Minutes for July 2018

Monthly EC Teleconference

July 7th 2018

14:00 CEST

www.acawsoec.com 

 

Please notify the secretary at [email protected] with changes, additions, or motions for this meeting.

Meeting opened at 14:01

 

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 Seven: Every ACA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions

B.  Roll Call of European Countries:  

Chair of TC - Majbrit

European Committee Present:

Majbrit – EC Chair & WSO Board Member

Tanya M - Secretary

Charlie C - EC & WSO Chair of Literature 

Marcia J - ACA Board Secretary, SVC Chair; Archive Liaison & 2019 ABC Host Committee Liaison

Roll Call of Country Representatives & Guests:

Kadrii-Liisa - Estonia - Translation & Treasurer

Alexia - Germany, CR & Chair of Literature & Translation & Service Board

Spain - Sylvia CR 

Marc - Holland temp CR Dutch Translation committee

Fredrik, Sweden - CR & Chair of Swedish 2019 ABC & AWC Committee

Reminder 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 questions and comments until later in the call when we open it up for discussion. If someone needs to talk further, arrangements can be made after the end of the call.

 

When the call is opened for discussion, this will be your chance to have direct contact with the WSO and ask questions about anything related to our fellowship such as service structures, translations, literature, etc.

14.09 meeting commenced

Majbrit - EC Chair & WSO Board Trustee updates

  • Frederik - re ABC in Sweden Malmo - invited to give a progress update and any service positions.  
    • About 10-15 pax now on committee.  
    • Hotel almost booked.  
    • Theme - Courage to Chance
    • Program starting to come together.  
    • Logo - next week
    • Budget been worked on
    • Volunteers to do service on ABC and before.  
    • Maybe can email address for website.  
    • Flyer next week with details - where, when, theme for distribution to fellowship around the world AFTER approval by the WSO
    • Clarification of ABC & AWC
    • ABC = Annual Business Conference
    • AWC = Annual World Convention

Previously these were held in the USA but in Toronto the fellowship requested that the ABC 2019 that was won by Sweden also be accompanied by the AWC.  The Swedes accepted the additional service

  • Majbrit response re Service Volunteers in Groups to help with running the event - service groups such as Room Layout to move chairs, Registration or Literature sales to help fund the event and help the newcomers or Programming - we have to ask the Swedish group; they’re the hosts
  • WSO involvement
  • WSO Board member Bill D is Financial Liaison who will communicate through the EC Chair
  • Marcia J is ABC Host Committee Liaison
  • Majbrit also liaison with her Swedish language skills

Questions invited from Country Reps:

  • Alexia - EC website for Swedish page - no details - just the event - can this be updated?
  • Greek country page has been updated on the web with their first literature translation being made available online - the Strengthening My Recovery Meditation book - http://acawsoec.com/greece/ 
  • Country pages update - we have a new EC website manager and secretary continues to invite each country to provide their local website details + information in English about meetings, the history of the fellowship and contacts.  Send information to [email protected] 

Cancellation of the 5th European Meeting in London at the end of September

1) Disappointed that it won't be happening this year.

2) Can't discuss details, but issues with planning and organization left the EC not confident that we could hold a successful meeting

3) We are very much looking forward to hosting a European Committee meeting in September 2019, and we will learn lessons from this experience to ensure that future events bring together adult children from throughout Europe

We will send notification to the members of the European Committee that the event has been cancelled

Translation info 

  • Sylvia - Translations concerns in Spain as Panama has Daily Reflection being translated - will it be printed OR 14 LL Workbook; is there support to print this translation?
  • Charlie - Panama Meditation book is one of the projects and we’re reprioritizing.  Thinks it’s 3-4th in translations queue and expects in 6-12 months things will move forward.  When he took over things got tangled up.  LL Workbook is not yet in progress & would like to talk with Sylvie afterwards as wanting to find a way to work out the difference between International and Castilian translations and how to do jointly; that would minimise work.  BRB - there was a lot of work to do both of them independently.  
  • Sylvia - Castilian is very similar so Panama Daily Reflections book (that’s already translated) would also sell well in Spain and the LL Workbook would also be good for South America
  • Majbrit - Sylvie asked pre-ABC in April for a digital file and EC/WSO haven’t been able to complete the research on this.  The WSO Board has been upside down with a new Operations Manager.  EC are all pushed to the limit.  Several country reps or translation committees have raised this question about digital files - it is noted and M & C will raise it with the WSO Board
  • Majbrit - Greek Daily Meditation is uploaded on the Greek page of the EC website - thanks to Alexia in Germany who does both German & Greek translations.  They’re really pleased to have it in their language - the first piece of literature.

