CA WORLD SERVICE BOARD OF TRUSTEES REGULAR QUARTERLY MEETING MINUTES
August 28th – September 2nd
APPROVE
Since this report is a confidential CA document, for members only, it may contain members’ full names. This usage to facilitate communication within the fellowship was approved by the 1990 WS Conference. Such confidential use does not, of course, violate in any way our Tradition on anonymity in public communications media (press, radio, TV, etc)
**Sufficient and suitable time was given to review minutes** When there is a __________, that indicates that the transcriber could not understand, or hear the speaker. Opportunity was given to edit those occurrences.
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WBST Quarterly at Conference
August 2010
Meeting Minutes
MISSING FROM RECORDED MINUTES: Due to equipment/technical issues, portions of the minutes were either corrupt or not recorded. The WSBT Secretary notes have been included when this happened.
Secretary’s notes
- Personal sharing (no more than 10 minutes each)
- Moment of silence and Serenity Prayer
- Roll call – DONE
- Reading of the 12 Traditions – DONE
- Read & discuss Tradition 1- Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon C.A. unity. (Limit discussion): – DONE
- Discuss How we as a board can be more effective leaders amongst the fellowship – DONE
Chair’s opening remarks:
- Review of the Agenda:
– Review of Board to Board Agenda – DONE
Nicholas: I’m slightly challenged by this situation.
Trevor: I’m slightly challenged and troubled by the situation regarding the World Service Office Board’s decision to challenge our decision that it would be in the best interest of Cocaine Anonymous as a whole to sticker all HFC II books. We all know our decision was not arrived upon lightly; we all know it was talked about at great lengths. There were several issues brought up in that regard with respect to the fairness to those who could and could not purchase the different versions: the How It Works fellowship versus the non-How It Works fellowship. I think there are a lot of different ways to look at that. The bottom line is they did not do due diligence with regard to the three vendor bids; I asked for figures, nine months later I got three pages printed off the internet site printed two days prior. They did not do research, they did not do anything they should have done. In this case I am saying “should have done.” Part of their job is to research and get vendor bids, they did not do that. The bottom line is this is shoddy on many levels, it is less than the fellowship of Cocaine Anonymous deserves. We are entrusted to oversee the financial matters of this fellowship and the overall health, this is part of it. This should not have happened. If I am asked to do something at work, I must do it thoroughly and properly. The price I get online is much different than the price I get…if they want to take it to the conference floor, fine, the fact is, this must come out; this is what happened. I must bring this
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up again, people need to know this is what happened. The conference as a whole can speak on it. The fact is they did not do what was necessary and what they were instructed to do, and what is required by our bylaws.
Joy: I know our motion when we did the stickering was that it not be more than a dollar, we were assured it would not be more than a dollar. Willie came up with a 5th Concept statement, his math is slightly incorrect, the original price for 50 labels in a package was $14.95; that totals $1.20 per book. With the cost of the book, the labels, the entirety, shipping, we will still make $112,000, to liquidate the pallets of stickered books. I know we are a business and we need to make money, do we need to exceed $112,000 in income on a book we spent $0.88 plus $1.20 plus the cost of shipping and handling that we get back anyway? When I called my vendor and asked for a quote, he gave me $13.00. This was not difficult, especially if we’re buying mass quantities.
Richard: Our research, when we made the decision, was based on “what did I find on the internet, was it 40 cents or 70 cents, so that’s why we set it at a dollar, so they could resource easily, we found it inexpensively. New information we got yesterday when we stopped by the office was that all of the books are soft-covered, some are hard-covered…
Joy: I knew that. There are approximately two pallets of hard-covered books.
Richard: I did not know if everyone knew that.
Joy: There are 18 pallets of soft-covered and 2 pallets of hard-covered books.
Trevor: We’ve sold almost two pallets at half the price.
Joy: A pallet and a half, plus they’re bringing 12-13 cases to conference.
Richard: Those were voluntarily stickered by the local fellowship.
Trevor: Part of the discussion I’ve had and heard with the Office Board was its too much work, the books look shoddy to sticker them. But if the Long Beach district is prepared to come in and do 12-14 cases, I’m pretty sure if we put the word out through Joy’s region, we can get other people to show up. There have been other ideas as far as how to go about doing that.
Joy: Las Vegas put the flyer together.
Trevor: There are some solutions.
Randy: The real issue is that we took a legal position for all the books that are going to be sold outside the United States. We took a unified position that there would not be a difference between the books sold outside the United States or inside the United States, and we are adhering to AA’s wishes to begin the process to begin moving away from anything that was in their book, and that includes How It Works. If the office takes a contrary position to us, disappointing, yes,
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then take it to the floor. I’m confident in the decision we made. I’m confident that the conference, if given that information, will do the same. This isn’t about the money, the more we make it about the money, the more we miss the point. The decision was made because it was first legal, and inside the United States, the right thing to do. That decision stands on its own. I’m concerned that the more we make it about the money, the more we encourage fear, the conference doesn’t respond well to fear. My experience with the conference is that the conference is the conference responds well to the right thing. Stickering the books is the right thing to do.
Richard: This occurred after conference. We took care of the business of Cocaine Anonymous as we were tasked to do when conference was not in session, the rebuttal that we received through the World Service Office Board was a financial aspect so our response is addressing it, I’m fine bringing it to the conference. We took care of the business while conference was not in session. If they want to bring it up, however, we need to respond to the financial characterization that was made by the Office Board, so I’m glad we have that information.
Joy: I will go to the mike and say “We are still going to make over $100,000, there is no fear. We simply need to sell what we have so we can start the process in bringing forward a new book without the AA literature, and so the UK can start printing. Further, we can begin to get royalty agreements taken care of.” There is no financial fear. We are making money, if we are making money, there is no need for fear.
Trevor: I am going to let the Board know that if you do this, this is what we’re going to have to
tell them: financially you gave us information that was incorrect, when we tasked you to find better information, you did not do your job. I have no other alternative, I will tell them in the Board-to-Board, if they choose to not take it to the floor, fix the problem, do the due diligence, find the quotes, not just go onto three websites and get a quick price. Make the calls, say I need 60,000 of these, what can you do for me…that’s what I’m saying.
Kim: I’m fairly sure it says in the guidelines “the World Service Office Board is responsible to the World Service Board of Trustees.”
Trevor: The Board is responsible to us, as we are responsible to the Conference. We asked them to do a task and they underperformed. In this instance, it affects the fellowship as a whole.
Trevor: We are back on the record at 10:48am. Kim, through the World Service Board of Trustees account received an email on Wednesday from a member who has been involved for a long time with regard to have a meeting with us. They will be onsite this week. I said sure. At some point on Monday we will be trying to meet with Lori P., I’m sure most of you know her. Lori has requested 15 minutes. We will meet with her based on her availability; she has meetings at 11:30, at 3:00 and at 5:00. I will take a look at when. I will send out an email with regard to when we will meet with Lori, she is the Conference Coordinator. It’s important we remain accessible, if someone requests our time; I feel it’s important we take the time to meet with her, as we do have the time. We are on agenda item Approval of Minutes.
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Joy: Motion to table 1005 World Service Board of Trustees Quarterly Minutes and Board to Board Minutes.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Joy to table the 1005 World Service Board of Trustees Quarterly Minutes and Board to Board Minutes, seconded by Richard. Is there any discussion. Hearing none, all in favor? Motion passes unanimously.
Joy: Motion to approve 1007 World Service Board of Trustees Conference call minutes.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Joy to approve 1007 World Service Board of Trustees Conference call minutes, seconded by Richard. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Motion passes unanimously.
Joy: Motion to approve the 1005 to 1008 Online Business Meeting minutes.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Joy to approve the 1005 to 1008 Online Business Meeting minutes, seconded by Richard. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Motion passes unanimously.
Joy: Motion to approve the World Service Board of Trustees Officer reports.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Joy to approve the World Service Board of Trustees Officer reports, which includes Chair, Vice-Chair, and Secretary, seconded by Richard. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Motion passes unanimously.
Joy: Motion to approve Trustee reports.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Joy to approve all ten World Service Board of Trustees Trustee reports, seconded by Richard. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Motion passes unanimously.
Joy: Motion to approve World Service Board of Trustees subcommittee reports.
Richard: Second
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Trevor: We have a motion by Joy to approve the World Service Board of Trustees subcommittee reports, seconded by Richard. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Motion passes unanimously. [housekeeping changes will be made to legal report]
Joy: Motion to approve Trustee Conference Committee report with the exception of the three Convention Committee years.
Richard: Second.
Trevor Motion by Joy to approve Trustee Conference Committee report with the exception of the three Convention Committee years, seconded by Richard. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? Motion passes unanimously.
Kim: Motion to approve CAWS 2010 Report.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: Motion by Kim to approve the CAWS 2010 Report, seconded by Richard, is there any debate? Is there any opposition to that approval? Seeing none, that report has been approved with unanimous consent.
Randy: Motion to approve CAWS 2011 Report.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: Motion by Randy to approve the CAWS 2011 Report, seconded by Richard, is there any discussion? Is there any opposition to that approval? Seeing none, that report has been approved with unanimous consent.
Nicholas: Motion to approve CAWS 2012 Report.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: Motion by Nicholas to approve the CAWS 2010 Report, seconded by Richard, is there any debate? Is there any opposition to that approval? Seeing none, that report has been approved with unanimous consent. Next item on the agenda is the place marker for business items; the first one is 2006.02.20, that is the copyright and trademark protection, it is to remain on the agenda for quarterly review. In terms of the office, long term planning/Office Board as well, the renewal date in Canada is coming up in the next year and a half or so, September 30, 2012.
Kim: There continues to be a note of renewal of the CA logo in the US due April 24, of course, which has passed. Have we received that documentation?
Trevor: We have not, to the best of my knowledge, received it from the lawyer. The office was instructed to have the legal team forward that to us.
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Richard: The office stated that they received it but did not forward it on.
Kim: We should discuss that at the Board-to-Board?
Randy: Including the ®?
Richard: That was included in the same communication, yes, that the ® was allowed.
Kim: Once that has been clarified, that specific note can be removed, correct?
Trevor, Richard: Yes.
Kim: Thank you.
Randy: Do we have an issue of where that ® is allowed to be moved? Is it allowed anywhere?
Trevor: No, there are two different places; it can be outside or inside.
Randy: So the ® there [pointing?] is next to courage, on the chips it is next to the A. This could lead the fellowship to believe they can put the ® wherever they want.
Kim: I believe the clarification was in or outside the circle in that particular proximity.
Randy: I like that we have a World Service Manual that says “this is our logo.”
Kim: We should have a referral.
Richard: My recollection is that Bob C., as an attorney, stating that if we started specifying all the different versions we would have to separately trademark all the specific versions. My recollection is that he said that on the conference floor six years ago. We trademarked one, but it is allowable because that’s what we do with our chips, moving the ® from that corner right inside that circle inside the same spot was acceptable and we did not have to trademark that.
Randy: The ® in that one [points] is in a different spot than on our chips. And the logo for the European convention is moved inside.
Richard: It is pretty close, because of the wording and where they put it.
Randy: It’s different, it’s in the Hope, Faith, and Courage version. It doesn’t matter until the next person puts the ® on the top.
Trevor: I have it on the Board-to-Board agenda item 14 renewal of the CA logo in the US, which was due April 24, 2010, require paperwork proving renewal and placement of the registered ®. The Board was instructed to find out both.
Kim: Outside the circle, inside the first circle, inside the second circle would make sense.
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Randy: This opens up many avenues to do more things.
Trevor: The next marker item is 2006.08.13, the signature of the annual corporate documents, we do that in the fall quarterly, this can be handled later. The next marker item is
2009.05.09 financial statements of CAWS 2008.
Joy: I would like to report that I have six months worth of bank statements. I went to the office and had them printed onsite. I met with Barry, we went through the financial statement, I went through some of the questions I had with him, on some of the statements, there are a lot of mispostings, more than I have ever seen. I went through on QuickBooks and looked up where my questions were, under bad debts of $693.00 I found what that was about, half of it is valid, the other half was not. There are many journal entries with no descriptions, there are deposits made being posted in expenses and not income or bad debts. There was a $120.00 into bad debt, that made no sense…
Trevor: Could that be someone rectifying a bad debt?
Joy: No, if it’s a bad debt it should be a journal entry, it should state what it is and why it’s perceived as a bad debt. If it is a bounced check it should state it is a returned check; that is a standard for CPA’s. As our bookkeeper is a CPA, all of these mistakes are very disheartening. I can tell you that our total loss…
Richard: When I was there, I inquired why that entry was there, no one knew. The two people that input data along with the bookkeeper, the Director of Operations and the treasurer were there. Neither one of them knew what that entry was.
Joy: I am hopeful we can hire a bookkeeper that can work normal hours, rather than only Sundays, I believe it will help. The salary may need to be between $18-20 an hour to get someone qualified. I can tell you our annual loss was only $9,600 and it had nothing to do with the trustees. As a collective group, we were under budget by $3,914.00.
Office travel was $5,700.00 including hotel, transportation, meals and “other”. The office budget was $8,830, I don’t understand what all of that’s for. The NADCP was over budget by $1,000. What other travel is for World Service Office Board.
Richard: World Service Office Board travel includes travel to the convention, travel to following year convention for preparation for the chair and Director of Operations, and conference.
Trevor: The office budget should not reflect travel to convention, it should be a convention line item like it is for trustees.
Richard: Well put.
Kim: Can you tell where the entries originate?
Joy: Yes, though the logins are shared. That would be a good way to track errors.
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Trevor: It sounds like it would be a great time for a motion for a new policy.
Joy: Why is Tom not overseeing the office personnel and coordinating procedure with tasking?
Richard: I make a motion we enter into the Policies and Procedures for the World Service
Office that anyone entering accounting data use their login and private passwords for accountability.
Joy: Second.
Richard: I generalized and did not use QuickBooks in case they change accounting applications so we don’t have to rewrite this, if an individual login and password, there is individual accountability and that can be tracked. What is the motion again?
Kim: Motion we enter into the Policies and Procedures for the World Service Office that anyone entering accounting data use their login and private passwords for accountability.
Trevor: Any more discussion? Is there anyone that objects to this motion? Seeing none, it has been adopted by unanimous consent.
Joy: Motion that the World Service Board of Trustees receive reconciled bank statements by the 15th of every month.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: Motion by Joy that the World Service Board of Trustees receive reconciled bank statements by the 15th of every month. Second by Richard.
Randy: Is this not in the manual?
Joy: No.
Randy: Any manual?
Joy: No. Yesterday I retrieved six months of bank statements. I did not get them sent to me, I went and got them. January through June. The last set of bank statements we got as a collective group was March, even though we ask for them. I frequently ask for the bank statement through the World Service Office Trustee.
Trevor: There is an ongoing concern, so there should be a policy in place.
Joy: The reasoning is “Oliver hasn’t done them yet.” Bank statements are received in the office no later than the 8th of the month closing. The June statement, for example, is received by July 8.
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The work is just not getting done. Once we get a bookkeeper five days a week, this should not be a problem.
Kim: I speak in favor of the motion. I don’t know how anyone handles their personal banking, with the internet; I can reconcile my account every day, three times a day if I want to. This is the business of CA, when I ran my family business we reconciled on a regular basis, not whenever. Then when the accountant reconciled it, it went to the Chairman of the Board. We need to have this in the Policy and Procedure manual. As the financial overseers, it is our responsibility to make sure this is handled.
Joy: If we are not getting the information we need, how can we properly oversee?
Trevor: Please read the motion.
Kim: Motion by Joy that the World Service Board of Trustees receive reconciled bank statements by the 15th of every month, seconded by Richard.
Trevor: Is there anybody that is in opposition to that motion? Seeing none, it has been adopted by unanimous consent and is therefore a new policy for the World Service Office Board.
