].  Respectfully submitted MaryJo L., Treasurer and Board Trustee. 

Finance Committee- Mary Jo:  REPORT TABLED.

Literature Committee – Larry:  The full report may be found in the repository. Robyn is not available today.  In 2013 the Fellowship asked for more questions and exercises for Steps 6-12, the results of that project are now on the website.  We are also inviting members to give suggestions for additional questions and exercises for 12 Step Workbook which can be forwarded to [email protected].  On the “Best Practices” page on the website (bottom right hand corner) there is an opportunity to see an offering by the Bonders Grove Noon Time Meeting in Illinois 193.  They have a program that can take you through an orientation of the steps in 4 weeks.  Feedback from fellowship on that is invited.  The Laundry List Workbook was published and is available on the web for $12.  The audio Big Red Book sales are 81 for the last month.  All totaled 797 sold.  Electronic Big Red Books have sold 72, a dip from the last few months.  Total sold, 8753.  Translations:  WSO has approved the translation of all the tri-folds and booklets into Danish, Spanish, Finish, Greek, Russian, Japanese and Lapin and German.  Translation to be done by machine and will be available for sale.  Board working on 3rd party fulfilment.  Jeff from Prague has been working with Robyn and the Board to make progress on how to effectively and efficiently do this as soon as possible.  The Big Red Book will have it’s 10-year anniversary next year.  We are trying to produce a special addition for the 10th year anniversary of the Big Red Book.  

Spanish Translations-Ines-Ines reported that the committee is making steady progress and gained one new volunteer who offered to assist with translations.  The committee is waiting for his signed translation agreement and then it will determine how to move forward.   Full report may be found in the repository.

ComLine – Phyllis-  Larry reported that the 4th Quarter ComLine is on the website.  A link has been added on to the home page under “Literature” for the ComLine.  An ABC addition.  All are free on line for downloading.  Also looking for people to share experience, strength and hope. Contact [email protected] with submissions. 

ACA Distribution Office –Mary Jo:  REPORT TABLED  

ACA WSO Distribution Center Oversight Committee-Ines:   There has not been a meeting since the last meeting due to holidays and other Board meetings.  No update at this point.  

Member and Public Service - Chair, Joan:   Larry noted he will speak with Joan during the week regarding the H & I guidelines.

Special Worker, Denise:  From Nov. 1st thru Nov. 30 of 2015 we received 706 Emails, 414 emails were sent out and we received 109 Vonage voicemails.  The International connections made were Australia, Canada, Columbia, Ireland, Mexico, Norway, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom, and Zambia.  In regards to teamwork, she thanked the WSO and all involved in helping to provide the most helpful information to all the Adult Children who reach out to us for assistance as it is definitely a collective effort.  She gave a thank you to Bonnie for helping MPS with voicemails and questions.  Denise noted that the most common emails from the Fellowship were about finding Meetings, Meeting changes, how to start new Meetings and Literature information.  Most voicemails were about finding Meetings, Meeting changes, literature and ordering information.  A lot of new comers this month asking for assistance about ACA and meeting information.

Hospitals & Institutions -Joan:  Joan reported that for November. The H & I Survey sent out to the intergroups in October will close Tuesday, December 15th.  Preliminary results indicate a lack of volunteers from the groups to assist regularly in taking meetings into an institution.  Also a lack of understanding of how to develop a program may be part of why H & I volunteer work is not being done by intergroups.  10 orders were sent to inmates and request for literature for inmates has slowed down.  H & I committee is awaiting the release of the Fellowship H & I handbook.  It has been completed but not released for use as yet.  

Intergroup Liaison-Bonnie: Bonnie KM reported most common concerns in messages forwarded or copied to the subcommittee have been about literature discounts, shipping, registration and locating intergroups as well as new intergroup representatives introducing themselves and asking questions.  Messages sent directly to the committee were mostly announcements and requests that were copied along with other information.  Total emails received 21; 13 responses sent over 6 different conversations.  New messages forwarded to the intergroup subcommittee address are running 2 to 1 over messages sent directly to [email protected].  Subcommittee suggested a direct link to the email through the “contact us” menu to make more accessible and ease workload for Denise having to forward.  John from Pennsylvania intergroup, thank you for your joining the committee.    Full report is in the repository.

