May 25, 2005 WSBT and Chair of WSOB Meeting Minutes – Documents Archive for Cocaine Anonymous

Minutes WSBT and Chair of WSOB Meeting

Memphis, Tennessee

May 25, 2005 2:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Called to Order at 2:15 p.m.

Roll Call

Reports submitted (attached): by Kathy Jo R. Director II, Jon F. Director I, Bob C. WSOB Chair, Patty F, WSO Paid Director, Director of Operations and Office Manager.

Open with Serenity Prayer
Opening Remarks by WSBT Chair

Intro to meeting and overview, Bob C. wanted to speak with the WSBT.

Bob C. Comments:

Over the past two months there may have been some strains – perhaps we can sharpen our communication skills and go forward.

If there are problems please let him know directly. Also, there was an email which used the words “formal inquiry”, we need to clarify what this meant and be advised to chose our words more carefully –using these words has the potential to cause harm.

Earl shared that the question came to Earl from a trustee and that what was asked for was a formal response as to why the meeting in question was canceled. This was within the process of how communications are to be followed per Earl.

Bob is of the view that there should not have been anything like a formal inquiry without the full

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WSBT having such information previously and having responded first.

Bob suggests that we might need to refine the process perhaps.

Teri: went over some of the past facts, confirmed that there was no formal inquiry or anything pending by the WSBT at this time or at any time.

Bob: it is all in the presentation, remember that we are all volunteers and need to be positive in our presentation by and between the boards.

Bob: Thanks for the chance to meet with the WSBT on this issue

Earl: in terms of this formal inquiry thing it was blown way out of proportion, there are some lessons here to learn at many levels. Include the then chair of the WSBT if there are the levels of concerns and/or let the person with the concern have a chance to investigate further and have a cooling off period; Earl is open for any other suggestions too.

Carl: perhaps send the email with the concern to our yahoo group first. Let all of us know first before going forward.

Cynthia: let’s view this as a learning opportunity and go forward.

Bob: moving on to CAWS 2005, some challenges in the planning and execution of the CAWS convention this year– Bob has some ideas to explore as to how to overcome them going forward. There needs to be a way to put on the conventions without burdening the office so severely.

Now on to the donor program at Memphis and going forward. Bob showed what will be used for the weekend to obtain additional contributions to the donor program. Bob hopes to increase awareness in Memphis and even to be used at the WSC.

Tony: suggests a box on the CAWS registration forms to have people subscribe to the donor program at the same time. This could be rolled out for CAWS 2007.

Some discussion about what types of cities can and should qualify to be considered to host the CAWS conventions. There are many schools of thought on this matter. Future discussion will be welcomed in this regard. All agreed that we need to have a very sophisticated evaluation process before the bids are awarded.

Meeting adjourned.

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Reports attached:

WSO

WSO Chair Report

QUARTERLY REPORT TO THE COCAINE ANONYMOUS WORLD SERVICE BOARD OF TRUSTEES FROM THE CHAIR OF THE WSO

Of primary concern and attention this quarter has been monitoring and working with the Memphis 2005 CAWS Convention committee. This has not only taken a lot of our board time, but it has taken up many hours of board member time between meetings as well as the time of our office director, Patty. At this point, we believe we have done as much as possible to help the committee both have a great convention as well as maximize revenue

Changes in Board:

By now you have probably already heard that our vice chair, Mike G. has had to resign due to a change in employment. Mike has been a most faithful and hard working member of the WSOB, especially considering that he had to commute from San Diego for the meetings. Thank you Mike for the great job! This leaves our board one member short and therefore we are looking for viable candidates. During the months of May and June, we are announcing this opening at the board at all of the local area meetings with the deadline for service resumes being our first meeting in July. Please note that according to the guidelines, not only does a candidate have to submit a service resume, but he or she must attend at least two WSO board meetings as a guest before submitting the resumes. This is why the deadline is in July.

Also, our treasurer, Brian W. has indicated that he still intends to step down after this year’s conference. Brian had warned us of this when he first took on this commitment and since then, he has started his own business which takes even more of his time than before, when he worked for a firm. Fortunately Brian says he can stay on until October or November in order to help out with his replacement. So…., we have started looking for another CPA who can take on this very important commitment. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Because of Mike’s leaving, the Board held elections for his replacement as the vice chair. I am pleased to announce that Judy W. was selected. Judy will definitely do well at this position in that she has shown herself to be a great administrator who always follows through and never drops the ball. Unfortunately, while she might not miss it, we will certainly miss the great job she has done as our secretary. Judy has agreed to temporarily continue in that role while we find a replacement, including the possibility that we will get someone to be the interim secretary while we are trying to fill the vacancy on the Board.