With regard to the Seventh Tradition reporting, Nicholas and I have had long, exhaustive emails back and forth, I know for a fact, because I know the people involved and I saw the money order receipt and I saw the registered mail receipt, I know also my home group shipped a donation 2-1/2 months ago and it did not show up anywhere in the 7th Tradition report. I now know Nicholas has had many groups, areas and districts donate money with nothing showing up. Frankly, if we are telling these people we really need money and please send us your money, and they’re sending us the money and we cannot account for it; that to me is so inappropriate…
Joy: Why do I have to ask for the 7th Tradition report every time? We, as regional trustees need…
Trevor: One of the things is, it should be in the World Service Office Trustee’s duties, a date by which to transmit that report, I’m pretty sure by doing some work on the Trustee Manual, we should clarify that. However, being mindful, some of us like to post our reports early, some of us don’t. It is a procedure of the Board when I came on, it should be posted a full week prior to the start of the quarterly. If the World Service Office Trustee doesn’t get the report until a couple of weeks before the quarterly, I don’t have a problem with that. If the rest of your report is done and you are anxious to post it but you still have a week, we can wait.
Kim: I am a little reluctant to continue this discussion without Willie; he is the liaison between the two Boards. My experience in the past with Earl is he asked for the 7th Tradition reports, he got them, he was done. Perhaps we should wait for Willie and see what we can do, maybe setting a reminder in the World Service Board of Trustees Yahoo calendar to ask for the report, or a Chair responsibility. We should table further discussion until Willie is available.
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Richard: Asking our senior trustees, what was your experience with the former with the World Service Office Trustee; did you have to request him to get the reports?
Trevor: I don’t recall anybody ever rushing to get the report.
Nicholas: There were no reports posted, so I went straight to Willie, he said “there are no reports.” I replied “there are reports.” I asked Russell, we had about 18 checks from groups that just got completely lost. We discreetly asked them to cancel the checks, Russell is coming with a check to bring it to the office, I think when we have a proper discussion, in a motion, there should be an acknowledgement of the funds received, via PayPal, carrier pigeon, Russell’s back pocket, email, or something, because nobody knows. Russell and I talked to Yvette, it took an hour and a half, we found them and thought, how can you not have them? She said “they’re in the system.” This seemed a problem, this is no good, there’s money in our bank accounts not accounted for. Knowing Joy is very precise on our behalf, you just cannot have money and not know where it comes from. That might be percieved by our groups we don’t care, we are arrogant, we are stupid, demanding. Eventually Yvette found it in an account in a subaccount, whatever that means. I thought there were only seven accounts, and I thought there was probably only one where all the deposits go. We would like to get receipts, acknowledgement that something has arrived. We do not want another email asking us to check our bank account, we’ve done our bit. Don’t put it on us.
Kim: Isn’t the office supposed to send a receipt when they receive a 7th tradition donation?
Trevor: A letter. My home group got a letter saying thank you for the donation, but it was not in the report.
Nicholas: There is a problem, a breakdown somewhere. How do we fix this? Yvette, Office Board, how do we fix this? Our members want to send the money, but they want to see it in the NewsGram as well. Something is not working right.
Richard: I’m curious as a member who sits on both Boards, because it was absolutely alluded to at the last Office Board meeting that it was the fault of the UK not getting the checks to the office and they were lost, that’s why the UK canceled the prior checks and that was why they were bringing and delivering a check. That was what was stated. Again, this needs to be discussed in Willie’s presence for clarification and discussion.
Trevor: This is on the Board-to-Board agenda as well.
Richard: There is a receipt on both ends.
Nicholas: So something is breaking down in communication. They just want to know their money got there. Not necessarily a thank you, just notification. Last time there was confusion over the lawsuit and everything. A lot of money got stopped being sent, they got power, the groups will use it in the UK,. Patty came over and Tom, and told them, but if it doesn’t work, they will stop. If you told me that my dollar went somewhere, where is it? Show me. The acting
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World Service Office Trustee says there is no report, so we dig a bit and suddenly, look, there’s $5,000, where did that come from? It’s not going where it’s supposed to go. So based on that, Joy asked for a financial report, if it doesn’t exist, it won’t be in the financial report, so where is it? Where is it going, cause I don’t know if there is an office policy or procedure to show where it goes. Maybe there needs to be a separate account that money that comes from out of the country, it goes into that account, at lease we’ll know where it is vaguely. To take nearly two hours on the phone to find the money. So they’re not angry, they’re disappointed. It needs to be sorted out.
Joy: I make a motion we fire the subcontractor bookkeeper.
Robert: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Joy that we fire the subcontractor bookkeeper, seconded by Robert.
Joy: I withdraw my motion.
Trevor: Is there any objection to Joy withdrawing her motion? Seeing none, the motion is withdrawn. Before we create a motion, may I ask, we are in unanimous consent, prior to the Board-to-Board meeting, to release and replace the bookkeeper immediately? Seeing no objection, we will bring this to the Board.
Randy: Then we’re just going to bring this up at the Board-to-Board?
Trevor: Basically what it is, unanimous consent that this is out advisory opinion, for lack of a better term, that our current bookkeeper be removed immediately and replaced with a suitable office administrative assistant/bookkeeper.
Randy: And the difference between recommend and request is what?
Trevor: There really isn’t a difference, we are asking for the same thing. Making a motion, we could, but we cannot do it without an argument. I am trying to simplify this. This is the final outcome, this is the best way to tell them what we want. If this is the unanimous consent of this Board that this is what needs to happen.
Richard: It doesn’t carry the same weight, a motion carries more weight because it’s on the record and it is in our minutes as to a task that we’re requesting be carried out.
Trevor: I understand, but technically the World Service Office Board is answerable to us directly, but if you wanted to really go into the manual, this technically falls under them and it’s their purview because it is an employee position,
Richard: I am aware of that.
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Trevor: Whatever you want to do. Do we want a motion?
Richard: I was just stating for argumentative purposes that I believe it carries more weight to have a motion on the record rather than discussion.
Kim: It is not unanimous if Randy has questions.
Randy: I don’t have an issue with a motion to recommend.
Kim: Do you have a problem with the unanimous consent to ask the World Service Office Board to remove the subcontractor?
Trevor: Then we will go back to the motion. Joy you motioned that the World Service Board of Trustees recommends the immediate replacement of the bookkeeper.
Robert: Second.
Trevor: Motion by Joy that the World Service Board of Trustees recommend the immediate replacement of the bookkeeper, seconded by Robert. Is there any further debate on the motion?
Randy: I speak in favor of the motion. It does what we’re supposed to do in that the Office Board is responsible to us and that we’re recommending that this takes place. It does allow the World Service Office Board to make a decision as to how that happens. If they have resumes in place that they need to take two weeks on, or a time frame of to make a decision as to who that replacement is and would potentially come back to us and say that this process will take six weeks and to do so immediately would affect the overall happenings at the office, we give them the latitude to do that. We are requesting, recommending that this happens immediately, but I do think it allows the World Service Office to respond to that with any of their concerns that we may not be aware of.
Trevor: Any other debate? Seeing none, Kim would you please read the motion?
Kim: Motion that the World Service Board of Trustees recommend the immediate replacement of the bookkeeper.
Trevor: All in favor? That motion carries unanimously. Lunch break.
Trevor: It is 2:10 pm, we are back on the record, we had an extended lunch break and a meeting with a member, conference coordinator Lori P. came in to discuss some matters. We are back on the agenda. We are at old business. The first item on old business is the NADCP.
Richard? Kim?
Kim: Mr. Chair, are we done with finance?
Trevor: To the best of my knowledge we are.
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Kim: We are not going to revisit finance when Willie arrives?
Joy: Were there not issues necessary to bring when Willies gets here?
Trevor: There are still some issues to deal with when the World Service Office Trustee arrives.
Richard: Have you heard from him?
Trevor: Nothing. I have the data turned off on my phone, but I have received no calls or emails. We will leave finance open for Willie’s return or arrival. We do need to move on. Richard, Robert, NADCP?
Richard: Next year’s drug court is right outside of Washington, D.C., which should make things easier for both the new World Service Trustee and the Director of Operations, as well as Robert, the regional trustee in attendance, it is not right on the heels of our world convention. It’s not during conference month. The reservations and registration usually occur in January of the year of the event, so I will report on it during the next quarterly and anticipate registration and reservations in January.
Robert: It should be switched on the agenda from Boston to Washington, D.C. It is actually in Maryland, just outside of D.C.
Richard: They say Washington, D.C. because that’s the draw, if I’m not mistaken, that’s where drug court started. Does anyone have any questions?
Trevor: Any follow-up _____ from the office?
Richard: I do not know if the office has followed up with the contacts that we made. One of my direct questions to the Director of Operations was a positive, saying “I hope that the personal interaction with these people excites you to follow up with and contact them throughout the year.” I know it was not reported on any contact follow-up from the previous year, between the Director of Operations attaining the position and not attending drug court two months prior, and not having any personal interest or tie to the contacts the prior year. However, there has been no report thus far.
Robert: People at drug court were specifically seeking out Cocaine Anonymous, we were well received, it was a good experience. I was able to observe the DOO in action as she dealt with different people and situations and I felt she was very well impressed by some people there. It was a very interesting time, and I am looking forward to next year.
Trevor: Thank you. Moving along, TEC.
Joy: The copies have been made for TEC regarding all resume, questions, everything. We are ready. Dede M. has pulled her name from the slate because she is a full time student and school
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is more important, we are down to three for World Service Trustee in the Pacific South Region, everyone is confirmed.
Kim: I have not received confirmation from only one delegate, I am presuming she will be here. She does not have a room reservation and she has not responded to emails. We are prepared for the interview process. Joy will present the slates on Tuesday, I have the script written out, if she doesn’t deviate she probably won’t get asked a million questions. There are six on the slate for Pacific South, although three have withdrawn the slate will go to the floor for ratification with all six names and we will interview the remaining three. I was concerned when Dede pulled her name and I did contact Kevin M. with respect to that, I spoke with Joy, Richard, and Kevin, according to the guidelines a minimum of four candidates, I didn’t know if that was a problem. Last year we only had two. Joy looked at her minutes, there may have been other candidates but none had the required 2/3 votes. Without convening a special assembly here at the conference, I’m not certain we had time to do in order to ratify another person from the Pacific South Region, we are going to go with the three interviewees from that region.
Joy: We needed the email as to why there was only one for Robert’s slate when we were given two names.
Kim: That was a typo from the last quarterly that should have said Atlantic North. My apologies. I needed clarification from Robert. I have all of the documentation in case it becomes a question on the floor, it will not likely be questioned, as Robert’s position is not up for a year. Whereas the World Service Trustee is up.
Trevor: Any other questions for TEC? Have we discussed time requirements Joy?
Joy: No.
Trevor: I was asked the question based on something that happened in my own region with regard to time requirements, an individual people wanted to put on the slate, he did not quite meet the requirement time wise, when it was explained that was why. The question was “do all the other slates meet the time requirements?” I would have loved to have been able to say yes or I don’t know, so I had to be honest. I said there is one instance where they don’t and it was of some concern. We have talked about it, I explained the situation, they are cool with it, but my only concern is that you be prepared if that question comes up. My personal opinion is if the well informed group conscience ratifies all of the slates as is, that to me is that they’ve met requirements. The conference, well informed, has spoken.
Joy: Do I need to bring that up?
Trevor: No, be prepared if it comes up.
Kim: One of the candidates on one of the slates does not meet the minimum requirement as listed in the guidelines. I have had discussions with the trustee regarding that as well as with Trevor, my position as the TEC chair is that I back what Structure and Bylaws say. I also understand that every region is autonomous and my personal feeling is whoever a region brings forth someone
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they feel is qualified then it goes to the conference floor. My responsibility is to uphold the Structure and Bylaws decision, as reflected in the World Service Manual. If Joy or I am asked the question, I have already printed this out information for her, this is what the qualifications are. This is what the region has brought forward, if there is need for debate or a motion, Kevin M. will most likely rule on, they will most likely not be ratified as a slate, they will be ratified individually if it becomes a question. If that is the case, it is just a simple motion for the one person, then the second person. That is how he will address it.
Richard: I am a proponent of the European Region spending the last nine months trying to put together a slate and one of the individuals did not meet the requirements, I am okay with that. They’ve done their effort. What I’m not okay with is in order to provide the conference, in order for them to make a well informed decision; we have information, so I believe we should be letting them know. I believe our TEC report should absolutely say it. We’re well informed. I believe that’s how they’ll be well informed.
Randy: It’s not a well informed group conscience to ratify the slates if we put them forward as meeting all of the qualifications when in fact ___________.
Kim: Although I appreciate what you are saying, I don’t know that it’s necessarily my responsibility to make it known. If Joy is questioned, I think it should be noted. Unless there is a way that in the ratification process, what I’ve given her, it states everything in there, we can put the suggested requirements and she can read them. Providing the information is based on the guidelines and we can make that part of the report, it needs to be questioned. How do we best say it?
Randy: Motion to approve the European slate. One individual on this slate does not meet one of the requirements, but the European Region, in their autonomy, and their well informed group conscience, and the slate…You know,
Kim: What are we debating? It’s going to come up from the floor.
Joy: It’s similar to when an area did not bring forth a candidate, it was brought up on the conference floor…
Kim: Not by the TEC chair.
Joy: It was brought up by the floor. The delegates from the Pacific South Region brought it up, we answered a question, and they still ratified the slate. If someone knows someone doesn’t meet the requirements, it will come up during debate.
Richard: That is why I started off with I am a proponent of the region bringing forth who they can, and because this person, and because this person doesn’t meet the time requirements, I am okay with that. I think the conference needs to know, I have no problem being the person that if it passes through and we’re about to go onto the next slate, going to the mike and saying
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something. To be certain the entire conference is well informed, do all of the candidates meet the requirements per our World Service Manual.
Nicholas: When we had the assembly, a candidate revealed he did not fulfill all the requirements_ they all thanked him for that. They said to me “will our trustee tell that to the conference if asked why have you let this come,” cause we’ve only got 14 people that have ever been here and voted, ever. We’re going to throw this on the mercy of the conference so we’re going to send him. Conference made up the rules, so conference can break the rules, bend the rules and show a bit of love and tolerance. So that’s why. The assembly said yes, I said I’ve got absolutely no opinion, I’m counting votes. There were no votes against. They wanted a European person for a European trustee, that’s their intent. I’m quite prepared to stand on stage and say that. Russell asked me if I was going to say anything, I said we’ve read out the requirements, they made their position. It might be more difficult if the region has a lot more people voting… I am thinking that in an air of love and tolerance, they might let it slip, there might be someone in the back stand up and start yelling, he’s entitled to yell. Because if the manual says that and we voted for the manual, but it all depends. When we didn’t have a trustee and Amy used to come over I used to talk to her and she was usually helpful, we’ve got email now and we’ve got …, it could happen, I think the region would be more comfortable with a real person they could get on the phone but that’s not my call, that’s the conference’s call. I am willing to stand up and say why I let it go through, I’ve got no problem with that. I think they’ll let it slide, they’ll probably be a couple who might really want to know why and I’m quite prepared to stand up and say why I didn’t say anything. I’m very mindful of the manual, I know the manual, it was all read out. One guy said “can you make this happen, what can you do?” I said I can do nothing and let you vote. If the vote is to send him, we send him. He asked if they would read out that he’s not qualified. I said no, they’ll just put up a slate, he asked what that meant. I said two names, unless someone makes a special decision. If someone really objects, they will really object. I’m rotating out; I would really love to have another European trustee that lives in Europe. Now they’ve seen Jackie and seen me, they have area assemblies that teach them how to vote, they’ve grown up a bit. They ask questions, they’d be let down, but they’d get on with it. I’ve always felt very loved, they’ve always asked lots of questions, they feel more in touch with the Board that I’m here representing them then when Amy came and she was this larger than life New Yorker. But she talked a foreign language and it was different. It could work technically. For the ladies: “This is the slate.” Do we need to say anything? If we don’t say anything, are we hiding anything? Has it happened before?