Website and Database Committee Report- Larry:  The full report is posted the repository.  Larry reported overall inquirers, site visitors was 47,089 up 1.9% from October. Number of new inquirers, people who visited for the first time was 62%, unchanged from October.  Inquires using mobile devices was 45% of total and unchanged from October.  Overall bounce rate is still slowly increasing.  Bounce rate is defined as percentage of single page visitors, those who left the entry page visited at the site without further interaction with the site, 65% up 3% from October.  Most visited pages after the “home page” is the “literature/laundry list page”, “find a meeting”, and the “literature problem”, same top three as October.  Most visitors from US but there have been a substantial number of visitors from other countries, 128 to count.  Top five being:  US 82%, Canada 3.2%, Russia 3%, United Kingdome with 2.9% and Australia with 1.1%.  November 24th there were a large volume of spam entries coming through the website web-forms.   Catch-up protection was added to the meeting list web-form and harassment has stopped.  However, we are continuing to receive multiple bounced messages due to the invalid email address already sent through the web-forms.  The website was fully inoperative on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, November 28th and was restored the following Sunday Morning by Sentoria which is closed on Saturdays.  After lengthy discussions with Sentoria addressing the issues and putting into place methodology to hopefully present such outages in the future.  The web updates needed to support the 2016 ABC Proposal Registration are still pending review.  Just a reminder there has been a dropdown off of “literature” to directly access the ComLine off of the “home page”.    

European Committee – Majbrit:   Majbrit stated the minutes from the Skype meeting for October and November European Report for 2015 are available in the repository.  Due to computer problems during the last two months the reports were delayed.  A thank you was extended to Jeffery from Prague for joining the committee.  Jeff’s professional view has really helped move the vision forward to creating structure for the European fellowship. There has been contact with Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Poland, Germany, Switzerland and Spain.  The Spanish intergroup has asked to join us as well.  One of the most frequently asked question is, how we prevent the usage of our logo on non-approved meetings or literature”.  To understand what’s going on we need to address the fact that many fellowships have developed their own literature for usage in their local county.  This comes out of not having the Big Red Book and this happens before there was any Big Red Book.  Many fellowships took a little from the Blue Book or other fellowships all in the mix.  The Big Red Book has been out for almost 10 years but because of lack of translation, the fellowship in Europe are still using what they know.  So what they perceive to be ACA literature may be non-approved literature.  The transition is happening but it won’t be completed anytime soon.  In Denmark there is a workbook called “A Way Out” member still use this one although we have had the Big Red Book and the Yellow Workbook in Danish for two years.  What we did was making workshops when we got the Yellow Workbook all over the country.  But two years in, we are still in transition to ACA approved literature.  Good sponsors might not have completed the 12 steps in the Yellow Workbook.  The newcomers are very choosy, they want to do the step work the right way, but ultimately the Yellow Workbook doesn’t sufficiently deal with the character defects so members still us “A Way Out” to supplement their step work.  Until the Laundry List workbook is translated they will continue to do so.  The point being made is by the group conscious.  The fellowship can make a decision to use as much translated approved ACA literature as possible but I don’t see members going back to use an English book if they have done meetings in their own language prior to the Big Red Book coming out.  Not referring to the English speaking meeting all over Europe.  But the fact of the matter is, members want the Big Red Book in their own language and the process we have in place is very slow.  Matters like this one will occur.  Poland is especially worried for their fellowship because it’s been common practice that ACA are doing the step work from their AA translated Blue Book and calling it ACA.  They are concerned for new comers and rightly so.  In Finland, they have the same problem.  Their ACA was called AAL but they made a decision to change their name to ACA and use only approved literature.  The most important point being that they also have their translation completed in Finish.  So, on the main issues, we will work to provide the fellowship with ways of getting the support they need in this transition period.  This from a platform we are trying to achieve.  We hope to present the fellowship with our vision at the ABC 2016.  The Danes are wondering how their order is going.  Do we know where things are at?  Sweden and Lithuania are wondering why it takes so long to change their meeting information.  Gloria was asked to assist with this.  Both countries have written numerous times they have reported.  And Spain joined our EC.  We received a letter from them this month stating they wanted to do service at U level.  It is nice to see the fruit from all the hard work being done.  If anyone wants to call, or has a question, please contact her at [email protected].  

