Minutes
Monthly EC Teleconference
1 April, 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 Four: Each group is autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or ACA as a whole. We cooperate with all other Twelve-Step programs.
B. Roll Call of European Countries:
Jeffrey, Prague, Czech Republic, EU Finance and Literature Sub-Committee Chair/WSO Board Trustee;
Majbrit, Denmark, WSO Vice Chair/European Chair
C. Quorum Established
D. Guests: Earhart, Germany
Denis, Russia
Alexia, Germany
Roderick, Czech Republic
Linda, Latvia
Iune, Spain
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.
E. Announcements
- Annual European Meeting to be held in Spain
The Annual European Meeting will be held in Madrid, Spain this year to celebrate the release of the Castilian BRB. A planning committee is currently working on the details. More information will be provided soon. The event will take place on a weekend sometime in September. - Amazon Updates
The Amazon saga continues. The biggest news is that on the 19th of March, the WSO went live with physical copies of books on amazon in the US. This means that is vastly easier to approve getting the literature into Amazon.co.uk. They are waiting on a certificate of incorporation from the states. Once the certificate arrives, Jeffrey expects that in the first half of April the books will finally be available for purchase through Amazon.co.uk. - Literature Updates
- The Swedish Newcomer Booklet has gone into production. It is scheduled for delivery in Sweden on the 11th of April.
- Jeffrey believes that the Finish Yellow Workbook will go into print sometime later this month.
- Printers for the Greek meditation book will be looked into sometime in the middle of April.
- The Castilian BRB is still on track to come out in an electronic version by the end of April. Once that is done, a printed version will be worked on shortly after to hopefully be completed and available in time for the Annual European Meeting.
- 2017 ABC and AWC
The Annual Business Conference and Annual World Conference is from 20-23 April. The EC has been very busy preparing their annual report for the conference. They are expecting more than 300 people to attend the event. - Regional Service Committee Registration
The WSO board is discussing how to structure and support Regional Service Committee’s and get them registered in the future. Majbrit asks for patience as this is worked on as it’s a new area for everyone. - 2018 ABC and AWC Location Announcement
The 2018 ABC and AWC will be held in Toronto, Canada. The 2019 ABC will definitely take place in Europe, the AWC might as well.
F. Country Representative Report
- Denis reported the following information about the Russian fellowship:
The Russian-speaking Regional Service Committee (RS RSC) was formed on the 15th of December 2016. RS RSC meets twice a month through Skype on the 2nd Thursday of the month at 21:00 Moscow Time and the 4th Sunday of the month at 11:00 Moscow Time. In April, it will be on the 13th and 23rd respectively.RS RSC has representatives from Moscow IG, Sankt-Peterburg IG, Minsk IG, and also 10 group representatives from different cities as well. Representative from the newly formed Ukrainian Service Committee also joined us recently. I (Denis) serve in RS RSC as a Representative of the Moscow Intergroup.
RS RSC has its own email: [email protected]. There is also a mailing list and Skype chat. If anyone wants to join - feel free to write us an email.
We developed a registration form for Russian speaking groups: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfZW88lJbUjwBDT7oHcP_2EEnGiwVZQ8wfFDwXgHHY3JjHR-A/viewform
We also have a trusted servant who helps to register groups on the WSO website because most of the people cannot understand English.
RS RSC, in collaboration with Moscow IG, developed a survey form to collect and evaluate demands and requests for the Russian BRB. We continue to collect information for our database of contacts and links for ACA related web-resources and public social network accounts to spread the message of the Russian BRB print release.
- Alexia reported that the German fellowship had a group representative meeting recently. All meetings in German speaking countries, which include Austria and Switzerland, were invited. Two ACA members have been working on the service structure for several months. Now they are starting to make everything official to form a German Service Committee.
The election for the service positions will be by the end of June. They are also working on a website for ACA members in German speaking countries.
The German literature committee was formed 15 months ago and officially signed a translation agreement with the WSOa few weeks ago. At the moment, they are working on the BRB. A third of it is already translated. They are also working to translate all the trifold literature that isn’t available in German and other free WSO literature.
There is also an online Step Study meeting, but it isn’t working as well as they would like. They invited Majbrit to speak and help them figure out how to make it better.
As the German fellowship is quite young, there are not many people experienced in Sponsorship. They ask their European neighbors if they can ask in their meetings if there is anyone who can possibly sponsor people from the German fellowship. It would be great if it could be done in German, but multiple members speak English and one even speaks French.
G. Open Discussion
- Roderick asked about the expected price of attendance for the Annual European Meeting. Majbrit responded that the price of attendance is still being worked on. Jeffrey added that the cost of the venue and a possibly optional lunch needs to be covered. The cost might end up somewhere around 30€ for the day.
- Linda asked about when country representatives should start sending fellowship information to put up on the EC website. Jeffrey informed her that we are close to being ready and that in the meantime, to think about what information she might want to have posted.
- Majbrit once again supported the idea of having the history of each fellowship posted onto the Country Pages on the EC website. Jeffrey seconded that it should definitely be a heading in the template for the country page content. Both of them agree that this is extremely important so that people realize and understand that a lot of these fellowships in Europe are very old and illustrates the growth of ACA.
- Linda mentioned that she has pages of Latvian ACA fellowship history in Latvian. Jeffrey suggested that this be added to their page as a PDF, but that the purpose of the template is more to provide information to the global ACA fellowship about fellowships in different countries in a basic format.
- Earhart asked who planned to attend the ABC/AWC from Europe. Jeffrey and Majbrit will both be in attendance and a handful of others from Europe will be attending as either delegates or conference guests.
- Alexia asked about sponsorship opportunities. Germany is in need of people who can sponsor others in ACA. Jeffrey acknowledged the problem as one that Europe has in general. He mentioned that the EC website hopes to address this issue by providing people a way to meet potential sponsors in a safe and secure way. He also championed the importance of meeting people through local events and establishing a personal rapport. The upcoming meeting European Conference in September would be a great way to do this.
- Denis shared how the Russian fellowship stays connected through skype and email.
- Majbrit encouraged people seeking a sponsor to visit the WSO webpage and look for skype or phone bridge meetings.
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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