Kim: I agree to some extent with what you’re saying, I’m more than happy to be transparent. I think if we stand up there and say XYZ, ABC have the willingness to serve, they have a commitment to serve as shown by experience. They have time and resource. Oh, I’m sorry A does not have eight years of continuous sobriety but B does, I think that shows, or almost appears to have preference to one of the candidates. That is why I’m reluctant to stand up there and say, A has it, B doesn’t and now we’d like to ratify the slate. Again, the regional assembly has been transparent in how they came to their decision. It has come to us, you and I talked about it, we involved him, I involved Kevin M., and the bottom line is, it’s not the first time it’s happened that someone is on the slate that doesn’t have the minimum. My feeling is, again, I do uphold the suggested qualifications of the World Service Manual, however, I also respect the
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autonomy of that region and what they’ve chosen to do, as the TEC Chair. I’ll be up there, questions will go to Joy. If the question is asked, and there is a motion to split with reasons why, absolutely. We have the qualifications, we have the process. I don’t ever want it to appear we have a preference for any candidate for any position. I think saying it, somebody might take offense. If we are asked, we absolutely need to be transparent. We need to be unbiased. If that’s what we are going to do, we have to do it for every single person on the slate. We will have to go through every single qualification and not single out qualification number 4. A working knowledge of the 12 Concepts? The Conference Charter? How many people know those? We have to address that.
Trevor: The person that questioned me is my sister. She is a lawyer. She asked it because she wanted to know why Europe can do it when we possibly would have put someone on the slate with 7½ years but didn’t meet that requirement but met everything else. How come they did and we couldn’t? My best response to her was that their informed group conscience went through the process and those are the names they brought. I hear what you’re saying and I agree with it, I hear what Kim is saying too. I have never thought of that aspect of it. How do we do it without? What I’m worried about now, if it is my sister doing it _________, I don’t want that either.
Those of you that know my sister know that wouldn’t know that anyway. I’m concerned. I don’t want her to look like a plant, the question coming from her. On the conference floor, as a trustee, knowing that one of the people that was up for ratification didn’t meet it, we didn’t say anything, we got inside the TEC room and all of a sudden it became an issue. We never said anything…they don’t meet it…I want anybody that comes into that room knowing that the regions put these people forward knowing everything, the conference voted for these people knowing everything, and I can vote for who I want, knowing everything. I think that the conference has the right to be well informed. We expect, we ask the delegates to send us a report quarterly. We try to be well informed making our decisions, then I see Kim’s point about the appearance of impropriety again, or favoritism, this one does, this one doesn’t, it’s a difficult decision.
Randy: I think the perception of favoritism is if we don’t _________ that we would all love Russell to be a trustee so much we want to hide the fact he doesn’t meet the requirement. If we give the conference the information to say no we do believe…I love what you just said, if that’s shared with the conference. We know you have 14 people in the European Region that meet all of these qualifications and we want a European trustee, and maybe it’s not even to that degree, but it’s that we have a region that through its due diligence, has put together a slate of individuals, one of these individuals does not meet the sobriety requirement, but the region has, through its due diligence, etc., put these people forward, and we want everyone to know that’s the case in ratifying this slate going forward. We can’t use well informed if we don’t tell them. No more shushing. All the committees, whether it be the treasurer of your home group or the guy that does the whatever.
Kim: There could be a motion to waive the minimum sobriety requirement.
Randy: But when we put it up, when I’m sitting there as a delegate and I see the slate go up there for ratification, I believe that all those people met the requirement, I am rubber stamping that
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region’s stuff. I also believe that all those people meet the qualifications of being a trustee that we took into consideration when we put our names forward. It’s a big deal. There are some folks that think it’s a big deal. There are some folks that will think it’s a really big deal if we don’t say something.
Kim: What’s the solution?
Joy: I have a solution. I know Russell will do it. When we make the motion to approve the European slate, that we get Russell to speak to the motion, and he tells them he only has a certain amount of time. He did it at the assembly. He literally told them he didn’t meet the time requirement but met all other requirements. I believe Russell is a very stand up guy and he will stand before the conference and tell them the same thing if we ask him if he would be willing to do that. You don’t think that’s a good idea?
Kim: No, then I think we should let every candidate on the slate get up to the mike and say “here I am, this is who I am, I have eight years, I have 20.
Joy: Then when we do the European slate, I need to be as transparent as possible and just tell them.
Richard: I truly understand the way Nicholas has brought this and explained and wants to be certain how it could impact either way, what he says. I truly understand Kim and Joy not wanting to point out a specific individual, I believe it is of the utmost importance the conference has this information and I believe that saying something when the European Regional is up there that one of the two candidates does not meet, and would like to ratify each person separately, is the most businesslike, healthiest approach we can take.
Nicholas: I believe whatever we do, God speaks through the conference, I know addicts, and someone might. I hope that if the conference says yes to all the people and does not bring it up again, you never know, if someone has an agenda, hidden or otherwise, they might go over it. I looked through, all over the years, at the prior delegate from Oklahoma, how he feels the process is wrong, it’s only not worked three times. The process does work. Some people just don’t like it. If it gets through the conference, it will be up to 22 people. I don’t mind saying it, but it’s not my call. Putting over the information without any bias is difficult. If asked why we’re doing this, my answer would be, the European Region is in a unique position of not having a glut of people, we had three people who wanted to do it. One did not feel they could not do it, could not keep up. We have a really minimal slate, a valid thing to say would be to say, out of the European Region, only two of the areas speak English, most people speak a foreign language. There are language barriers, there was Holland…I love what Kim said, if we ask one, we need to ask all…it will all go the wrong way, if we don’t say anything, we can be told we hid it. Do the delegates, they don’t see resumes?
Kim: The TEC do.
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Nicholas: So they have to trust the process. I’d like to bring up something that Russell’s dad said. He was a major in the army. Nice man. Russell said he talked to his dad about it, cause he’s worried. His dad said “It’s not so much as how you perform but as they do.” We have to trust the TEC and the process and how they see it. So answer the question if asked, and in the TEC there will be discussion, I will be asked, I will answer. Trust God. We must answer the conference if asked. We won’t hide it. It is a big deal to the European Region, they wanted two people on the slate because it said a minimum of two candidates, we could not find anyone to stand next to Robert. That’s their will and desire, they read that manual, that’s why they wanted to put two people up and both candidates got ratified 100% with no negatives.
Kim: I believe we have two options, one go ahead and motion to approve that slate and allow the questions to come to us from the floor or prior to any of the slates being ratified we say “in an effort to be completely transparent, the World Service Board of Trustees feels it necessary to inform the conference that not all candidates fulfill the qualifications.” We can do one blanket statement like that, but again, we will probably get asked on at least five of the slates, do all of these candidates fulfill the qualifications? We will need to answer each separately, yes or no. Which one doesn’t, Robert or Russell? That’s my opinion right now, those are our choices.
Richard: I like the second choice.
Nicholas: Defer to me and I can tell the conference, tell them the truth. I’ll even tell them it made me cry, this person wanted to do it and didn’t think she was good enough, that’s the truth.
Trevor: I think that one of the things that hasn’t been touched on here, we’ve mentioned numbers as far as whose qualified to do it. I know in my own region, there are not a huge number, but there are quite a few people that meet the requirements of doing it, except for one, with absolutely no desire to. So if there are 14 people that meet the qualifications of everything, there might only be four or five people of those 14 that have the desire. I think that, to me, is the most important qualifications. If I’m coming in here saying I’m willing and qualified but I don’t really want to do it, I don’t really have a desire…I’m tuned out. If somebody doesn’t have the desire to do this position, I don’t think they can do it. So out of that 14 there might only be four or five that really want to do it, that’s significant. I agree with Kim, there are two ways to do it. I see pros and cons with both. It’s up to you guys to vote on how, cause I don’t get one. My opinion, if I had a vote, is that I feel uneasy with us knowing something that the TEC delegates would find out when they saw the resumes that the conference floor did not know. In spite of the fact that I don’t think it would be a perfect way, I think allowing Nicholas to speak to any questions regarding it would probably be the best of a bad situation, I don’t think that’s ultimately what I would do.
Kim: I make a motion to add to the slate ratification report at the conference to include “In an effort to be completely transparent and provide information to ensure a well-informed group conscience, the World Service Board of Trustees feels it necessary to inform the conference that not all candidates fulfill the qualifications of an addict trustee.”
Richard: Second.
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Trevor: We have a motion by Kim. I will ask by unanimous to waive re-reading the motion. Thank you. The motion was seconded by Richard. Is there any further discussion?
Randy: Can you please re-read the motion?
Kim: In an effort to be completely transparent and provide information to ensure a well-informed group conscience, the World Service Board of Trustees feels it necessary to inform the conference that not all candidates fulfill the qualifications of an addict trustee.
Randy: I don’t want to know if you want to add something…In upon review the World Service Board of Trustees supports the region’s autonomy of all slates or something.
Trevor: I think that’s dangerous, because the next time we say please do this one way, oh you guys can tell us this in the manual, but then you say you support this, and it isn’t?
Joy: We’re being transparent and all we’re doing is saying we understand and this is the group conscience brought forth.
Kim: I don’t know if we have to express whether we support that candidate or not.
Randy: I am much better with something on the Board. I just want there to be something in there to knock _____________
Nicholas: The rest of the year we run it for them, but they are actually at conference being the conference.
Kim: This way, it does open up the opportunity for anyone who wishes to question whether it’s any of these people on the slates.
Randy: Is the World Service Board of Trustees okay with who is on the slates?
Joy: It is not for us to be…
Richard: Yes, it is. We are the trustees of the regions who have put forth the slates, I would say yes. We support our regions. As a body we support one another.
Trevor: At that point, it becomes necessary to go into the explanation that sometimes due to circumstances beyond our control, despite our best efforts, sometimes certain qualifications simply cannot be met due to circumstances or situations beyond our control.
Kim: I think if there is a question, I will say no, this candidate does not have the minimum of eight years, if there are additional questions, Joy should say “Mr. Chair, at this time I would like to yield to Nicholas L., the European trustee, to explain the process that occurred at their assembly. That way we have transparency.
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Trevor: I just want to say something for the record. Cause I need to say it. Just because Nicholas, Lawrence, and I are gone in a week, I’m pretty sure they feel like me, I will never no longer care. I was a trustee, I am a trustee, I will always do my best to act like a trustee. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have done the job. Kim, would you please read the motion?
Kim: In an effort to be completely transparent and provide information to ensure a well-informed group conscience, the World Service Board of Trustees feels it necessary to inform the conference that not all candidates fulfill the qualifications of an addict trustee.
Trevor: Do we want to say which qualifications?
Joy/Richard: No.
Nicholas: Someone’s going to ask.
Kim: Let them ask. We have provided the avenue for them to go down and ask questions.
Trevor: I believe that needs to happen.
Kim: When they ask the questions, we answer it. If there are additional questions, Joy will yield the floor to Nicholas.
Trevor: Is there anymore debate on the motion? Seeing none, all in favor? All opposed? That motion has passed unanimously. Next item on the agenda, 2008.04.14 the CA Helpdesk site. I did email our Director of Operations and asked her to find out from the webservant why the site had come down and was told that after a couple of emails the reason was it provided a security risk and the main website was hacked into, and there was some shenanigans that went on, so the site was removed. I found that to be a good explanation, except I have not received an answer as to when it will be back up or who made the decision to just pull it. With that in mind and the newly found webservant replacement we no longer have, once again looking for a replacement. I’ve put this on the agenda for the Board-to-Board as one of the issues with the webservant. I plan to ask the question again, can we put this back on for the new webservant when they come in, get it back up. Richard?
Richard: There was a security issue, I worked with Mike for 6-7 hours one day, got it resolved. He told me he would be putting that aspect back up. It looks like with his workload and his hope of stepping out of the position, it will be something we will address with the new webservant. He is trying to remove himself from this position. He’s done over four years, rather than pile this task on him as you’ve yanked it and we want you to put it back, I would rather to ask him to continue to support while we’re in an effort…that’s why I included him in the email last night, I wanted him to know we’re advocating to look for a new webservant, he is still doing the job.
Kim: I keep compiling responses; I will turn them over to the new secretary.
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Trevor: Seeing no questions, we will move along to 2009.12.03 Facebook pages reflecting tradition violations and policy issues re CA logo, website addresses, etc.
Richard and Trevor were to put something together on that. I don’t know about the Richard part of it, the Trevor part of it got sidetracked and didn’t.
Richard: I went ahead, knowing Trevor is busy and continued to submit to Facebook and MySpace and you should all see a reduction if not an impossible effort to find any except the one on MySpace I believe is still there, and it’s only there because it’s been there so long. I am having a hard time getting rid of that one. The newer ones I’ve gotten them up and down. If anyone can find anything, just forward them one. Robert did, I got it down within a week, we’ve done very well.
Trevor: Thank you for picking up my slack. I completely forgot I had volunteered.
Richard: You started it, I completed it.
Randy: The process you use to get them down, is that something you can get in the IT Guidelines so your next IT person can do this?
Trevor: I would say you probably could, but it’s not their job, it’s ours. We are the guardians of the 12 Traditions and the CA logo, that’s a trustee job.
Randy: I thought the IT committee, it’s part of their deal, is to monitor…
Trevor: It’s to support the world website, that’s what the IT committee is charged with, to support the webservant, matters related to traditions. We as a Board are the guardians of the traditions, logo, trademarks, and properties. It would certainly not be bad to create something standard so we can keep zipping it off.
Richard: Okay. Do I have a task?
Trevor: It sounds like you’re doing a wonderful job already. Is there anything else? Seeing none, next items are combined 2010.01.01 and 2010.01.02, sale of HFC II outside the U.S. and licensed printing of literature. We have this later in the agenda. During the last discussion, I received a text from Willie, “Sorry, just now getting in touch, phone dies. My back went out in hospital, will call when can.” I received this a little over a half hour ago. Does everybody have a copy of the proposal for printing?
Nicholas: I have the background details, I have a great association with them, that’s what we need, that can be used anywhere not in America. UK would make a good hub. I ran it past some people including some retired trustees in the States, talked to Trevor about it. We thought there were two ways to go, which was to print something and ask them if we could all be honest and send them all to be reviewed, but that could lead to delay, or just get a deal to have a price that already included the royalty agreement. The concept would be the area wants some books, phones up or emails the office, sends the office the money which already includes the royalty
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agreement, they then email the printer, who will obviously get payment from the office. He will deliver to wherever the office tells him. They will buy lots of them , there might be a lot of fear, no one talks about it so much because we have so many pallets at the office, so we tried to work it out, the Japanese thing of just in time, only printing what you need. I went with Russell, we spent a day together and we got quotes. I’m sure if we pushed hard we could get cheaper quotes. The three quotes are typical of the people we phoned. It works out a very good price and minimum. So I talked to some of the delegates to see if they thought it might work, they thought it would be a good idea if the district got together, sent their orders to the area, the area sent their order to America, America gets them delivered just 48 hours later. We thought that was a great improvement over waiting six weeks to get HFC stuck on a ship.
Randy: So you’re willing to take on the redistribution after it comes to the area where your orders came from, that’s up to you.
