Jay F presents report:
OPENING REPORT C.A. WORLD SERVICE CONFERENCE 2018
CONFERENCE COMMITTEE REPORT
INTRODUCTION AND OPENING COMMENTS:
Welcome to the 2018 C.A. World Service Conference. The theme this year is: “Service Work is Gratitude in Action.”
Your WSC Conference Committee has been working all year to get prepared, organized and ready to welcome you, our World Service Delegates. We want to provide the best possible service to all of the attendees of the Conference, as well as keeping Delegates and other attendees informed of many varied issues affecting CA as a whole. Our Committee has been working tirelessly since the close of the Conference last year in September, 2017. We met by phone every month, or more than once a month when necessary.
Our accomplishments this year include:
- A review of the Evaluations of the 2017 Conference with implementation of appropriate changes
- Completion of the “After Conference Report” for distribution to the delegates/fellowship and posting to the appropriate website and weblinks
- Distribution of Conference daily summaries to delegates/fellowship
- Review of Closing Reports and completion of Final After Conference Report
- Committee review of responsibilities and participation of committee members
- Approval and update of all revised Conference forms i.e.: registration, proxy, etc.
- Approval of responses to Conference Committee Post Conference Referrals and follow up on any previous in Conference Referrals
- Refined the online referral process to delegates in Delegate mailings
- Refined the online evaluation process used at the 2017 Conference which will be used at the 2018 Conference and for future Conferences
- Finished the hotel contracts for the next three years so that we are under contract for the current Hotel through Conference 2021.
- Implementation of a plan to go green and paperless wherever possible
- Implementation of a plan to make the Conference inter-connected and cloud based wherever possible
- Created a method of ensuring that all items prepared by the Conference Committee are included in mailing/online distribution, including SR-14 mailing/online distribution
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- Completion of the 2018 Conference Agenda
- Processing and organizing all referrals made throughout the year
- Add another dinner event to Conference week on Saturday at the dinner break, the first ever Love is Service dinner
- Add a special new delegate orientation for new delegates to the Conference attending for the first year to help them with survival tools and a more basic interpersonal orientation
- Worked earnestly to over-communicate with all delegates and Conference attendees about the business of the Conference, Conference logistics and the like.
- Refinement of electronic voting which started 3 years ago and is to be used again this year
- Refining the planning of the Kick-Off dinner on-site for Conference Registrants
- Coordination with the Unity Committee to have the Unity breakfast and Unity speaker meeting also be on-site
- Planned the first ever joint meeting of the Unity and Conference Committees at last year’s Conference which will be repeated this year.
- Revamp and update the Delegate Orientation also including an updated presentation of the Concepts
- Devise and implement a credentialing and registration process which makes the Conference and its attendees fully be in compliance with Conference Standing Rules 5 and 6.
- Implement the first ever Scoop event for this Friday night of Conference week where the 3 current CAWS Convention Cities, namely Sweden in 2019, Austin in 2020, and New York in 2021; along with the two bidding cities for CAWS 2022 namely Atlanta and Netherlands will all be at an informal meet and greet with ice cream where information about the conventions and planning and bids are available to be discussed by and among all Conference attendees.
- Review and update of our Committee Guidelines for voting/approval on Saturday.
| COMMITTEE INTRODUCTIONS: | |||
| Committee Members | |||
| Jay F – Chair | Alesia F – Admin. Coordinator | ||
| Jessi G – Vice Chair | Maria K, member | ||
| Jerico McM and Loni S Co-Secretaries | Vicki R, member | ||
| Susan L – Coordinator | Sarah T, member | ||
| Cindy C – Co-Coordinator | Kenny S, member | ||
| Linda F – DOO | |||
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Conference Officers
Trevor S. – Chair
Russell S – VC/Parliamentarian
Ruby C – Co-Secretary
Alex Z-M – Co-Secretary
Trustees
Anne M – Atlantic South Reg Trustee
Vanessa J – Trustee at Large
This Committee has worked very hard all year. We are incredibly grateful for this Committee and everyone who stepped up to serve and for the opportunity to be of service to our C.A. Fellowship.
Just a quick snapshot of who is here with us this week – as of Monday August 20, 2018, does not include any on-site registrants or registrants through the supplemental registration process from this coming week:
168 total registrants
107 delegates
24 alternate delegates
- non-delegates and Conference Officers/WSBT/WSOB
- separate areas represented
- New first year delegates and Conference attendees
Conference Registrants by Region
| Atlantic North | 15 |
| Atlantic South 11 | |
| Pacific North | 27 |
| Pacific South | 45 |
| Midwest | 20 |
| Southwest | 32 |
| European | 18 |
We asked the registrants about their sober date and 150 registrants responded. We added up the days and the sobriety days total 743,764 days, or 2,037.71 years of sobriety. The average sobriety time of all these respondents is 13.86 years!