In working on replacing Mike, I reviewed the World Service Manual and noted that there was very little on qualifications for board members, including there not even being any sobriety requirement. I think this should be discussed and possibly be a referral to Structure & Bylaws. Regardless, all of this should be reviewed to see if we want anything further put in the Manuel

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regarding qualifications for board members (e.g. treasurer should be a CPA, etc.).

Office Administration:

While all of us have talked about changes and/or additions to the office, e.g. finding an assistant to Patty, dividing up the paid director’s job between management of day to day office and management of the Convention and Conference, etc., we have made little, if any progress in these areas due to the time spent on Memphis. Also, because revenues have been down, it made little sense to plan for something we could not afford or even see being able to afford in the near future.

Finances:

As previously mentioned, sales have been down and this might affect our bottom line at year end. If the 2005 Convention does not meet its goal, this could further affect how our budget will be (not the one already approved but the one we might be forced to work with) in 05/06. At present, we are trying to “crunch numbers” to see where we can make adjustments but this has stopped for the time being because of the extra time needed in managing/planning for Memphis.

Chair’s Activities:

Some of the ideas/projects which I have focused on are continuing the promotion of the Contribution Program including

a) having a table for this set up at the 2005 Convention;

b) changing the contribution page in the NewsGram to show both the current contributions but also show the contributions for the last 12 months;

c) participating in calls to the 2005 Chair to encourage him;

I continue to have weekly calls with the WSBT Chair which I find both helpful as well as supportive.

I also have been meeting with the Office Director on a more frequent basis.

Misc:

Happy Howard continues to be a guest at our board meetings and continues to give us valuable feedback and input on our discussions.

Thank you for all of your support.

Bob C.

Chair of the WSO

WSO Vice Chair report none submitted – position vacant at this time

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WSO Director 1 report

Quarterly Report to the CA WSBT
Director # 1 – Jon Fish
16 May 2005

Since my last report…

We transitioned CA.org, the Online Store and @ca.org emails to new web hosting servers. The new store features more feedback to the shopper (a mini-basket appears, listing a running total and subtotals for each item in their shopping cart, allowing them to keep track of their purchases and giving them immediate feedback that their selections are taking effect.) We recently worked up a list of shipping weights for each item in the store, and will begin configuring the store to more accurately calculate shipping and discounts, reducing (hopefully eliminating) the need for Office staff to revise dollar amounts and contact customers to advise them of the new charges. This is all part of the effort to move toward real-time credit card authorization, and allow the Office to download orders directly into its QuickBooks accounting software (which produces invoices, shipping documents, etc.). The updated platform used in the new online store offers opportunities to integrate with modules from the major shipping services that we use, which could further streamline order fulfillment tasks.

Development work on C.A. World Service Forums. My work on this has been delayed… mainly by my own work schedule, but also by some outages at the phpBB.com website. I am going to work with the WSC Internet Committee to see if I can enlist some help and get this project back on track.

Other Webservant activity for the CA.org Website and Online store. My separate Webservant report will not be produced this quarter. The transition of hosting services occurred mid-quarter. Other than basic traffic numbers, the measures used by the two services differ in too many ways to completely harmonize them. The next quarterly report will present the new server’s numbers for a full quarter, and attempt to construct some sort of numbers for the past quarter.

Newcomer-Friendly Page. I submitted proposed content to the WSOB for a “grabber” page some months ago, and have since gotten the commitment of the John B., trustee, to assist me in developing something along these lines.

CAWSO NewsFlash. There has been no progress on this project, as I have not received any feedback about format, content, etc.

CAWS 2005 Work. Working with Director 2, who is coordinating the program information with the Memphis committee and the Office, I have laid out the Program Guide for the upcoming convention. Several updates to the CAWS Convention website resulted from the release of the workshop and speaker schedules.

Contribution Program brochure. In an effort to put a more professional look on the WS Contribution Program (and perhaps inspire greater confidence in its security and credibility), I produced a prototype, which I have submitted to the WSOB. The prototype is awaiting their comments and feedback.

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InfoLine. I took over the task of updating the InfoLine pamphlet (recreated the file in desktop publishing software), so we are now able to update the downloadable PDF for this free literature on an ad hoc basis. I update the InfoLine as I receive requests from the WSO, after they have confirmed that phone numbers are active and meet our guidelines.

New Literature. I laid out and provided print-ready files to the Office for Having Fun in Recovery and the revised Tips.

New Area Sites. As a member of the WSC Internet Committee, I have reviewed probably half a dozen new Area sites.

General Webservant work. All requests for event listings and revised/new contact information were published to the site within 24 hours of my receiving them.

Thank you for letting me be of service.