Nicholas: Yes. Also, I’ve talked to the European delegates, they think it’s a good idea, they’re always going to the UK, and saying exactly the same thing, it’s really expensive, can you help us? So it wouldn’t be a big deal. All they would have to do is pay the shipping from the English company, whichever one we chose, to a European destination, so it wouldn’t be a 6,000 mile shipping, it would be a 600 mile shipping. Again, it would be a maximum of seven days. It would be an improvement of five weeks. Every time I go abroad, some district or meeting or area does not have any books or has run out of key rings. They all thought it would be a fantastic idea if we could get it together. So we got our three quotes together, the figures together, explained why it could happen. I want to know if anyone can see any holes in it. I talked to Richard, and he has a reservation he probably wants to talk about in a minute and obviously the stock of books we’ve got. What I’m trying to think of this is to pass a motion as a proposal, turn it into a motion, get a motion passed today, so it’s in place for when the depletion of stock of books _runs out . Because we still have $112,000 of books in stock. I’m trying to get the proposal into a motion in place so when we reach a certain limit that is agreed, we can start printing. We obviously don’t want to take any money away, but at this time, they’re still going to have to delay. I’d like to speak to the DOO, she’s been really busy, check on how it’s going, but I’ve just been told we’re nearly up to two pallets gone already, and how long that’s taken, is that a direct result of the discount on the books. I don’t know if we can project how long it will take to get from there to three pallets left or whatever, the baseline is that we will allow UK to start printing. I’ve used UK as a hub, cause they seem to know what they’re doing, and I only inquired in the UK. When I was working with Patty and Russell three years ago, we did inquire in Europe, but it was about 50% more expensive and a lot more work to distribute from a European distributor. The UK was the biggest one and based it on printing in the UK and using that as a hub. Then it could be an office thing as well. So the area pays the office, the office pre-approves payment, gives that to the man who prints it. There’s a few packs of figures and quotes on there as well. The price we worked out is about, one of the quotes typically, you’d like to print 250, the artwork and proof will cost £50, delivery will be £39, price of the book will be 2.27. Translation, we will do the book for $3.50 plus about $5.00 to us. That is a bargain, because we are having to sell the book at the moment at $16-17 a book soft bound. We don’t even get the hard bound books because they are so heavy and so expensive. They are paying $17 on a bad day because of the dollar thing for a book. We could get them there for $5. Then we
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would have to build in the royalty, so this does not include the royalty, but it does include proof, artwork, and delivery. So the royalty agreement just needs to be added on top. Even if it was 10%, it would only be $5.50, if we want to put a dollar on it, it is still only $6.50, which is £4, which is somewhat cheaper than we’re getting it now. All this would be guaranteed, cause at this price, and I hear talk around the table, since the price of books has gone down here, it started to sell. I do assure you, in Europe, it would sell just because it’s available. Not because of the price, but because they can actually get one. Every time I go abroad, I hear please can you bring 10. I’ve been nearly all around Europe, so I think there is a market for it, it’s just when and at what level of the pallet reduction of how much the royalty agreement is. I’m not sure how royalty agreements are reached. I think it’s the Office Board that does that. I think the UK, Scotland, Sweden and Holland all negotiated their own deal on royalties. If we get the royalty agreement up front, we wouldn’t have to wait. It’s guaranteed money, so you print it and get royalties for doing nothing. All we have to do is send the PDF on a stick to a printer. Ideas, questions? I’ve done lots of research.
Joy: Which bid does the European Region prefer, which company? It looks to me like Think Ink is…
Nicholas: Think Ink is the one we like, it’s a good quote…
Joy: I was just wondering…
Nicholas: They all say for 30 days, but I know you have to go through lots of protocol, we can hold that price, we are good for that price. You can go to whomever you work for and tell them, it might fluctuate because of the dollar, but that’s about the price. From my experience, $2.50 per month for the UK would only be one book per month per meeting. I’m sure most meetings sell at least one book at week or give away that many, so that would be a minimum order. We might be able to get up to 500, if we go over…it all depends how it goes. With that locked in with some European areas as well might be 400 a month, every month, minimum. Once we can prove we mean business, we might be able to beat down the price, not a lot, Trevor talked about bulk discount. It works. So we think Think Ink. He says he has done this for other companies, he’s used to distribution.
Richard: I discussed this with Nicholas and Trevor yesterday. My concern is putting a royalty agreement in place before we deplete the inventory at least to a reasonable amount. My thought would be if this came forth is maybe to where we have maybe 30% of our current inventory left, that’s probably a reasonable time for us to put that in place. Not trying to hold the European Region hostage, and mindful that this could be the appearance, but being respectful of our current investment and money sitting in the office with one of our largest purchasers. I am trying to seek and fair and balanced time for us to stop shipping the inventory we have, in order to allow them to print abroad. If someone has a better number, that’s just my concern. That we be, that we don’t take into consideration that we have current inventory to deplete from a large purchaser.
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Trevor: I agree with what Richard says, it’s a valid point. We have to be mindful of the spiritual aspect, but as principle financial planners, I think that the 30% sounds pretty reasonable. It sounds like a sound business number to go on. Once we have reached 30% of what we currently have, the royalty agreement would then click into place and we can start printing this. In the end it’s going to be good for everybody, all around.
Randy: Business wise, waiting until we get down to 30% is taking $5 out of every $15 that we could be receiving from the European Region for those books and giving it to a shipping company instead. Financially, our inventory, though depleting our inventory is sound financial practice. But our inventory is paid for and sitting there and for every $15 the European Region would like to spend for one book they can get two, if we allow the royalty agreement to start right now. Not every $15 that they spend for one book, they could get two books and we would get, what, on two books?
Richard: $3.00.
Randy: I just don’t know if it’s sound business practice. It’s traditionally sound business practice to deplete your inventory before you build some more, that’s traditional. This isn’t a traditional scenario in that we’re talking about reestablishing an opportunity to build these books overseas to respond to a market over there. The business isn’t going to continue to sell something difficult to sell overseas if they have a way to do it overseas that makes sense. They will just take that inventory in however long it takes to deplete it locally if it makes more sense and its better off financially to engage that agreement immediately. So I guess without know what those numbers are per se, I just see, I understand depleting, I’m just not sure that’s the best financial thing. I don’t want to give the money ___________________.
Nicholas: At the moment, people outside the USA are hesitant, it takes a lot of effort, lots of phone calls, but for no outlay from the office, not a dollar, this can be self-perpetuated. By other people, who just give you money. It’s not going to cost us anything apart from the loss of sales, that aren’t happening anyway cause they cost so much. When they, the areas, put the book orders together, there’s a guy who asks how much does it cost to get them here? It costs $1,000 to buy them, $2,000 to ship them. So they’re hesitant. So there’s always someone bashing the orders down. So people go with agendas, they don’t want to give the money to shipping. So they’re shrinking the orders. I would imagine, I don’t know, it would be 250 books minimum, per month. I would like to know, go to the office, and see how much the European Region has ordered in the last two years. I think will have spent a lot more, and although the net gain will be slightly less, the confidence in shipping, selling and reselling in the European Region will make more eventually. I see the European Region expanding, more potential, for want of a better word, for customers of HFC II, of HFC I, there’s lots of things to do. Once you get printing it doesn’t cost you anything, it costs them something, the people who want it, they’ll pay for their own stuff. They might write to the office, and this is very long -term, can we just get one with just the stories, make it a small one? We can print it, make it half the PDF. we should encourage some people, I think that we need to get them going. So what we’re talking about, I hear Richard’s hesitancy and prudence, I’d like to meet in the middle somewhere. I still think we should sell some of the inventory, I still think we should start as soon as possible, cause where we start they
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will follow. If they get the books, they sell more books…for me, if I see the books on the table, they sell. If I do not see the books, there’s no books for the newcomer to ask about to buy. If there’s books physically in a meeting, people are coming from treatment centers, wandering off the street, or people sent by the Helpline, see the book. The member says, or there’s a generous member there says “would you like this, would like to buy it,” or whatever. But if there’s no book, if it never gets there because it’s on a ship, so it’s better to have it, to get some guaranteed income. Maybe we’re doing this book drive, if you want to help that process along, come up with an offer, take five pallets to the European Region, you can start printing today ! Do a deal. Carry some to the infantry and give it some permission, honey no vinegar. Not, you’ve got to wait and order lot’s of books. Cause history tells me look at the office inventory, that doesn’t happen. They’re still going to hesitate. Also the dollar is getting slightly stronger so the books go up slightly. As you can tell I’m an advocate for having it there, so there’s a middle meeting point somewhere. Now as for the story thing, I’ve been talking to Sweden and Holland, and what they’ve been doing, with or without permission, with or without my knowledge, but I know it happens, is taking two stories from HFC II, translating them, and printing them off their laptops and giving them to newcomers. Because they can’t get them there and they don’t know what to do. They asked if it was all right, I said I don’t hear that. Because they want the literature, they want to see it, they want to give it to their new people. Someone read a story of HFC II on a CD and gave it to a newcomer. They are desperate for the stuff and I know if it was there they would buy it and they would buy it sooner than later. They would buy a 1 & 2 copies together as a box set, I know that was talked about as a concept with a coin as a gift. There’s lots of ways of selling this, reselling the same stuff and putting it in different boxes, people would love it. I’m a sucker for that. Come look at my CD collection, this is marketing, carrying the message and depleting product. $112,000 worth of message shoved in a warehouse…AA put their price of their book up when they need money cause they want to increase revenue. You know when the economy is going down because AA just put the book up, they don’t care. We’ve only got the one book at the moment, so it behooves us at the moment to try to get it to as many people as possible. I’m not saying give them permission to print tomorrow, I’m not saying wait till 30, I’m just saying there might be a nearer point and a deal to offer as well to encourage them. We need to get rid of the pallets. I know sometimes they get an order of a pallet together. If push came to shove with a price, that might get to three pallets, might be four pallets. You take four pallets, we give you an extra 10%, you can start printing the day it arrives.
Kim: How many cases are there in a pallet?
Nicholas: I don’t know, we would have to do some figures.
Robert: 28 books to a case.
Joy: 47 cases soft bound, 39 hard bound. There are 1,316 books on a pallet of soft bound books, 1,092 for hard bound books.
Nicholas, At the moment, from what I recall, they are ordering about 250 every two months, because area meets every two months. So people are having to wait as well. 250-500 every two months. This way, when I went to them, going back to the proposal…What about a split order?
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He said a split order, there would be a slight charge, but he could actually deliver to all seven districts, so it could go to one big order as an area, but he could divide it, but they know it will just come to them. So the funds can just go up the ladder, down the ladder, we’ll just be paid it automatically comes. So Russell and I worse scenario is 250 a month. If we advertise it a lot and they got into it, taking all the meetings in Europe and they only gave away or sold two books each, per month, it would be about 700-800 books a month, every month. There are no orders of HFC going into our office from the European Region of 800 month. It doesn’t exist. It is a way to get guaranteed revenue. What the decision is will be not how, but when we do it. At what point will we let go of the inventory? America is a very big place, I’ve looked at it on the map. There a quite a lot of meetings here. If a pallet and a half are gone already it sounds quite positive.
Joy: It’s a lot of books in a 10 months, but we still have 16+ pallets left. It’s a lot of books.
Nicholas: My final pitch is the books are here, they’re printed. To most members in the European Region, they’re already printed,. When can we print ours? We don’t want to wait six weeks. We really want to do this, can you help us? Give us the tools. We don’t want to give the shipper the $10. We’ve come up with a solution.
Richard: I have concerns as to what I’ve heard through this discussion. There aren’t books on the tables because they’re waiting until there’s a royalty agreement or there is an issue on waiting until there is an order placed and getting them shipped. I want to make sure we’re looking to resolve the right issue.
Nicholas: It always takes a long time to gather the order.
Richard: Is this new? Are there new situations in the last year that have reduced your ability to get books?
Nicholas: No, but the area decided it’s not “worth” putting an order in until it’s a sufficient size because the shipping is so prohibitive. So what they’re doing is they’re waiting all the time they’re waiting to get an order. So if there’s a case to fill it, they will not put that order until that case comes. So it could be two months until Holland goes. So they’re hesitant to put in the order. What would you feel like if you ordered $3,000 worth of goods and they sent you a bill for $10,000 including shipping? Plus the administration fee.
Richard: What are the actual numbers?
Nicholas: I don’t know, it’s always more than the value of the books.
Kim: Do we need to look at this as a potential freeing up of additional monies for 7th tradition then?
Nicholas: What?
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Kim: Is this, if we print the book in UK, does that free up money for 7th tradition?
Nicholas: Yes, that would just generate cash, and we will send it back to us.
Kim: So ultimately, that increases 7th tradition.
Nicholas: Also, when they go into printings and things, this is crazy, I’ve mentioned this before and I’ll mention it again, we look like we work for Alcoholics Anonymous cause we took big books in instead of HFC II cause they can’t get any cause they can’t physically get the book. The members get frustrated cause the area is the one making the decision and the man whose trying to run the little group tells me the area haven’t got any and it will be a few weeks, some members leave. They go to NA.
Randy: The H&I groups say I’ve got £200, how can I spend, what’s the best way to spend £200, I could get nine of these or 31 of those.
Nicholas: They’re buying the big book, I found this for $6.00, that’s not our message, but we’re taking it cause we can’t get the books. I’m exaggerating for effect here, but they do feel a frustration.
Richard: It’s having a reverse effect with me. I would like actual numbers.
Nicholas: I could get facts and figures.
Richard: I’m for it, I’m just for being very well informed in this decision. I’m for changing the number from 30% to 50% if that makes a better deal for everybody. I think we need the real numbers on both sides, how much the real orders are for the office, how often they really are, and what you actually pay on your end.
Nicholas: I can do that. I will get that to the new trustee, that will be the next stage. I’ve come here for discussion, and what I’m missing. I’ve got to go to the office and get real figures and go to the UK delegates and the European Region.
Richard: Aren’t you here for a real deal?
Nicholas: I am.
Richard: Email and see if you can’t get them before we…
Trevor: Joy is looking right now.
Joy: I might already have them.
Robert: When we went to AA back in September, we had this inventory of approximately 40,000 copies of HFC 2 in inventory and we felt we could deplete our inventory within three years, make that happen, the numbers of books. The European Region needs the HFC2 in the English
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translation without the AA stuff , because the other issue is the money we can receive for royalties from the English as well as the French, Spanish, German. translations
Nicholas: The books are divided.
Robert: At this time. We are an international fellowship. In French, it could be used over on the continent. Are we just looking at the English translation or are we looking, are we going to think about that?
Nicholas: Yes, obviously I don’t know about the agenda because of Canada and stuff.
Trevor: Montreal has a direct printing agreement for ___________ in French.
Robert: That’s not true. The biggest hubbub that’s been going on for the past year or so, it’s being switched, it’s being published in L.A. They can’t find out who the previous printer was. It was too cost-prohibitive to print in Canada.
Trevor: Then Canadian dollar went down so much it became too expensive to print it here.
Joy: If the UK sells 250 books a month, that’s 3,000 books a year.
Trevor: That’s what Russell and I think. If each group only orders one book. Some group has 300 people.
Joy: 3,000 books a year. One pallet holds 1,316 books, so three pallets would be 3,948 books. If we tell them to buy three pallets now, get rid of those pallets and then you can start printing the books plus we’ll take the two or three dollar royalty agreement per book, we’re still making between $500-750 per book on a royalty agreement, and if they’re printing 250, that’s a lot of money, depending on the royalty agreement. So we get eliminate three pallets of books, and bring in an additional $500-750 a month. And they can start printing.
Nicholas: And that’s the lowest case scenario. And I’m hoping…
Joy: Yes. Depending on a $2-3.00 royalty.
Nicholas: I am hoping they can get them printed, that Holland, Sweden, and other European countries can join in and bulk up the orders as well. I can’t imagine a big group in London of 150 people ordering only one book, I know that doesn’t happen. I can see some of the smaller groups, struggling groups, or prison groups, or H&I, averaging two or three books per meeting, perhaps 750 books. Based on your calculation, that would be revenue of about 2,100ish. I hear what Richard says, we need more facts and figures to make up his mind, it would be more useful. I need more time to do some emails, I could do that. I can’t guarantee people would be available, it’s Saturday, but I can try.
Randy: _____________ the office is going to take a motion to the floor that the current inventory is sold in the United States without a sticker, and though I would speak against that motion, there is a sentiment that AA has truly given permission to do so, there is a sentiment regarding How It
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Works that exists in our fellowship that I believe there is a chance it will pass no matter how much we say. At that point in time, the royalty agreement for the European Region to sell the non How It Works book immediately we have in our inventory that we don’t have to sticker that’s got How It Works, I really know, we made a huge mistake, we bought way too many books, we’ve now found out bad mistakes have been made. We’re sitting around here trying to punish ourselves for that mistake by not engaging in something that’s going to make us money in Europe. We’ve got inventory.
Trevor: We’ve got the office space leased, that’s non-negotiable, we’re paying for it anyway, that’s where the books are. We’ve paid for the books, we own them. That’s not costing us anything. Worst case scenario, it takes us 20 years. It’s not costing us any more than it already has other than the inconvenience than sitting around knowing we want to print new ones that are correct but we can’t.
Nicholas: The office doesn’t even have to pay for that. They’re going to fund their own literature.
Lawrence: I like Joy’s idea of selling the UK the pallets of books and the royalty agreement. We already have the inventory, we’ve paid for them. I’m leaning toward that idea. We need to get the royalty agreement done, print the books in the UK, sale the books and the UK send in the seventh tradition.
Joy: For four cases at $4.75 is $532 with a 20% discount…
Richard: By forcing them to buy. If I were in the UK, I would feel forced, this is the deal, if you buy four pallets or three pallets of books, then we’ll give you the agreement. It feels forced. I also don’t feel like we should ignore it. If the conference says do it now. As a representative and financial planner, I feel we have to consider the huge inventory and investment we currently have.
