Minutes of the EC march 2017

Minutes

Monthly EC Meeting

4 March, 2017

14:00 p.m. CET

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 Three: The only requirement for membership in ACA is a desire to recover from the effects of growing up in an alcoholic or otherwise dysfunctional family.

 

B.  Roll Call of European Countries:  

Jeffrey, Czech Republic, EU Finance and Literature Sub-Committee Chair/WSO Board Trustee

Majbrit, Denmark, WSO Vice Chair/European Chair

C.  Quorum Established

D. European Committee Country Representatives:

Michael, Ireland

Linda, Latvia

Mi-hi, Romania

Juna, Spain

Hanna, Finland

E. Guests:

Earhart, Germany (representing two groups)

Veronica, Switzerland

Alexia, Germany

Non-committee members are welcome to listen to this teleconference but are requested to remain silent unless asked to participate. We respectfully request that guests hold their comments until the end of the meeting. If someone needs to talk further, they may do so after the end of the meeting.

 

F. Announcements

 

• First Norwegian Fellowship ACA Convention
  Majbrit announced that the Norwegian ACA fellowship is having their first ACA convention on the 17^th of June. More details will be provided as they become available. 
• Absence of February Conference Call Recording from the acawsoec.com Website
  Jeffrey offered a short apology for the absence of the February conference call recording from the EC website. The situation resulting in the absence of the call has been resolved and future calls will be uploaded in a timelier manner. 
• ACA Literature on Amazon.co.uk Update
  Jeffrey announced that he received a letter from the office of the Managing Director for Amazon in the UK that the warehouse situation has been elevated to the highest level. They are in the process of sorting out the compliance issues with the WSO registration information. He is confident that with the Managing Director’s involvement, we can expect to see the books on sale this month.
• Fourth Annual European Meeting
  Jeffrey announced that they expect to announce next month more details about the Fourth Annual European Meeting. He asks that we wait until then before asking questions.
• Attendance for Annual Business Conference and Annual World Congress
  The ABC and AWC will take place this year in San Diego, California. Jeffrey believes that the event will take place in the third week of April, next month. The event is moving along nicely and they have booked extra hotel rooms to accommodate attendees.
• Print Status of Various ACA Literature Translations in Europe
  Jeffrey announced that in the coming weeks, the following ACA Literature translations should start printing:
  • The Swedish Newcomer Book
  • The Finnish Yellow Workbook
  • The Russian Big Red Book
  • The Greek Meditation Book

Jeffrey also announced that the electronic version of the Castilian Spanish BRB should be available next month. There will be a formal announcement when it it is available.

• Irish Fellowship Unity Day
  The Irish ACA Fellowship is holding a Unity Day on the 1^st of April. Everyone who wishes to attend is welcome to attend. The announcement with more details is available on the EC website.

G. Questions/Comments

• Michael thanked Jeffrey for promoting the Irish Fellowship Unity Day. 
• Majbrit asked Michael for more details about the Irish fellowship and the expected number of attendees. Michael informed the group that the fellowship is small with about three meetings. In Cork, there are three meetings. They book for about 20 people. In Galway, there are three meetings, and they are believed to be the larger of the groups. There meetings in Dublin as well, and smaller meetings elsewhere in Ireland.
• Majbrit offered to help Michael with promoting the event. He reiterated that he is not the event organizer but that they could still talk after the meeting about presenting suggestions to the organizer.
• Mi-hi expressed his gratitude to Jeffrey for the Monthly Newsletter and thanked him for his service. He then provided a short update about the Romanian Fellowship:
  Despite the fellowship’s strong start, the group in Cruj has put meetings on hold. The meeting taking place in the capital city of Bucharest is still going, but the number of attendees has started to decline. He suspects that the holidays had an impact on the activity of the group. With spring, the meeting attendance numbers should start to increase. The Romanian Fellowship has also started a virtual meeting on Zoom. So far, it has been a pleasant success with newer members every meeting. Combined with a secret facebook group, the virtual meeting has been a big success.
• Majbrit thanked Mi-hi for his update and offered her assistance with helping grow the Romanian Fellowship.
• Veronica asked about the expected release date of the kindle/electronic version of the Spanish ACA literature. Jeffrey clarified for her that he was talking about the electronic version the entire time and that it would be available in April. Once the electronic version is available, they will start working on printed media for availability this year.
• Iuna asked where the electronic version of the BRB would be made available. Jeffrey confirmed that it would be available on amazon/Barnes & Nobles and that direct links to those sites would appear on the EC website. While the 12 step workbook is not available in an electronic format, printed copies will be available once the amazon.co.uk problem is resolved.
• Michael asked for the opinion of Jeffrey and Majbrit on how to handle requests from Universities to conduct surveys of the group. He is reluctant to get involved because it’s an outside group, but wanted to know if there are other opinions. Majbrit said that it is very clear that in order to protect member anonymity, it is not acceptable to participate in surveys like that. If a person from the university wants to attend the meeting, they can do so, but should pre-announce 1-2 months before the meeting date and at the meeting announce that they are there for a reason before it starts. After the meeting they can approach individuals and ask them to provide information anonymously. We can only speak to our own experience, not the experience of others. Majbrit then recounted that they have had journalists and therapist attend their meetings in the past. They attended the meetings as guests and were subject to the restrictions she previously outlined. In addition, they could only speak to their own experience in their thesis or article, could not mention ACA in any way, only “a 12-step meeting for people from dysfunctional and alcoholic families”, and could only say that they attended. If a person wishes to break their own anonymity, that is within their own right, but as a fellowship it is not allowed.

  Jeffrey added that he was uncertainty over whether or not the ACA name can be mentioned in situations like the one being discussed. He referenced an interview that took place recently about the ABC and AWC on a local radio station in San Diego and the fact that these interviews actively publicize the ACA name.

  Jeffrey and Majbrit discussed the issue at depth and concluded that it is okay to mention ACA, but not a specific ACA meeting and not reproduce literature or anything copyrighted by ACA. People should be redirected to the adultchildren.org site for information about the organization. ACA members who speak to journalist or people from any outside organization should only speak to their own experience, and not for ACA as a whole.

• Earhart asked how the translations submitted for the trifold/flyer literature on lit.adultchildren.org are posted. Jeffrey informed the group that he asked Larry (current WSO Chairman and Literature Committee Chair) about this very question. According to Larry’s understanding, the translations were part of an initiative from several years back. The text was all machine translated which is why it states that the text translation is not verified yet. If groups are translating the text in their own country, it’s done through group conscience and then submitted to the website as approved translations.

  Majbrit added that when the initiative took place, people were not allowed to correct the translations because it was not included in the price even though they were only 92% correct. They were posted as a result of wanting to do a machine translation as a test run to see if we could machine translate the ballots for the ABC in 2016. She concluded with a reminder that there is a translation agreement with the German fellowship to look at and correct the literature on the lit.adultchildren.org page.

• Alexia informed the group that the literature committee in the German fellowship is in the process of reviewing all of their currently material and promised to stay in touch of Earhart pending an answer from Majbrit.

H. Meeting Closed

Jeffrey motioned to close the meeting and it was seconded. The meeting was closed with the Serenity Prayer.

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