________________________________________________

WSO Director 2 report

Report to the Board of Trustees

1^st Quarter 2005

Kathy Jo Rangno, Director II

As per last quarter, my WSOB Director II activities have focused on tasks related to upcoming CAWS convention(s). In addition to preparing for and attending WSOB meetings, I have worked on the following during the 1^st quarter of 2005:

Participated in conference calls with Memphis Steering committee to discuss program, hotel and convention logistics.
Prepped and sent Memphis outreach mailing to 2004 CAWS convention attendees (over 200 mailers) who did not register by early bird deadline; mailing also included sending reg form to persons in states surrounding Tennessee who were CAWSO customers (over 100 mailers).
Attempted to provide an email to the above group, however, problems with distribution of such email volume proved problematic and this effort had to be stopped until such time as WSOB can review web tools and/or vendors available for corporate, non-profit email services.
Worked with 2005 Program Chair, members of the Memphis Steering Committee, Director of Operations and CA Webservant (aka Jon F, Director I) to prepare Program Guide for Memphis Convention.
Worked with CAWSO Board to move forward with WSO contribution program table in Memphis –
- Contacted Brian T. for Finance Committee assistance in manning the table
- Requested local merchandiser design give-away button or medallion for those who sign-up in Memphis
- Jump-started effort on re-design of form – Jon F. (of course) took it from there.

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I have also purchased/collected and shipped a nice selection of items for the Memphis Auction Gala. I would encourage trustees to see if they can do the same. Elvis and CA collectibles are hot items!

In addition to World Service Convention responsibilities, I have continued to function as a member of the WS Finance Committee and communicate with Brian T. (Finance Committee Chair) as needed.

Discussed Finance assistance at Memphis with Contribution Program table
Began documenting revenue generating options for future (no time to move forward with implementation plan due to current Convention workload!)
- Identified ways to increase revenue during upcoming conventions
- Prepared proposal for moving forward with moving additional CA-related items into on-line store

Thank you for trusting me to be of service,

Kathy Jo

WSO Treasurer report – none submitted

WSO Paid Director report

May 2005 WSBT Report

By Patty Flanagan

Director of Operations

Table of Contents:

Office Staff – Page 2
WSO/WSOB – Page 3
Finance – Page 3
Budget Considerations – Page 4
National Drug Court – Page 5
CAWSO in the Future – Page 5
Other Item’s of Note – Page 6

Office Staff

Our current Office staff’s duties are stretched beyond reasonable limits because of budget constraints. Nevertheless, I remain proud of our ability to get as much work done as we can, and as efficiently and correctly as we can.

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As you know, reducing errors in performance has been a priority of mine since I began working at the WSO. It is very important, however, to maintain perspective when errors do occur. Recently staff came to my office with concerns that an error they had discovered was especially problematic because “the same thing had happened again.” My reminder to the staff was that the last time that error had happened was 10 months ago. We are a great team and the error ratio has rarely slipped beyond the one percent, my standard for excellence.

One source of errors that we are now addressing is that several orders have different “bill too” and “ship too” addresses, which have at times created confusion and results in orders shipped to the incorrect addresses. The Order Entry and Shipping Staff have been reminded to follow procedure and mark off orders as they audit them for correctness – this will help ensure that all orders leaving CAWSO are being sent to the correct locations.
Assigning the duties of bookkeeping and customer service to one person is proving problematic to say the least. It is difficult for me to assist this staff member in prioritizing her time, which is required to be split between the conventions, bookkeeping, international customer service, financial reporting, and all-around problem solving department. We all know the solution is additional staff.
Another consequence of our staffing shortage is that procedure manual discussions have disappeared from our horizon for the time being, as have many items now listed on the Office Report as Works in Progress or on Hold. We have, however, managed to update the job descriptions to conform to realities forced by our staff shortage, and attached these to this report.
I would like to suggest, for your consideration, when we have the available funds to hire additional staff, we search specifically for an Event’s Coordinator with Call Center/Customer Service Background. This person should be knowledgeable enough to handle all aspects of Conventions including, but not limited too assisting hosting cities with their issues, PR, Merchandise questions and the all important Customer Service that we need so badly within our office. This would free up our current staff to work solely on the financial aspects of WSO.

The Office staff would like to be of more assistance in administrating the work of both boards. Unfortunately, as has already been explained, the Office’s resources are already stretched beyond reasonable limits.

WSO/WSOB

The last few months the focus on the CAWS Convention has consumed the activities of several board members and staff. The relationship between the host city convention committees and the WSO still needs substantial work. Whenever a member of a convention committee drops the ball on something that needs to be done, it falls to members of the Office staff and/or board members to fix the problem, put out the fire, or complete the necessary work. For this year’s convention, for example, the duties of registration, program and treasurer are all now being handled by staff and WSOB members in addition to their already substantial duties. Needless to say, this is a tremendous problem that simply should not exist.