Robert: In a way, the proposition is totally _______________, give us $5,000 and we’ll give you the royalty agreement. In essence, that’s what we’re saying. ________________________.
Kim: Isn’t that a good idea? Give us $10,000, you have your agreement, we keep the books in the space, sell them to H&I, it’s like a donation.
Joy: Three pallets are $15,000 US, including the discount, with the book sale price, not including the shipping.
Trevor: When you put in an order how long does it take to get there? A week?
Nicholas: Yeah.
Kim: They’re hosting 2012, let’s get these books over there, bump up membership, get these people to our convention. Sign off on a royalty agreement and get this done.
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Joy: Maybe we can stop stickering the books and sell them domestically.
Kim: I’m not in agreement with that.
Joy: Just a suggestion.
Richard: Is everyone in agreement, just cutting a royalty agreement?
Trevor: I would love to have the books all gone, so we could have the royalty agreement and print the new ones correctly. That would be the ultimate goal. Ultimately, what we have now is inventory we’ve already paid for standing in a space we’re paying for anyway.
Joy: A pallet and a half are gone, and 13 cases are coming to conference.
Richard: If no one else has any concerns that I can overlook, I can discuss it with Tom, because the royalty agreement comes from the World Service Office Board, we can get that done, I would love it if we have something we could bring to the floor. This is where we would want to do it.
Nicholas: What do you think would be a reasonable proposal for a royalty agreement?
Richard: Tom said $1-1.50 a book.
Nicholas: I think it needs to be at least $2.00.
Trevor: I think if we go to Tom and say at least $2-3.00, what’s your input?
Nicholas: We have to sell it to them too. It’s gotta work.
Richard: What’s the cost currently, that’s last year’s quote?
Nicholas: This is current, $8.00 inclusive, about £6, which is about 50% less, plus we can get it now. About a $3.00 royalty.
Richard: I’m in favor of this, I put it like this, because when we’re here and we can bring something to the conference floor, instead of us doing something on behalf of the conference, I would love to bring something like this to the conference. That’s why I want to do this. So I have to have a discussion with Tom.
Trevor: Is there any objection to that?
Richard: So that’s what I’m tasked with. Richard has an action item of discussing the royalty agreement…
Nicholas: $2.50 that would mean selling the book for £5.
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Richard: I’m actually okay with $2.50 because Tom says that we do well right now with a buck or buck fifty in Canada, because Canada is $1.50, that’s the number I recollect.
Nicholas: I do too, it’s the minimum note is 5, it comes out of pocket.
Trevor: You guys have them out of pocket for £5 versus £15.
Richard: The number still has to be negotiated, that’s my task. I will follow up with you.
Trevor: Next item is a combined 2010.04.01, 2010.04.02, and 2010.04.03, with regard to the Director of Operations. Off the record please, for executive session. Back on the record 5:08pm Saturday. Many issues regarding Director of Operations. I regret that Willie is not here, he should be here for this portion of the conversation.
Richard: He was not here for the last quarterly either, by last recollection.
Trevor: We will deal with facts, we will not wait. There are many concerns regarding performance, lack of ability to multi task. As the chair, I have received many emails and conversations from the Board and members of the fellowship, as well as a meeting with a member of the fellowship to express their concerns, a long-term member who has been involved for a long time; I don’t believe I know where we go next. There are things happening, the job is not getting done at the level the fellowship deserves and quite honestly the fellowship is paying for.
Joy: We really need to come up with a plan that we can present to the Chair of the World Service Office Board before we take any action. We can take action; however, we need to have a plan. I don’t want to leave the office hanging, whether it’s us as a Board, putting someone in there temporarily until we actually put it out there to the fellowship again to get resumes, to get someone who is going to be effective, that’s going to do the job. I do know that there are a lot of mistakes. A lot of requests that are not being followed through with. There is no forward planning, first things first, not knowing how much money is in the bank. It’s so easy, you open the bank statement, you figure out how much money there is at the end of the month and then go back from the numbers of check that have been cut. It has nothing to do with how many checks are outstanding. If a check has been written, the money’s not there. It’s simple. To me, that is forward thinking, I believe the resume said the individual had forward thinking. There is no organization. There is too much repetition; we continually walk her through the same thing. The reality is, you should be taking notes, the minute you ask a question, you should be going back to those notes if you have to do the job again. That’s how I expect my employees to roll. I believe we have to do something because the fellowship is hurting. We are literally hurting the office, the fellowship, the conference, the conventions. We should have done this sooner than later. I’m sorry to say it’s now later and we are causing harm to our fellowship that I so love and am willing to serve 150%. I think we need to do something. If that means making a motion to let the Director of Operations go, then that’s what we need to do, I’m all for it. We need to come up with a plan so we have something in place right away. If it means hiring someone on a temporary
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basis to run the office until we can get this taken care of and get the new person in there and hiring a new Director of Operations at the same time, then let’s do it. Or eliminating the Director of Operations and reinstating the DRPD, I don’t care, we need to come up with a plan, I think we need to make a motion to remove the Director of Operations.
Randy: You dial in the meetings. What’s the Office Board’s position?
Richard: I can tell you that we had an Executive session. I made a motion to remove the Director of Operations. I got a second. Discussion was good because a couple of the directors that had been there for a year believed that the World Service Board of Trustees was well informed of the issues the Office Board were having and knew nothing about the issues from the World Service Board of Trustees. They didn’t know that there was such a great concern from the World Service Board of Trustees and my voice said during that meeting that falls on the Chair of the World Service Office Trustee. Because when presented, my job is to carry the voice of this Board. I believe I informed them during that Executive session that I had made a motion, there was discussion, and that it had failed. I am pretty good about presenting not just my side, not just my view. There were directors with concern in that Executive session, but it was not enough for the motion to pass. There is concern, there are issues. I can tell you that the Chair has the same view, expression and opinion on the World Service Office Board as he does with us.
Randy: Which is?
Richard: That he sees improvement. That’s all I get. Nothing specific, he sees improvement.
Randy: I voted against it at the last quarterly because I don’t believe that it’s our position to terminate. I think that not only the chair, but the World Service Office Board is responsible for the function of the office. I understand that they report to us, I understand that the overall health and success and vitality of Cocaine Anonymous rests with this group so again I just don’t believe that position couldn’t be done better and I don’t believe that I do believe that the fellowship would be better served with a new individual there but I still cannot get by my concerns that it’s not this Board’s position or place to do anything more than make that recommendation and if those recommendations and those concerns that we continually put forward to the World Service Office Board and the World Service Office Board chair that are issues aren’t with the Director of Operations it’s about demanding that the office run smoother and it runs better. We’ve given them all of those capabilities and the decision making for that to happen. Our feelings towards any of those individuals, I think make it easier for us to skip them and go to where the problem is and not deal with the individuals that are in our organizational structure responsible for fixing it.
Richard: I move the WOSB Chair give the Director of Operations two weeks’ notice and hire a replacement for that position.
Joy: Second.
Trevor: Motion by Richard that the WOSB Chair give the current Director of Operations two weeks’ notice and hire a replacement for that position, seconded by Joy. I have you next on my list Joy, I want to inform everybody now that through my research and Robert’s Rules, this is a
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2/3 majority requirement and I’m going to specify that now. That would be of the current quorum.
Joy: I am going to speak to the motion, however, I am also going to give you some information. I have been told by a few of the World Service Office Board members that they are leaving it to the trustees to remove her. I have been told they are putting it on us to remove.
Kim: I would prefer there be no veil of secrecy.
Joy: I was asked not to mention one person’s name.
Trevor: At this point I would like the recorder to be shut off, as we are directly dealing with employment of an individual under California state law, we will not have this on the record. We were offline discussing a matter that required us to do so. The result is that we have tabled the motion to remove. Kim, would you please read the amended motion.
Kim: The original motion by Richard: World Service Office Board Chair give the Director of Operations two weeks’ notice and hire a replacement for that position, seconded by Joy. Friendly amendment by Kim to strike “and hire a replacement” accepted by Richard, second by Joy. Motion to table by Randy, seconded by Lawrence. Motion passed.
Trevor: Motion has been tabled. Next item of business 2010.05.03, CAWS 2011 regarding linking.
Randy: This can be taken off the agenda until which time the committee makes a formal proposal, they are watching the progression of not only CALA and other conventions, we did an internet link. They are gathering information as to what it would really take to do a full broadcast. They are individuals that have attended and participated in the streaming video meetings now that are available in NA, they are really gathering everything put together and at this time, there’s our anonymity statement issue that Kim and I have a referral put in for at this conference. All those things have to be kind of all tucked correctly before a formal motion can be made. At this time, there is no formal update, but if they don’t bring something forward, there’s no reason to leave it on the agenda.
Trevor: Is there an objection to removing this?
Kim: I think it should be tabled until the committee makes a decision as to how they’re going to move forward, not removed from the agenda.
Trevor: Is there an objection to tabling by unanimous consent? Seeing none, it has been tabled. Next item of business 2010.070.01 Hotel accommodations for conference, reimbursement/master accounts. Richard follow up. Any update? What I see is we’re here. This item appears to be done and can be removed. Next item of business 2010.07.05 Hiring of a new assistant/bookkeeper.
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Joy: I want to know what’s taking so long. Supposedly they have tons of resumes from Craigslist.
Trevor: This is a great item to ask in the World Service Office Board Chair and if there’s no objection we will table it until such time.
Joy: That’s fine.
Trevor: Seeing no objection, the item has been tabled. Next item of business, 2010.07.06 HFC and HFC II French Printing, I will ask if we can do the same until after the Board to Board or do we want to talk about it now?
Joy: When Richard and I were in the office, they had received the HFC I in French. I don’t know how many they had received; however, they had received HFC I inventory in French.
Robert: Have they told the fellowship?
Joy: Probably not. It just came in.
Robert: Email. I’ve been hopping about it, they’ve been asking.
Trevor: Good question to ask at the one-on-one.
Richard: I would wait until you hear that from the office.
Robert: I was looking for guidance.
Trevor: We’ll leave it on the agenda for now and we can leave it on until such time in the future it has been satisfied, right now we are waiting for an update from the office. Next item of business, responses to correspondence received from the fellowship. 2010.05.18, a message from Quin.
Joy: Can I get help with this. The reality is that it’s too expensive to copyright the logo, but if it has the CA logo in it, then it is ours. To answer is the question “is the CAWS 2010 logo copyrighted?” well, how do you copyright a cow with no CA logo?
Richard: Is the cow branded?
Joy: The cow is branded. It is the proper CAWS, Inc. logo. Is that what our attorney said?
Richard: No, that is my interpretation of what the attorney said, we do not have a document that says that.
Joy: What was the email from the attorney?
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Richard: I did not get a direct response. I got a informational response to our inquiry about what our attorney said, it’s third hand knowledge.
Joy: Can you explain that?
Trevor: Who sent the email?
Richard: Yvette.
Joy: Was it a forwarded email from the attorney?
Richard: No.
Joy: Was the email sent to you in response to a phone conversation she had with the attorney?
Richard: It was in response to an email she said she received.
Joy: I do not want to write a response to Quin without having all of the facts.
Kim: Can we add this to the Board-to-Board.
Trevor: You are correct, if we have an email from the lawyer saying this is it…
Joy: We need something from the lawyer.
Kim: I added Number14, follow up drug court contacts, so Number15…
Trevor: Number14 is renewal of CA logo in US, April 24 2010 required paperwork, proof.
Joy: We have that.
Trevor: Any time we get anything about something the Board needs, forward it to everyone.
Richard: I sent it to Willie. He was going to forward it.
Joy: I will forward the lawyer correspondence to the group now. That action item is complete.
Trevor: The registered trademark item can be removed from the agenda.
Kim: Agenda item Number15 is Quin response.
Joy: The placement of the ® was brought up by Randy, that will need to be further discussed.
That should also be in the email Yvette got from the attorney.
Randy: I don’t remember the attorney being asked about that.
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Joy: Yes, your request came to me, my request as the lead trustee on legal went to Richard.
Trevor: That’s one of the things we need to know at the one-on-one and then the Board-to-Board.
Joy: Yes, the attorney was also asked that question. There was also discussion online about that.
Kim: Item Number8 is the renewal of the CA logo, that’s where I put it. We don’t need a separate item. So Number14 and 15 will move to Number8.
Joy: Thank you.
Trevor: Next item of business is 2010.07.27 Kim, Nicholas, Richard, Lawrence, Robert.
Kim: I sent the response to everybody. It has been approved by the subcommittee, so therefore, I make a motion to accept the response.
Randy: Second.
Trevor: Is there any objection? Seeing none, is there any objection to approving the response? Seeing none, the response has been approved unanimously. Next item of business is 2010.08.08. Trevor and Randy. For updated…
Kim: The correspondence is dated based on the day it’s received.
Trevor: So basically what happened, they sent a response, Kim forwarded it to me, I responded back saying, I’ll look at it, the guy emailed me at the same time. Before I could even respond, I got “we had our convention meeting tonight and we decided to take it out and use the eternity symbol logo instead. Is that a problem?” I said no, that’s a universal symbol, we don’t own it, go ahead. Randy and I can still answer the underlying question, there is no need.
Kim: It has been resolved on its own with no action by the World Service Board of Trustees?
Trevor: This item can be removed from the agenda. The next item of business is 2010.08.18.
Randy and Robert.
Randy: Robert and I talked about it last night, we will put something together. I would be interested in feedback as to the question we asked ____________ in no time.
Nicholas: Go to a treatment center or hospital or prison or whatever, give them one HFC, put it in the library, if they want more they can order it. Give them the helpline number they can order it.
Randy: Our jails don’t work like that. Our institutions, we find that libraries have no money.
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Nicholas: Legally, they can’t do it, but we shouldn’t be condoning theft. We would be condoning theft, stealing from our fellowship, by not paying for them. We know it happens, we don’t admit it happens. We aren’t going to encourage it happening. He needs to do more fundraising in his local area.
Randy: What royalty is he stealing?
Nicholas: If he uses our entire pamphlet, he owes us some money, it’s ours, not his.
Randy: But he’s CA.
Nicholas: The Scottish area pays a royalty to UK…
Randy: He’s Cocaine Anonymous.
Nicholas: But he doesn’t buy it, his area, his district that he is a part of, have to pay for that privilege. If he does it and I can’t see it, and he doesn’t ask me, he can do what he wants. If he’s asking me…
Randy: He owns that pamphlet.
Joy: No, he doesn’t. CAWSO, Inc. owns that pamphlet.
Nicholas: So he is technically stealing. We can’t be encouraging stealing.
Trevor: An individual does not own a pamphlet, Cocaine Anonymous World Services, Inc. owns the pamphlet. That’s the difference.
Randy: That makes it easier to do the response.
Kim: I just pulled up a pamphlet, it says that we own, it says “permission is granted to download and store this material for individuals for non-proprietary use only.”
Randy: I pulled up “What is Cocaine Anonymous” and that didn’t come up.
Kim: I am looking at “The First 30 Days.” I think it’s on every page. It should be on every page of the website.
Robert: In the New York Area, we send the link to districts and I’m trying to find out what they can and can’t do, that’s a whole thing there. They asked for permission to print pamphlets for H & I cause they cannot afford to purchase pamphlets from the WSO. People are going to copy and print them, I’m guilty of it, I don’t do it anymore, it’s one of those things, World Services, Inc. owns it.
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Trevor: There’s a place back home called ADAP, they’ve been printing our stuff for years. I talked to the lady once and said you really don’t have the right to do that, she said okay we’ll stop. That was the official answer. Do we want to start suing them for copying 100 pamphlets every three months? Probably not. The direct answer to the referral, no it’s not legal, you don’t have that right.
Robert: He has some ideas on the response. I know Randy’s thinking out loud for input, for ideas.
Trevor: If an area is reaching out to other areas and say we’re doing this and trying that, can you help us, at one convention, we passed the hat with the specific purpose of raising money to help the BC area. We raised over $900 for this area. They sent two delegates to the next world conference. That can work.
Randy: All right, it will be ready tomorrow.