OPPM Review Committee - Joan:  Was not able to work on the report this week, but are continuing to work on things with completion by early next year.  

2016 ABC Liaison Report – Larry:  A full report is in the repository.  Larry spoke to the group that offered to host and they were meeting on December 13th at 4:15 that he will be attending.  The registration forms are on line in the repository under 2016 ABC.  Additionally, if you want to volunteer to chair or speak at a meeting as well as those that might want to do workshops, the application is due January 31, 2016.  The ballads are up.  This is an opportunity for the fellowship to vote on whether they believe these proposed items should be discussed at the annual business conference.  The votes are due February 28th, 2016.  A key date is March 11, 2016, the date that all the delegates and those attending need to submit their registration form.  The forms are online and can be downloaded and printed.  They should be sent along with the various fees to the office in California.  All systems are GO for the 2016 ABC.   

Forinformation, please contact [email protected] or you can find all the information under Fellowship Alerts.

Executive Committee – Majbrit/Larry: Majbrit did not have any information at the time but Ines added that nothing had been done for the Executive Committee for this month.  

 

No Old Business

no old business 

New Business:

  1. Motion:  That the Board validate on the record that the Chair may execute the William Boca Raton Courtesy Agreement and the Residence Inn Agreement to reserve rooms for any spill over for the ABC/AWC. (Larry)

Background (Larry):  The conference center will only have about 20 rooms and these agreements will hold some rooms to allow attendees to receive a reduced rate.  There is no liability/responsibility on the part of the WSO if the rooms are not used.      

Second:  Ines   Motion Passed Unanimously

This concludes our Agenda.  Thank you all very much.

Any guest comments or questions?

Summary of guest comments:  

  1. Precious:  Phone Bridge ACA Registered meeting, what is the procedure to submit a proposal to have the registered meetings delisted in hopes that people would start face to face meetings as the phone meetings are not affiliated ACA/WSO.  Also interested in volunteering at this level.
    1. A proposal would have to be submitted to the 2017 ABC.  It sounds like a global problem, something that the fellowship would have to be consulted on.  Also you can send concerns to the Board for review.
  2. Jim (Del Rey Beach):  Looking for information regarding intergoups i.e. if intergroups should file for not-for-profit status or not.
    1. Referred to Bonnie / Intergroup email address:  [email protected].  WSO will not have an opinion, that is a legal question and the answer varies by state.  Write to the intergroup email for further discussion.  
  3. Pattie (CO, Intergroup Rep).  What is the status to the ComLine Motion?  Bill B. (Miami, Planning Committee Chair for House Committee) Just saying hello.
    1. Minutes for the November meeting not posted.  Tabled until January.  However, the motion failed for lack of a second.
  5. Bonnie (TX) How can someone submit something for best practices and different groups traditional way of doing things like dealing with (inaudible) or whatever.  Is that an appropriate post for the best practices area?
    1. The Best Practices is like a fill-in form off the website on the “home page” in the middle column at the bottom.  Simply fill in and it gets monitored by a trusted servant.  Anything that the group for intergroup feels is the Best Practice that they discovered is appropriate for posting.  

Announcements: Larry - The next ACA WSO Board Teleconference is scheduled January 9, 2016at 2:00 p.m. EST.   

Is there a motion to adjourn the meeting? 2nd to the motion?

Motions to adjourn / MajbritSecond the motion / Ines

Are there any questions or comments about the motion to adjourn the meeting?

Motion carried unanimously.

Closed the Meeting with the Serenity Prayer