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As of the date of this Report, we have eight referrals over this past year, we will respond to them all in our Closing Report.
CLOSING COMMENTS:
The Conference Officers and the entire Conference Committee are excited to be here and work with you this week to create a successful 2018 World Service Conference. If you have any questions or concerns during the Conference, please see myself, Susan L. (Conference Coordinator), or Cindy C. (Conference Co-Coordinator). As a reminder, we are seeking and encouraging all members to join and serve on this Committee. Being a member of this Committee is wonderfully challenging and fulfilling, plus we could really use your help.
Thank you for allowing us to be of service to our fellowship.
Jay F – Conference Committee Chair
Jay F – About the SR14 mailing, there is a challenge of the interpretation of SR14, SR13 and SR21. We will work hard to further clarify – what is coming from committees, members of fellowship, etc. We will put referral numbers for clarity and upload to the box. We will continue to work on that.
Trevor S — Any questions?
Jason L: Thank you Jay. For clarity, with regard to online referral form, is the SR14 tick box removed? Will it stay that way?
Jay F: Yes, the option is removed, until further notice.
Stu E: Last year, you solicited bids from other hotels. It was said they were looking at hotels in other areas – such as Las Vegas – had they reached out to the local area, they might have found better resources, competitive bids, is that something we can do in the future?
Jay F: Last year in the bid cycle we sent the bid packages to six cities, that met some requirements – such as airport and shuttles. We also looked at cities that were in different parts of the country, such as: San Diego, LA, Denver, Nashville, Illinois and Las Vegas. The visitor bureau of each city was contacted. All of those things considered, the cheapest room night and Food and Beverage (F&B) package was still this hotel by $5,000-$6,000 at the lowest differential. We voted to go back to this hotel, and presented our findings to the trustees. In two years, again, we can take out the bid to a broader area – we are, however, hard pressed to do better than we are.
Kevin M: I believe the manual has the process listed that 5 bids can be submitted by the fellowship. Have you considered reaching out to those areas that have expressed interest in hosting the conference?
Jay F: We did get an inquiry from some in the UK, we sent them the entire proposal, and didn’t hear back. We do respond when people ask for information.
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Stu E: The question I had was to contact those people in the local area and ask for help in the process. There is an expectation that the area would have to do something, this is confusing. Holding a conference is not like hosting a convention. I would be happy to reach out to hotels and look personally.
Rose J: Just for clarification, in the charter and concept 12, we must keep the hotel in a certain radius of the World Service Office.
Jay F: It does say that, we looked to do due diligence to see, when we looked around here, there was something 40 miles away, but the transportation did not pan out financially. And still the F&B requirements and room rates were still higher that those required by this location.
Stuart J: In reference to the On-line Referral process, when I saw a referral contributed by the committee, it looked like it only stated my name. I was a bit confused why it seemed as though the referrals came from me and not the committee.
Jay F: We will make changes with the On-line Referral process to clarify on those referrals that they have been received from a committee and not an individual.
Anne M: Regarding the conference planning, at the fall of the gavel we will have 4 hotels planned for future conventions. This can be quite a liability to the fellowship, so can we consider having one hotel and merge the convention with the conference to provide space and limit travel?
Jay F: We have not considered that because of the rules that are in place now. We can in the future, if those rules are adjusted.
Stu E: Regarding the Box, I am curious, is there a method that we could remove delegates or track who is at conference, so that there is not access to this information to those that are not at the conference.
Jay F: Using registration, we determine if they are not here, if they are not here, they are removed from the Box.
David C: Going back to the moving/possible moving of conference, does the chair have an intention to change the location to facilitate the conference?
Jay F: Perhaps, probably not by Saturday.
Justine K: Has the conference ever been outside this time period, it’s an expensive travel time for those coming from the European Region.
Jay F: This is my 25th conference, it has always been this weekend, as it has been a dead weekend in the Los Angeles area and traditionally made hotels less expensive, but now that we have heavier attendance from the European region, we could certainly look into that.
Dawn M: Inquiries for delegates and their conference committee interests; there are many that find themselves struggling for resources to make an informed decision on which committee to join. Can we set up a procedure to inform delegates before they arrive here, and tell them which committees could use support? Is there anything to be sent out to encourage delegates before they arrive of the work to be done here?
Trevor S: I would just like to input that we are having a lot of great questions and suggestion. Many of these could absolutely be submitted as referrals and still allow us as to have time consciousness on the floor.
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Jay F: People have brought that up in the past – such as assigning delegates to a particular committee, in order to being more aware of what we need. A happy medium is struck here currently, to have the new delegate workshop with 4 committee chairs as facilitators, we can add next year to have a list of committees that could use some help, and distribute that info to the new delegates.
Trevor S: Seeing no more questions, join me in thanking the conference committee.
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