Trevor: The time is 8:01 pm. The first item of new business is 2010.08.01the date and time for the next conference call. October 24, 10:00 am pst. Everyone agrees, that is the date and time of the next conference call. Next item of business, 2011-2012 budget.
Joy: Trustee budgets should be increased to $2,640, except Europe, which should be increased to $3,245, and Trustee at Large, $1,650. The office travel budget is $18,000.
Richard: I just want to know what the World Service Trustee is, but you don’t know.
Joy: You’re all lumped together.
Randy: What’s our number again?
Joy: $2,640, that’s what we want for 11/12, even though they have the SR-14. I will take the trustee budgets to the finance meeting with their chair, treasurer and…
Richard: Thank you.
Joy: I put meeting 3 put back in for $12,300, okay? It is the same amount as meeting 2. The 2011 budget is ready, I will take this to finance.
Trevor: Trustee budgets are now completed. There are two items on the agenda we are going to skip over. 10.08.03 and 10.08.04, ratification of the World Service Office Board and ratification of the World Service Board of Trustees. We are going to skip them because I haven’t gotten the results of their ratification from their last meeting. It makes sense to wait. For the record, in order to complete our agenda, tomorrow morning when we come back in, my first item of business will be personal sharing, unless there is an objection. Next item is 10.08.05
Election of World Service Board of Trustees corporate officers. Chair is first.
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Randy: I nominate Kim.
Richard: Second.
Joy: I move that nominations be closed.
Trevor: Kim do you accept?
Kim: Yes.
Trevor: Kim Sherwan is the next World Service Board of Trustees chair.
Richard: I think we should get the current chair’s input on who the officers should be based on…
Trevor: Well, you already picked the chair.
Richard: Yeah, we did. So what’s your input on vice?
Nicholas: I thought we should go to Joy as secretary?
Joy: No, I will decline that over and over and over again. I think that Richard should be secretary. He needs to learn to be more organized.
Trevor: I have vice-chair next on my list. Nominations for vice-chair of the Board?
Lawrence: I nominate Randy.
Nicholas: Second.
Trevor: Randy do you accept?
Randy: Yes.
Trevor: Any other nominations? Nominations are closed. Congratulations Randy. We now move to the highly important, and it’s really not that hard, secretary.
Joy: I nominate Richard.
Trevor: Richard do you accept that?
Richard: Yeah, y’all are fools, but yeah.
Kim. No way…sorry.
Richard: I’m willing to serve in any capacity you all need me.
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Trevor: You don’t want Richard as your secretary?
Joy: I’ll do it, but…I really don’t want to.
Richard: I’ll do my best…but…
Trevor: My unbiased opinion is that both of you could do it. The truth is the worst part of whoever the new secretary is, you’re going to be following Kim.
Richard: Kim, who do you think would be best as secretary for this Board?
Trevor: I think any one of you could do it, Robert could do it, Richard, you can do it, Randy can’t anymore, Joy can do it.
Kim: I’m not saying Richard can’t do it.
Richard: We all know my…
Joy: I nominate myself as secretary.
Randy: I nominate Joy.
Trevor: We have Richard, we have Joy. Are there any nominees for secretary?
Richard: Robert, do you want to do it?
Robert: I will do anything for the fellowship.
Trevor: So we have three nominees. There really can’t be any others. Nominations are closed. No secret ballot, no discussion. Off the record please for discussion. We are back on the record. I want to thank all three of you for your willingness to serve. Unfortunately, Richard, you have been selected as the new secretary as the World Service Board of Trustees.
Richard: Okay, I will do my best.
Trevor: The next item on the agenda is the 2010.08.07, the election of corporate officer. We need a president? Joy is president, Richard is vice-president, Robert is treasurer, and Randy is secretary. The next item on the agenda is 2010.08.08, financial reporting from the World Service Office Board, that was covered earlier in our motion. One thing going forward, though I won’t be here, I hope this gets handled. We need a solution, the solutions we have to live with are our policies. If policies are not followed, these will be grounds for immediate termination.
Randy: Every financial reporting issue will never be any better than the first entry into the system.
Joy: The first entry into the system was perfect.
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Randy: That’s the consistency, it doesn’t matter who’s up here trying to make it all fit…
Richard: In our organization it does.
Trevor: That to me is one of the things that I had originally envisioned was the position is great, we really need one person that is authorized, and their job is to do the data entry on the books. Nobody else even has a pass code. That person is responsible for doing it, making it right, and that person is responsible if it is wrong, we can go to them and ask where is this, what happened, fix it.
Kim: We have had this problem in the past as well.
Joy: That is the problem, neither one of the Director of Operation’s has an accounting background, literally. The reality is to get the bookkeeper there five days a week that does all of the input into the system with the treasurer and the chair as oversight, and of course CPA’s do the final. We need to have journal entries, why and what they’re for, and not have deposits posted in bad debts or expenses, deposits are not expenses, they are income. Cash coming in means we are making money, if we send cash out, that’s an expense. I believe we should increase the salary for the bookkeeper, so we can get someone in there that knows what they’re doing. Even though she did a one day training on QuickBooks, she does have a little bit more knowledge and videos and workbooks, the person that hires that position should be Tom, not the Yvette. The reason is simple. Yvette has no knowledge of what a bookkeeper should be doing and how to interview for that position. Therefore, Tom should interview for that position, finds the person right for the job. A bookkeeper should know QuickBooks inside and out, the interviewer should know the proper interview questions, if those questions cannot be answered, move onto the next interview. This person needs to know accounting, bank reconciliations, deposits. We also need internal controls. And this person needs to be able to find mistakes every month. Not waiting three months down the line. If I was to interview, that’s how I would do it. Like Mitsubishi gave me, give an exam. Know what credits and debits are.
Trevor: This is an item we will talk about in the Board-to-Board, what our decision is on our new policy and get their feedback. It will be up to the new chair to work with the Office Board Chair moving forward in instituting the hiring of the new position. I strongly encourage you to hold onto as much of it as you can. Make those suggestions, that is what we need.
Our next item of business is 2010.08.09, seventh tradition/monies from abroad. Nicholas.
Nicholas: This is about funds arriving and not being found and stuff. There was like a $3,400 check that was posted to PayPal in April. I don’t know exactly. Jackie gave me sort of a rough pass it on, she said you’ll have to chase up areas at office, they lose money. I thought that can’t be true, the accounts, the 7th tradition has been fantastic in the first and second year, third year needed a bit of pushing, this year it has been a joke. To have nothing, and to have to find out where it’s going. I don’t understand accounting, I have money in my pocket and that’s about it. I went to a district with one of the delegates, Russell, they said they sent checks to several places, we phoned the office, they said no, we haven’t gotten any check. We went back to the bank,
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none of them had been cashed. We had receipt of postage. Maybe it was unfortunate, they all got lost, I don’t know if they all got lost at the office, or they all got lost. They all got posted on different dates, we asked if they’d been sent to the right address, in Wilmington? Yes, they were sent there. We found out that the post forward got stopped quite a while ago, some of our outlying groups that maybe didn’t pay attention to the GSR sent money to the old office didn’t get forwarded, and just got lost.
Randy: It should be a year.
Nicholas: After six months, there was no forwarding. We thought that was a little strange. The last thing was when Willie sent me a blank piece of paper and said there is nothing, I said this is bollocks, find out what happened. He did not get back to me, I spoke to Trevor, we agreed to find out discreetly what happened. I did get $4,000, but they weren’t quite sure when it was sent or how it broke down, it didn’t equate to the three, it seems to tie in with the financial reporting. Maybe that wouldn’t help if someone had tried to PayPal from Sweden. If you pay in Swedish Kroner, does it automatically translate into US dollars?
Joy: There is a conversion, yes.
Nicholas: Maybe this needs to be put into procedures, I don’t know. Anything that comes from out of the United States to be flagged up because it might be coming in a different currency needs to be acknowledged. I have spent four years trying to encourage them to send money, if it doesn’t get here or it’s not acknowledged, it doesn’t look good. It’s not in the NewsGram, most haven’t been right in the last four years on the first go, it seems to be an inherent error, it doesn’t seem to quite equate. It would be fantastic if we acknowledged the receipt of your PayPal in pounds, which converts to this many dollars. We thank your group or district for this donation. This will be duly acknowledged in three NewsGrams or some sort of notice. I’ve had everyone ask me to get the money, we need the prudent reserve. Well, the prudent reserve is back up. I’m not saying personally, I have been involved in encouraging all the European areas to start donating. So when Spain said we sent it, we’ve been sending money, but we’ve never been acknowledged, and I don’t see anything, it is embarrassing. Also, with CAWS 2012 shipping money back and forth, we are asked please can you do this, yes we’ve done that, so I have been asking the office to open an HSBC account in this country for four years. We finally got one. It’s still not quite working properly. I know it’s all new to everyone. There must be a way to fix it, I just don’t know how. Somebody, who knows what they’re talking about needs to go in there and tell them we need to start acknowledging funds or there won’t be any funds coming to acknowledge. Unless it is brought personally. Russell is bringing a check in an envelope, because they don’t trust anymore. They do not trust. She physically took it. The guy from London said I’m not signing it unless you physically take it. I’d rather spend it on “big books.” That’s not what I want to hear from a member of Cocaine Anonymous. You told us, you’re a trustee, you told us to send money. We’ve been sending money, we don’t look good.
Joy: There are no big deposits in April. Let’s check.
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Nicholas: I spoke to Trevor, so as not to infuriate anyone, I just put reported donations, I thought that was the kindest word. There may be others.
Joy: PayPal transfer, $4,483.00, May 3.
Nicholas: That was it, it eventually got there. According to the office, they got nothing.
Kim: It was not on the 7th Tradition report?
Nicholas: No, it was blank. It was disappointing.
Joy: I was shocked by that…
Nicholas: That is why I felt this conversation was necessary. Tomorrow we need to mention this and find out what procedure is in place and can we tighten it up a bit. They’re not angry, they’re a bit disillusioned. I got Spain to make their first donation ever, Sweden is thinking about it, then Russell goes to the area assembly and tells Sweden “I might hold onto that if I were you, we are struggling a bit.” It’s not a disaster, it’s just really difficult, we really need to try and rebuild those bridges and maybe have a different accountability, a different heads up when it comes from out of America, cause they seem to struggle when it comes from abroad. That’s my experience of the last six months, it’s been very difficult to get accurate figures, for them, not for me.
Richard: With the issue brought up, I hear one acknowledging a receipt of monies that is the Director of Operations, that is supposed to be acknowledged, the money has been received and a thank you letter, and without it reporting of the money is the bookkeeper. Not surprisingly, these are the positions I have concern with. A grave concern to me as someone who has sat on both Boards, the UK is being blamed.
Kim: What do you mean, they’re being blamed?
Richard: For not sending the money, for saying they’re sending money and it doesn’t show up. That’s what I’m hearing. Because of what I’ve been hearing for months, my opinion was the same. I was fed bad information.
Joy: It was a PayPal transfer on May 3.
Kim: That shows up on a statement from Wells Fargo.
Richard: There are also emails from PayPal.
Kim: They are on a Wells Fargo statement, that is put into QuickBooks? That is how our 7th tradition is tracked?
Joy: Yes, exactly.
Richard: They should have a deposit in a reconciliation report when payment is received.
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Nicholas: So how does it not get there?
Joy: It was posted on April 29.
Trevor: Some things are not getting entered correctly.
Richard: That would be the bookkeeper.
Trevor: I’m just going to guess, I’m going to ask Randy, who possibly has knowledge, Saturday Night Live, in Arizona, did they donate $30 in the last three months?
Randy: Directly to World? Probably.
Trevor: That could get confused with the Saturday Night Live from Calgary, Alberta, that’s my home group that donated $50, and it ended up as $30 in Arizona, I don’t know. I know that quite often they’ll get Northern California confused and enter it in Joy’s region, that’s happened quite a bit.
Nicholas: May I share some experience with you? I don’t know how many of you go to AA, I know Robert does. In the UK, you fill in that form, we are a new group, and you are sent and account number to identify you. One would be 347, one would be 1852, that number would identify you, your group. You’re asked if you’d like to pay by PayPal, check, or bank transfer. Not by check in the UK, that will be done away with next year. They actually ask you how. The computer automatically picks up, it’s fantastic. The 187 group has sent $30 on this day it sends it straight to an Excel spreadsheet. It’s amazing. You push a button and it reconciles. It’s fantastic, and they will send the list to anyone who asks. It’s so transparent. It’s like we are operating in dinosaurland.
Joy/Kim: We are.
Nicholas: I want to share that, it looked fantastic.
Joy: Things have changed from when I was treasurer, and I made deposits…
Trevor: They have many more years of experience, but we can certainly learn from them.
Joy: When I was treasurer, and there was a deposit, 7th tradition came in, I literally typed who the deposits came in from on a list.
Richard: Let’s talk about the current issue.
Joy: The issue is, the posting are being done incorrectly by the bookkeeper and whomever is doing the 7th tradition report.
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Trevor: So our instructions, and we will have this conversation tomorrow, is we have great concern, you are to get a bookkeeper hired and fix this so it doesn’t happen anymore.
Richard: So no one feels like they have egg on their face, I will restate what I stated to Nicholas. Sitting on both Boards, what I’ve heard, is UK is not sending money. They say they do, and we don’t get it. I feel that is being misrepresented.
Trevor: It’s not the end of the world, it’s just frustrating when it’s been going on for years and it’s always excuses. I want solution.
Richard: I don’t believe we can get a solution by saying “it’s not that bad.” That’s what I just heard.
Joy: It is bad, it’s not the end of the world.
Trevor: It is bad when we say to groups, we need money, please send us money.
Richard: That’s the end of the world for the financial outlook of our fellowship, the way this works. Send money, but we won’t tell you if we got it.
Trevor: We need to just fix this.
Nicholas: There was one last thing with respect to CAWS 2012. One issue about them funding travel, they’re really puzzled by the inconsistency. They put in a request for $500 to pay for travel, that went through once. Then suddenly someone remembered that it wasn’t on the original budget and said no. The chair felt that was inconsistent. There is another thing. You send a request $150, I think, for 50 plastic pigs to do fundraising, and some keyhole pins. One was accepted, one was rejected. Then when we did another meeting to decide when the check would be sent. It was going to come so late we canceled the whole lot. It was really a downer for us. The delay was difficult. So I took it further and I phoned Quin. I said “did this happen to you?” He said yeah, the whole time, he wasn’t horrible about it. It’s just about, can we have it, then we have to wait another two weeks, then we have to ask for a check. We had it all in place to do some pink pigs and this and that, and Russell says I’ve got a day to get it, it’s not going to happen. Jackie just said cancel the order. They are very frustrated, I’ve seen a parallel between their relationship with the office and money and Quin’s relationship with the office and money. A slight one, getting the approval, then the check. Someone is going to explain it, but I don’t understand it. They’re going to come to conference _and ask questions, and promote CAWS 2012, they aren’t going to do anything now. I thought it was a bit sad. I want Arizona to be talked about, because Arizona is the one. I wanted to talk about 2012 because it is the first one ever outside America. They just couldn’t understand why the $500 came the first time and not the second time. I said maybe they thought it was in the budget, they asked if someone shouldn’t have checked. The answer from the Director of Operations was “our guidelines here.” Jackie asked for the guidelines, she stated she only has the World Service Convention guidelines, do you have special office guidelines? After the third request and no reply, I phoned, I still couldn’t find out what was going on. Tom and I had a conversation, we don’t like the idea, so you can’t
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do it. It was inconsistent. There are certain things in the office that are just not working properly. I found it frustrating to try to explain to the steering committee what’s happening when I don’t actually know what’s happening when I phone the office or the Chairman, I get different answers from both of them. He said he might have made a mistake sending the $500. I asked what he based that on. It was for travel for a committee meeting to get enthusiasm for CAWS 2012. In the UK that’s the way they do it. I’ve tried to explain it wasn’t in the budget, we’ve explained we have to do it by area. Now they want to know why can’t we have it again? So one guy, David, who signs the checks, put out and paid all the people out of his personal money. That’s when the blackmail started. That’s why guidelines are there so that doesn’t happen. So that’s why when the check didn’t arrive after ten days from the fabric event, the office started phoning up and asking where the check was? Then we got a very curt apology by email, stating it had arrived. There was nothing loving or encouraging about it. It was offensive. Aren’t we supposed to be on the same side? Do you remember when I came to a Board meeting once and said “Can Yvette and the office be a bit more friendly when phoning people, even English people?”