Our plan to work out a cash flow projection has not yet materialized; however we seem not to have had a cash flow problem yet. Of course, we have only avoided a cash flow problem to date by cutting back expenses for the WSO and both boards. The book purchase this year was funded from

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the Operating Reserve of the Money Market Account saving the book reserve for HFC Volume II printing. Note that we did not have to transfer money (from operations funds in the money market account to our general operating account) in order to cover program services expenses this April as has become our habit. We hope that we will be able to develop a new habit of avoiding this operations transfer in the future.

The new WSOB agenda format, which has moved the Office report to the beginning of the meeting, has made it easier for the WSOB to prioritize and focus the remainder of the meeting on the items of greatest importance. As a result, the meetings now run more efficiently.

FINANCE

It appears that we cut spending in time to avoid a serious cash flow problem. Salaries and Wages will remain at $8,000 above the budgeted amount, which is less than the $15,000 overage that was approved. Chips and literature purchases by the Office will remain in check and we will be discussing with the WSC Finance committee in Memphis how the shift from H & I sales affected the sales numbers and cost of goods sold. Both the shortages in sales and 7^th tradition could be shift changes – often funds that come to the office are dependent on the local volunteers organizational skill levels. We must build these delays into our cash flow projections.

The only committee to show an overage so far is Conference Committee and that shortage was overcome with a few donations. Pursuant to policy, these donations were not posted directly to the committee as earmarked funds, but those donations allowed us to pay the bills incurred by this committee.

BUDGET CONSIDERATIONS

As we all know, our financial picture for the near future depends largely on what happens in Memphis. Our expectation of this convention is to net $45,000. The pre-convention numbers are on track, with over 400 pre-registered. Our track record shows we can estimate attendance as double the pre-registered attendees, which indicates that we will reach the mark of 800 people attending.

As you know I prefer to think in worst case scenarios where budget projections are concerned; at this time I am considering the possibility of making only $35,000.00 to be sure that we are prepared for all possibilities. If this worst case scenario income shortfall occurs, the cuts that the Office has taken in this quarter will need to be continued into the 2^nd quarter of fiscal 2006. The bottom line is that under this scenario we will not be able to hire the staff member so desperately needed to administer the program services at the level the Fellowship has become accustomed to having.

This decline in program services performance is already making itself evident. The Trustees have already noted that no Starter Kits reports came out for this period. The 7^th tradition reports were not audited in the fashion our procedures detail. Managing of our mailing lists, and response time to new inquiries about CA are delayed beyond the standards that we were previously able to uphold, These shortcomings are a direct result of our staff shortage, which in turn is a direct result of the spending cuts required in order to avert a cash flow problem. Yes, the Boards have approved $7,000 more in Salaries and Wages than we have spent, but we can’t use those “funds” to hire additional staff because the money just isn’t there.

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More importantly, since the past is the best predictor of the future, we have no good reason to expect this situation to improve in the immediate future. This leads me to the following conclusion, which is probably the most important point that the office and both boards need to consider at this time:

I think the projected income for the up coming Budget Year of 2006 will not be attained.

Other Items

National Drug Court

I am excited and grateful that the WSOB granted me the opportunity to represent our program in a way that can so drastically improve the number of addicts we will be able to help. I am equally grateful for the support of the Trustees in this matter.

In brief, the ADHOC Committee of the WSOB we discussed:

Show June 9^th & 10^th 2005 in Orlando
The Look of the Booth
Materials to be distributed to Professionals
Follow Up on the leads received

CAWS 2005

Faith in a power that has carried the Fellowship to this point and belief that we will be ok no matter what.

CAWS 2006

Communication is the key in new relationships. The committee has overcome their time line deficit and are on track with business as usual.

CAWS 2007

Our computer program licensing is not sufficient with our system of 4 years out on conventions – will be addressing this in the meeting with CAWS 2007 Steering committee at Memphis Sunday.

Some items of note:

Web store migrations
Coordination of members to local meetings
Starter Kit approvals
Welcome Kit coordination
Product investigations – new items, upgrades (Time did not allow much)
Kept staff on target deadlines (and reality checks for human capabilities)
Reporting activities to WSOB Chair
Vendor negotiations

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Updated computer program knowledge
Signed up for Non Profit seminar education series
Reporting interactions between convention members and their chairs
Liaison for WS Conference Committees and WS Convention Committees to WSOB.
Budget and spending considerations updates to all parties concerned
- WS Conference Committee
- WS LCF Committee
- Non Delegate Chairs
- WS CAWS 2005
- WS CAWS 2006
- WS CAWS 2007 – requirement for budget at this conference and other upcoming deadlines – planning meeting participation
- WS CAWS 2008 – discussion with treasurer and chair about bookkeeping and distribution of funds already collected
- WSBT – updates for budget and cash allowances on spending
- Office expenses – cuts and improvements

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