Translation Committee Call

Is being set up

We propose it be on a different communication platform as HDCC is not supported in Greece.  We’ll keep you updated.  

Daily Meditation (Strengthening My Recovery) online

  • Jim B has also uploaded this http://adultchildren.org/meditation in English and it shows the current date plus the previous 6 days
  • Getting that translated is a good way to support your fellowship.
  • Is there a volunteer in your country to translate the Meditation Book?
  • Alexia clarified that Jim (WSO Database & Website Chair) has said that there’ll be challenges uploading of more than one meditation on the EC website & INSTEAD these could be uploaded onto the local website and link to it from the EC website ..
  • Majbrit explained that we have to abide by Traditions so these translation should be done by volunteers in each fellowship
  • Sylvia - how can we upload the Panama translation of the Daily Meditation book to the Spanish website?
  • Majbrit - first verify if the Panamanians have had any changes; then make decisions.  If it’s their script - it’s WSO script.  AS EC website doesn’t support multiple languages so maybe it could be on the US website as Spanish is spoken a lot in US?
  • Charlie - suggest we discuss on July 20th.  We (EC/WSO Translation/Literature) want to get it going; we have a version in the queue with the WSO Literature Worker?   NEXT  we need to re-establish contact with Spain, Panamanians and Literature committee and then how to post it.  
    • It will be so inspiring to do that translation for ALL languages & really exciting to get that going again.  Feels WSO owes amends to several translation committees.
  • Sylvie - we have volunteers to do that for Spain

Any other questions?

Reporting & sharing ESH from other groups

  • Tanya queried US ESH about reports and updates from IG and other service roles attending conventions and workshops and so on - what are examples and where so we can help each other grow we get inspiring information - about events attended 
  • Marcia - I think she said a written report is generally delivered about what happens at ABC and AWC about the actions and motions as US groups vote about what is covered in those sessions.
    • Hasn’t succeeded to get others to go to AWC but intends to keep doing what she’s currently  doing to get more to participate
  • Marcia - suggested seeing published in the US - what’s happening in Europe
    • WSO hears about Europe from Majbrit
    • The quarterly ComLine is always looking for someone from international community to contribute.  See http://adultchildren.org/literature/comline for quarterly topics and contact people who went to events who can give some feedback/reporting about what they experienced and felt worked well.  If you ask a person or two directly.  Eg Lithuanian participant.
    • July ComLine is out NOW and the October Edition topics are Steps 10, 11, 12 and Traditions 10, 11, 12. Target due date for submissions is August 31.  Please note that there is an invitation to all ACAs to share your recovery experience in the language of your childhood language.  Selected shares will be published as written and not translated into English.  All shares will be considered.  REMOVE THIS:  what do you think about the above - I took it from the WSO website - 
    • ComLine is not as well publicized as it might be about ACA recovery and stories about successful events - invites articles from everywhere - esp if written in original language - eg Lithuanian and a translation into English
  • Best Practices link on WSO website  https://acawso.org/category/best-practices/ — is like a bulletin board about different programs
  • important in ACA - be it a meeting or a country, that everyone feels alone and can’t learn from others; this is where at WSO we’d like to use the annual meetings so people REMOVE THIS:  T added:  can connect and grow
  • Alexia - in preparation for the ABC in Toronto, we Germans had the ballot translated into German
    • German website is launched! 
    • Have the Traveler newsletter translated online onto the German website so other international Germans can see it … 
    • thinking of also translating ComLine onto their website 
    • Marcia - so you are interested in receiving information on topics that were well-presented and workshops that I got a lot out of … so that others can benefit from
  • Majbrit - EC could do with volunteers.
  • Charlie - suggestion for this meeting’s agenda in the first part of the meeting - are there any successes from the last week that you’d like to report on?

YES - that can & will be added to the agenda - the EC is for Europeans to communicate.

We all like to hear and applaud what others are doing!

Motion to close meeting 15.00

Closed with ACA Serenity Prayer.

NEXT MEETING:  Sat 4th August 14.00 CEST