Trevor: We talked about it as a full Board in the Board-to-Board. We said we need this cleaned up.
Randy: We had a lot of confusion regarding the money, Evan is on top of it now. Tom literally came out and sat through the steering committee. He listened to what we needed to do. Essentially the path for money is a two-step deal. Whether that can be cut down…there is a spending request and a check request. The idea, what I was told was the premise is the that the spending request identifies the budget, where it should come from, the general amount and be put through the office to be approved from a structural standpoint. This line item has the dollar value, that’s what we were told. The actual check request can then be put in, that is the exact dollar amount.
Nicholas: We haven’t had that conversation by email or by telephone call, no one has done that yet.
Randy: So we have a spending request for $700 for some more Worldly Indeed shirts. The chair didn’t know any better, so he turns around, this is the order, with shipping, etc. Here is the spending request for $427.63, they said this needs to get approved and told us we also needed a check request. We said that’s the amount, cut me a check for that much. So we finally understood, if they’ve got something in mind, send in the spending request, round it off, then the check request can come when you actually get in the dollar value. That’s where we’ve been. It’s been difficult. I don’t know why there’s two different requests, but there are. First a spending request, then a check request. Once in a blue moon we would get them both addressed at the same time.
Richard: Only if Willie’s not present.
Randy: If Willie is present he makes them wait?
Richard: Absolutely, he said they’re supposed to.
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Joy: No, that is incorrect.
Randy: The idea that somebody made that group wait to do something that makes us money concerns me. Our experience is the same as yours, Nicholas, but we did at least have Tom come and explain it to us.
Nicholas: Tom may have explained it in more general terms when he came to the UK, it was not explained as succinctly.
Richard: I have been told that it takes two World Service Office Board meetings for a check, first meeting is for the spending request to be approved, the next meeting a check request. If both come at the same time, the World Service Office Trustee currently sitting says we’re supposed to have two meetings to do it, so I will not vote for a check request, for a check to be cut. If he were sitting here, he would be nodding his head.
Nicholas: So we’re giving one member that much power?
Richard: Giving, no, but that person has spent so much time at the office, I believe has been influenced. The other topic is the inconsistencies in checks. I may not have been present when that happened. I am one of the people that has said that is a precedent without how line item paying for travel is inappropriate. I’m a voice there, it is what I’ve said.
Nicholas: I question why it was sent…
Richard: I would question that also.
Nicholas: I said it was probably an error. I told them at the area to raise their own money for travel.
Richard: I agree, I said the same thing. It was also suggested they get this as a line item in their budget, and if it is passed at conference, it will be part of their budget. If it fails, again, recommend the area event.
Joy: I had a conversation with Tom during fundraiser event for the office, the 880 event about the spending request and the check request. That’s only been implemented in the last couple of years, to where they have to be separate. The whole reasoning behind a spending request is planning. The reality is, they can come together. If you know what you’re going to spend and how much it’s going to be, and you have an invoice, they can come at the same time. There is nothing in the guidelines that says it takes two meetings to approve a convention expense when the budget’s been passed on the conference floor. The conference approves the convention budget, their budget and that line item in that budget hasn’t gone over budget, the conference has already approved that spending. The spending committee, which is the WSO, the convention steering committee, and the trustee for the region, and the reality is it goes from one section of the spending committee to the office that is the other end of the spending committee. What
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they’re supposed to look at, when I was treasurer and it was set up, and added to the convention guidelines, was that the conference has already approved their budget. If it’s within budget and something that’s already been talked about, there was never a delay on cutting checks for a convention. I don’t know why we are doing that now. The convention is the fundraiser for World Services and why one person on the Office Board is dictating what the office and convention can and cannot do is incomprehensible. I do not know where in the guidelines the power came from. If everything is within the timelines, there shouldn’t be any of these delays. Angering convention committees will simply mean people will not want to throw a World Service Convention. Why would they? Why would you want to if you’re going to get nothing but backlash from the office on check requests? I don’t get it. It should be a nice flow. Tom agreed, there should be no problem getting and processing both the spending request and the check request at the same time
Richard: I will be stating that at the World Service Office Board.
Lawrence: On the travel, I don’t think we should pay for convention committee travel.
Richard: If the check, the $500, initially, I would have think it should have. That’s why I said I either wasn’t there or it went out without it coming to the Board.
Lawrence: So they approved it one time.
Richard: Either I wasn’t present at a Board meeting, I only missed two, or it went out as a payment or reimbursement as an error, I don’t know which. I want to say with Randy and Nicholas present, I have no problem stating when the current Director of Operations is making errors. I do remind her, and she is an advocate. When we have the World Service Office Board meetings, I’ve reminded her more than once, you’re the advocate for the convention, you’re bringing those motions forward. Be enthusiastic, you are supposed to represent them. For the most part, she does. Occasionally I remind her. Someone from our Board has been reminding them, that is her position, that is her job. Secondly, it’s obviously been stated to me, and not the first time, it takes two World Service Office Board meetings to get the check, so it is a policy or procedure that is in place, so it’s something that should be addressed at the Board-to-Board. I would like that…
Kim: There is nothing in the guidelines about spending requests. I went through some of this with Tom, with Milwaukee, at the end it was an issue, I said seriously, we’re two weeks away, approve their money and get them a check. There was also an issue of what they should spend their money on. The convention’s right to spend as they see fit is appropriate unless it’s affecting a tradition. The situation was in regards to when they wanted to buy the big books. If it is in the budget, it should be approved. Where is the policy for this? It is not in the guidelines.
Randy: There is nothing other than how cash is handled at convention.
Trevor: To me the sensible thing is to submit a receipt, and say in general we might spend this, that’s a spending request. We already have the quote, the product is coming, here is the amount, that’s a check request.
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Joy: The spending committee expense authorization form is for the convention committee not for the office. This is for your subcommittee to send to the treasurer, this is what we’d like. They’re confusing it. On page 43, that is the form that the convention committee gives to their treasurer, who then fills out the check request form and submits it to the office.
Richard: And we get those.
Joy: That is the backup for the check request.
Kim: So memorabilia fills this out the spending request and give it to the convention treasurer…CAWS 2010 would then fax spending requests to me.
Richard: We must let the Board know it is not in the guidelines and therefore not to disrupt the flow by waiting for two meetings for a spending request and then a check request.
Trevor: So what we need to express is that if it’s not there, stop doing it.
Richard: If there is a request for money, pay it if it is within budget.
Joy: If it is within the conference approved budget, just pay it. Unless it is a tradition violation.
Kim: It is number10 on the Board-to-Board. Shall we call it something else? Should it be a new number?
Trevor: It will have to be, it is not money from abroad.
Joy: Convention spending requests. Are you going to post a new agenda?
Kim: Item number16, Convention spending requests.
Trevor: That is the end of new business. We will now return to referrals. There is a referral I skipped over.
Kim: Two of them, 6140 and 6045.
Trevor: Technically 6140 is all of us. I reposted it on the group. I did some edits.
Joy: Did you put job descriptions for each trustee? Regional, etc.
Trevor: Yes, I did. They were taken directly off the Yahoo group, there is a section in there about officer positions individually and then different kinds of trustee positions. They each have their own page.
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Joy: I read that the World Service Office Trustee is the financial trustee; I don’t know that I agree with that. Can it be changed?
Trevor: Yes.
Joy: I think it should be any trustee on the Board, whether it is regional, World Service Office, World Service Trustee, or Trustee at Large…
Trevor: I put together the most comprehensive form I could find. I think now we can edit it from here. What was said at dinner about the World Service Manual about removing the GSR as the most important position. Is it the most important person?
Joy: At some point, do you think our per diem should increase? It’s been $40 for over ten years.
Trevor: It should probably be closer to $50-60 range, especially when we’re living in hotels, living on budget, its In-N-Out burgers or something equally unhealthy for you.
Randy: In the construction industry, per diems are looked at for traveling has actually gone down. We went from $40 back to $30 for our guys on the road, and essentially a lot of the human resource departments now are looking at travel as the dollars necessary to supplement you for the difference that you would spend feeding yourself at home.
Joy: I feel the Trustee at Large should be the person to fulfill any regional trustee role.
Trevor: Kim and I are discussing the email guidelines at the end on the group, it doesn’t say how to join the group. The way the group is set up, you have to be invited. I attempted to discuss with transparency our inner workings without too much detail.
Richard: Please change Yahoo to online group, remove affiliation.
Trevor: I did include the blurb on the front cover page “The manual is intended for the information of Cocaine Anonymous. Portions of its content are integral to the World Service Board of Trustees and as such are not subject to World Service Conference approval or modification.”
Joy: “Outgoing regional trustees should make sure that the following information is provided clearly in writing to the new trustee.” There is a list; I didn’t get any of that.
Kim: Your buddy should be helping you.
Trevor: If there is no objection, I am going to adjourn this session, it is now 10:00 pm. We will do personal sharing with or without our missing member.
Trevor: We are back on the record at 9:05 am in the city of Los Angeles. It is August 29, 2010. Before we continue any further, I would like to report that unfortunately, due to technical errors, we lost the first 45 minutes of yesterday’s session. We started yesterday at about 9:45. We
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skipped personal sharing, roll call, the reading of the 12 Traditions, we read and discussed Tradition One, we discussed as a board how we can be more effective leaders amongst the fellowship and then we did the chair’s opening remarks and a review of both agendas. Where we stand right now, if there is no objection, I would like to go back and begin personal sharing before anything else. By the time that’s done, we will be ready for the one-on-one with the Director of Operations. We are back on the record at 9:23, we went offline briefly to consider business item 2010.08.03, the ratification of the World Service Office Board, Tom, Richard,
Teresa, Elizabeth, and Barry were all successfully ratified. That is complete.
Richard: That is everybody?
Trevor: Yes, all five people. Just for the record, in case there is any confusion, the World Service Office Trustee was not a part of that ratification process since they were not ratified by the World Service Board of Trustees, they will be asked to resign. Randy, are you ready with your responses?
Randy: I have sent both of them out, if you want to take a second to read them, or I can just put a motion through. The referral response is 6045. 2010.08.18. Motion to approve the proposed response to Phil B.
Robert: Second.
Trevor: There is a motion by Randy to approve the proposed response to 2010.08.18 to Phil B regarding the H&I pamphlet, seconded by Robert. Is there any debate? Seeing none, the motion carries unanimously. 6045 regarding trustee election process, we have a proposed response from Randy.
Randy: So moved.
Joy: Second.
Trevor: Is there any discussion on the motion?
Randy: We actually put our responses to referrals on the conference floor in the opening report.
Trevor: Yes, Kim’s already done that.
Randy: I just wanted to make that part of our knowledge of what we’re approving because there are some reasons why we believe transparency, should be closed for an executive session, I want to make sure everyone is truly okay with those because it would be posted for the conference to read just before we stamp it.
Richard: While I helped with some of the grammar of the response, I believe in far more transparency than this response allows, than this response states. I wanted that stated for the record.
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Kim: On bullet point number1, what’s your understanding?
Randy: Limited time associated costs for our delegates to forego their responsibilities to their respective subcommittees to attend and view the process would add days to the conference and would be very expensive. Our interview process begins two days prior to the conference. If we made that public, we would literally be, if there were delegates from a certain region that wanted to watch that interview process, they would have to come in two days early. During their subcommittees that people are participating in, we are interviewing. If the delegates that were here during the conference period of time, they would literally have to forego their participation in subcommittees to watch interview, which would essentially slow down the subcommittees from their work. It could add days to the conference for our delegates. To actually have the ability financially afforded by their area to come and view all of our interviews, thousands and thousands of dollars.
Richard: Be prepared for the possible response “aren’t your interviews taped? Couldn’t the tapes be made available?”
Trevor: Seeing no further debate, Motion by Randy to accept the approved response to referral 6045, seconded by Joy. Motion carries with some minor opposition, the motion passes with substantial unanimity. Did everyone get a chance to look over the Trustee manual?
Randy: From my experience, and I am looking back to the days when we were creating the H&I guidelines, the initial H&I guidelines, because they were truly a subcommittee guidelines being put forth to a conference, they were lengthy, there was a lot of information, it was, at the time, the chair of H&I put that out to the conference as a draft and truly let the delegates, gave the delegates a year to digest it, read it, and essentially said here is a draft of the H&I guidelines, we will be putting this forward next year for formal approval. Is that something that we would consider with the trustee manual or can we put it all out there and ask for approval first shot?
Trevor: The direct answer is no, because everything in this manual is either one of two things. One, taken directly from the World Service Manual, so it is already approved, or two, it belongs to the World Service Board of Trustees, and is not subject to conference approval. It is the inner workings of this board, which acts as an entity apart from the fellowship. That is clearly…
Randy: We need to be very careful putting this out in front of the conference for approval if they do not have any say on its approval.
Trevor: It’s not about putting it out for approval, it’s about, the referral is to create a trustee manual, every other committee has a manual, or more detailed information. I think it would be helpful to the fellowship to better understand what the trustees do and how they do it. We are providing them information to better understand how we do what we do. On the front page of the manual is the disclaimer: This manual is intended for the information of the fellowship of Cocaine Anonymous. Portions of its contents are internal to the World Service Board of Trustees, and, as such, not subject to World Service Conference approval or modification. Only
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those parts contained here taken directly from the World Service Manual may be considered for Conference action.
Randy: Okay, it’s just a lot of information for someone to vote on.
Kim: They don’t have to vote on anything. The conference floor is not going to vote on this piece of literature.
Joy: The stuff that’s not part of the world service manual, I would like to spend a little more time going through it, because I noticed some changes that need to be made that I have not made yet or suggested to my subcommittee yet. Can our response to that referral be that we are in final stages…
Richard: We’ve got tomorrow morning.
Kim: Keep in mind that there’s really nothing for us to change in these pieces.
Trevor: As a board, because I’m assuming Joy you’re talking about things that are not taken from the manual, anything else belongs to the World Service Board of Trustees as a whole. Therefore, if we’re going to change that, what I did is went on the Yahoo group, went into the guidelines for the positions for all of the trustees, pulled it, cut and pasted it. The only thing I removed was the information about how to join the World Service Board of Trustees Yahoo group, it was unnecessary. It covers everything. For us to change it. We can do so at anytime as the new 2010 or 2011, but that part wouldn’t be up to the subcommittee, the changing would be up to the entire board. What we have here is what currently is accepted as World Service Board of Trustees approved inner workings of our board.
Richard: So part of the informal discussion will be the understanding that before it’s finalized, I will go through and remove the word Yahoo group and put online group. To alleviate the affiliation.
Kim: Could we not put in our opening report that at this time we are diligently working to complete a document to be made available to this fellowship, and although it’s not ready at this time, we are hoping to have it ready to have it ready by the close of the conference?
Trevor: We could easily do that.
Kim: It gives us a little bit more time to clean it up.
Joy: I don’t want to rush through this.
Kim: That would have to go basically as is, if you’re looking at something pertaining to your position and officer’s position, we might as well say we are currently working on a piece to distribute to the fellowship. Then we can actually go on and review the individual documents on our Yahoo group and see if we want to update those.
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Joy: I agree.
Trevor: What we have to do in the opening report is say where we’re at. If where we’re at is we’re still working on it, it’s just not ready yet. If we want to hammer something out now, whatever you want to do.
Joy: The response you just made in the opening report regarding this referral, that’s a great idea. I would like to be able to actually look at it with morning eyes. I want to formulate…
Trevor: Being that it would be guidelines of a descriptive nature, I would rule it would be 2/3 majority to change anything. Unless anybody objects, we will put it in the opening report that we are still working diligently on the manual and hope to have it, and will release it when completed. Is there any objection to that?
Kim: This is how it will be stated: The World Service Board of Trustees is diligently working on compiling a piece.
Trevor: It is 9:55 pm. The next item of new business is 2010.08.10 which is the salary for the administrative assistant/bookkeeper. Joy requested this be placed on our agenda.
Joy: I make a motion to make the salary of the administrative/bookkeeper a maximum of up to $43,000 annually, or $20.67 an hour.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: There is motion by Joy to make the salary of the administrative/bookkeeper a maximum of up to $43,000 annually, or $20.67 an hour, seconded by Richard.
Joy: In the current budget for 2010-2011, the total annual budget for salaries is $148,000, which we are well below at the current staff at the office. The original motion for the position was $32,500, and I believe if we are going to get a competent person in there, we need to bring the salary up to market value and keep it within our budget. $43,000 annually will keep it below our annual budget for this year at that rate.
Richard: Point of information. Did you take into consideration that the salary amount would be inclusive of benefits when calculating your hourly rate?
Joy: Yes, benefits are at $12,500. It is a separate budget line item.
Richard: When you broke it down into an hourly rate as if we were to pay someone hourly, which would not include benefits, is that why you broke it down hourly?
Joy: Yes, then the option of then either paying them hourly…
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Richard: A part-time person, which would not include benefits…
Joy: Correct, or give someone a salary.
Richard: Thank you.
Joy: And we are still way below budget.
Randy: I speak against the motion in that, maybe I’ve got the wrong information from our Board-to-Board, but that would essentially bring the salary of our bookkeeper equivalent to the salary of the Director of Operations. Which is not the worst thing in the world, but it essentially presents some internal issues regarding the structure of the office ____________.
Joy: In today’s economy, any good bookkeeper, not a CPA, but an actual bookkeeper, most charge $45-50 an hour, period, as a subcontractor. If you’re going to add in an administrative, if we want someone in there that’s going to do the job correctly, where the books are going to be beautiful, where there won’t be any issue, there won’t be mispostings of deposits in bad debt. They talked mostly about it being a part time position than they did about it being a full -time position. In this case we would go with the hourly rate. I’ve been told by both Tom and Barry that between $18-20 an hour is the only way we’re going to get someone in there that’s competent. I think with our recommendation to the Board regarding letting go of the Director of Operations, the current Director of Operations cannot do the bookkeeping job. She does not have the qualifications to do the bookkeeping job. We are going to have to pay more for a bookkeeper than we are for a Director of Operations if we want someone in there that’s competent. If we just want someone in there just posting, and have the chair or treasurer constantly coding everything, then leave it at $30,000 a year. If you want someone who can actually know where stuff is supposed to go, put journal entries in that can actually tell you why they are doing the journal entries, posting correctly, having the 7th tradition, and when deposits are made in the system, saying who the deposits come from so the 7th traditions can be tracked and not have to train. No training cost, for this salary, no training cost.
Richard: I speak against the motion, after hearing discussion, I am concerned that the job description is a veil, everyone wants a bookkeeper. I have expressed the same concern at the office board when everyone keeps talking about a bookkeeper when the job description is an administrative assistant/bookkeeper. If the reverse was desired, it should have been a bookkeeper with administrative skills.
Randy: I’m not so concerned with the dollar value as I am how you’re looking at an individual position and not taking into consideration how it sits inside of the structure. It would be almost impossible for a Director of Operations, whether the current one is successful or not, to truly feel that they had authority over an individual that makes as much as they do. I think that the dollar value we’re talking about for a full-time bookkeeper/accountant is relative to the roles and responsibilities but is an extremely expensive administrative assistant. Because of that, it needs to be taken in light of the entire office structure in the position by itself as defined,______________
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Joy: My original motion for the position was bookkeeper. We added administrative assistant onto it. I think the office board is discussing it backwards.
Richard: I’d like clarification from the chair, who had interaction with the Office Board Chair as to what you both see that position as.
Joy: Were we ever given the job description?
Kim: Yes. This item number says “hiring new assistant/bookkeeper.”
Randy: We were also told the bookkeeping responsibilities were not a 40 hour, full-time job.
Joy: That is why I stated salary or hourly. May I say something offline?
Trevor: The time is 10:19 pm, we were offline for a moment, discussing salaries of paid employees. We are looking at the job description as proposed.
Joy: This job description is more than just an administrative assistant.
Trevor: It is called bookkeeper/administrative assistant.
Joy: Assist, development, execution, and monitoring of all fundraising outreach efforts for CA World Services, short and long-term strategic business plan.
Richard: They took the description of the DRPD and…
Kim: No, the assistant to the DRPD.
Trevor: Is anybody prepared, or are we even remotely close to coming to a decision regarding this motion?
Richard: I am not well informed.
Randy: No.
Joy: Motion to table.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: Is there any objection? Seeing none, the motion has been tabled. For the record, this is the job description that was come up with, it is not considered the final job description, if there are areas of improvement, please look it over, let me know, I can get those to the World Service Office Board Chair, or I’m no longer with us, Kim can do it.
Randy: Motion to adjourn.
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Kim: Second.
Trevor: Is there any objection to adjourning? We are adjourned at 10:23, we will reconvene in the morning at 9:00 am.
The time is 7:54 pm on Sunday, August 29, we are back on the record. We had an eventful morning of personal sharing and then the one on one’s and one on eights with the Director of Operations and the World Service Office Board Chair, followed by the full Board -to-Board. We are at agenda item 2009.05.09, the financial status of CAWS, Inc. Does anyone have any comments?
Joy: I am very happy. With the exception of this solution, Oliver’s statement regarding his mistakes and the steps to ensure that it doesn’t happen again is unacceptable.
Richard: In continuing transparency, at the World Service Office Board it was discussed about what we delivered and that action has been discussed, and they already have a plan of action on that.
Joy: Thank you.
Trevor: Next item of business, 2010.01.01, 2010.01.02, licensed printing of literature outside the United States. Was there any discussion and resolution as far as the Office Board?
Richard: Regarding the royalty agreement, no. We did not address it. I could not recall it at the time. My apologies. I will phone Tom tomorrow, we aren’t closing our agenda tonight are we, so I will phone Tom tomorrow and be able to let you all know.
Trevor: I am going to now take one item of business out of order. As per the last few years, we have always had a dinner on Saturday night at the conference, the last dinner with everybody on this board as well as the incoming trustees. I would like use to once again continue with that. I cannot demand, I would like to have you all here to greet the new people, put a human face as they are coming on to see us do what we do. I know in the past there has been an issue with bringing in food from outside, I think we might want to do it anyway.
Richard: I will discuss it at the BEO meeting. Due to time constraints, we will request that.
Trevor: The next item on the agenda is 2010.04.01, 2010.04.02, and 2010.04.03, combined items concerning the Director of Operations. It was brought to our attention after some research, that this board does not in fact have the authority to remove the Director of Operations from her position. We can recommend, but we cannot do it ourselves.
Richard: We can do the same thing, the way my previous motions have been worded, which is, to request the Office Board Chair to replace the Director of Operations. Same motion that went through for the bookkeeper.
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Kim: This is the same motion that went through earlier, that was accepted, that motion was tabled based on the World Service Office Trustee being present. That’s where we stand right now.
Trevor: The way I would prefer to handle it is that it be taken from the table so I can rule it out of order, then we can proceed with a clean slate on it.
Richard: Motion to take off the table the motion to replace the Director of Operations.
Joy: Second.
Trevor: Is there any debate on the motion? Motion carries unanimously. I would like to now rule that motion out of order since it is outside the legal scope of this board.
Richard: I make a motion that we request the World Service Office Board Chair replace the Director of Operations.
Joy: Second.
Trevor: Motion by Richard that the World Service Board of Trustees recommend to the World Service Office Board Chair to replace the Director of Operations, seconded by Joy.
Richard: I bring this motion forward and am in favor of it. Based on the issues that remain and continue to come up, this job appears to be out of the ability of the current Director of Operations. Multiple issues, concerns from members of this Board and other members repeatedly come up. It’s not once a quarter, it’s often. A lack of follow-through, I believe she is unable to fulfill all of the needs our office has at this time.
Kim: I’ve said it more than once, I’ve said it for the last three quarters, she is ineffective in her job based on the experience she brings to the position. She continues to have problems fulfilling the requests, not only as the Director of Operations but as Administrative Coordinator, and although she may have “a willingness to learn,” there seems to be a lack of ability to retain procedures and policies. Although there has been a great deal of willingness to help her, it’s come to a point, in my opinion, overload on our volunteers who continue to do the work that she’s expected to do.
Randy: I speak against the motion, as is. I didn’t hear anything in the meeting we had with her direct superior that lead me to believe that there isn’t the confidence that if given adequate support staff, she couldn’t continue to learn through the issues that exist. It became obvious in the Board-to-Board meeting that we still have an amount of information and communication that isn’t great between the two boards. When asked directly as to what the World Service Office Board Chair thought needed to happen, he never made any comment towards that replacement. I still have to yield to that responsibility the he has. He expressed that the changes that have been
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presented, he believes will continue to make the office run better. I have to give him that opportunity to fail.
Richard: I have concern extending the opportunity to improve or the opportunity to fail, however you want to look at it. It’s almost been a year, I don’t know the exact date. The issues are great and ‘I could continue to earn a living if I had three people to do the work that I am supposed to be doing.’ I’m not okay with that. I have never made light of how much work it is. I’ve never said it should easily been done by one individual. It is a huge task, however, it requires someone who is organized, can delegate and communicate. In one year, I have not seen the current Director of Operations be successful in any of those three areas. Without being dramatic, I believe this is an area this is harming our volunteers, certainly. I don’t have a vendetta, I have a love for this fellowship and an obligation to do what’s best. That’s what you all tasked me with, that’s what the fellowship tasked me with. That is my obligation. I would love nothing more than for that individual to have been able to turn it around in 90 days or six months and for the chair to say now I can review her, after a year. He said he would review her after 90 days, after six months, after nine months. That was 90 days after we asked him at six months. Each step of the way he said he could review her, I have yet to see a review. I was verbally informed of a review and there was improvement. The only comment I have regarding the chair was repeatedly probably. He used that word a lot when referencing actions of the Director of Operations to be done. She could probably get that done. I am past the point of probably. I don’t want to fillabust, so I yield.
Kim: I am more than willing to help, it is in the scope of my character to be very helpful, I am willing to everybody and anybody. I’ve done that. What has transpired at this point is members of the fellowship have come forward. One member came forward to this Board and expressed the difficulty of working in preparing a rather major event for this fellowship, and the amount of work outside of what I consider volunteer work at that level. It’s not just that one individual. Maybe you all haven’t had the same experience I’ve had working with her, or the amount of contact I have had with the current Director of Operations, it’s been tiring. There is a certain level of expectation at this point. I would think there would be in any employment, someone that has previously been employed by Cocaine Anonymous, previously been instructed and given direction how to accomplish certain tasks, yet in this current position, cannot even fulfill those without a great deal of direction and instruction, and double-checking, and so forth. I guess I have a vision of someone, as a director of Cocaine Anonymous, Inc. should perform their duties, and I don’t see that. I do have a concern about that. I have real concern about how her resume reads and how the presentation was, and what actually seems to be the reality. I think I talked about it being a single-focused tasked individual. Given one task, at a time, can complete that task. I think it’s time to work on a contingency plan and move forward, and know that, no matter what, the business of CA is going to get done, no matter how this vote goes. The business of CA is going to get done. If it means another 90 days of transition or another six years of teaching someone how to put together the delegate mailing and the process it has to go through to be approved, how to PDF, no matter what, we will get the work done. This is not rocket science.
Joy: I made lots of notes with our one on eight. I think the one that stands out the most for me is the professionalism part. Dealing with the fellowship, dealing with our members, dealing with the Board of Trustees, dealing with people in general, being argumentative, constantly defensive,
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communication skills are severely lacking. If you are going be the voice of the office for CA, you must have communication skills. You need to be nice and happy, you need to start taking responsibility and stop blaming other people for your own mistakes. I truly believe that. My other point, how many times do we have to repeat ourselves? How many times do we have to give you a task, repeat how many times to do that task? Train you on that task and then train you again on that task? We can do this and still hire a bookkeeper, a good one. I reworked the numbers while I was sitting here.
Nicholas: During the meeting, she was playing on the phone. She wouldn’t look at anyone, it was quite upsetting actually, she wasn’t paying attention, she was looking at the mobile, like something was happening. I like her, she’s not going to do it. I don’t know when we’re planning to do it. Even if we pass the motion, does that mean the chair is obliged or are we just making a recommendation? I don’t know why he’s defending her. I seem remember I brought this stuff ages ago, we went round and round, let’s do this. It’s time we say to the chair, we’ve had enough, do it, please. He might turn around and actually say, sack me. Tom on a personal level, love him. He’s not done what we’ve asked. I could do a review from here. She’s crap. She misled us. For me, everything is going alright unless someone tells me it’s not. I need to be told when it’s going wrong. We’re paying her enough she is supposed to be on top of these things when it’s going wrong. My sister could run Cocaine Anonymous better than that. At least she’d be happy on the phone. She has attitude, she is very defensive. We practice love and tolerance, after being smacked in the face 200 times you either walk or keep quiet. And it’s time for her to walk. It’s not going to be as difficult as the Patty thing, she is not loved, revered or respected like Patty was, that is subjective. She’s has to go, I don’t feel any empathy with her. She’s a bit sad. If there are 500 people telling you something is wrong, it’s you. You’re the manager. See the problems, we are paying you to see the problems, manage it and think. I believe the member 100% when she says I gave her the list five times. I know that member, I trust that member, she is a fantastic conference coordinator. For her to come here and make a request to see us she must have been really worried that something bad is coming. Because if she’s noticed it, other people have noticed it. Other people have felt it, and perhaps haven’t said anything. I got very frustrated with her and Tom, “well it’s a bit troublesome doing what you said” with respect to the books. Just do it and stop complaining. We don’t get paid, she is getting a wage. You said you could do it, you’ve shown you can’t do it, fall on the sword. I’m done, she has to be told to go, with love, but go. How many chances do we give someone? I recently got divorced after two years because of fear. You’ve got to face the hard stuff, it’s not working. She knew what the job was, she’s not doing it, go.
Lawrence: I think if she took over the job with not enough people in the office to do the job, put a whole lot on her and them, she really wanted to try to do things. Mistake after mistake and complaints, nothing’s changed. I’m kind of torn. I don’t know if I want to keep her or let her go.
Robert: The excuses that there haven’t been enough people, one of the excuses. Whose fault was that? Was a request brought to hire more people? It’s time to cut bait and move on, rather than sit here; it’s time to do what we need to do. It’s time the vote.
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Trevor: At the start of today, when I sat down here and we had this motion, and I would have had a vote, I know how I would have voted beyond a shadow of a doubt. I cannot say that anymore. The direct answer to the question Robert just posed as to who is responsible to the amount of staff at the office? Every one of you. Last year we made the decision to suspend the DRPD position based on a financial need. Did they come to us and say “we need more staff.” They didn’t, but did they think it and did Tom and Yvette talk about it, mention it and not pass forward, I don’t have that answer. You have that answer as far as at a board meeting. We don’t know. What I do know is that I don’t have 100% faith in the current Director of Operations, I didn’t have faith in the last person that left at the beginning of last conference. Different issues, I didn’t have faith in that person either. I also know that I understand that it’s a difficult job, I get that, I understand that the people on this Board, because of the love and the care we feel for this fellowship, we want everything inside of our term to run as smoothly as possible. I can say that about you guys, because that’s how I feel. I came on the Board hoping and expecting that everything during my four years here was going to be smooth sailing and everything was going to be perfect because I love CA and that’s how I’m going to make it. It’s not like that, I would love it to be, but that’s not life. I can imagine and put myself in the position of coming in and sitting down at the table all looking at me saying we’re not happy with your performance, we have issue with this, and we have issue with that, and we feel you’re not doing this properly, this isn’t getting done right. I would be pretty defensive and I might not handle it quite so well, I’ve never been in that position. I made a comment on the way to dinner tonight, I guess the bottom line for me is that I am a sucker, I know that. I’ve always been, I’m trying not to be, what I am and I never want to stop being is an optimist and somebody who will always be willing to give a chance to somebody that’s going to try. In spite of the fact that I will admit there are flaws, there is a lack of performance, there are some things that I would wish were better, I saw someone who hadn’t given up. I personally have a hard time giving up on somebody who hasn’t given up on themselves. I guess where it really got my curiosity piqued was what could or would happen if there was an administrative assistant there to take some of the load off and a proper bookkeeper so there wasn’t all of the screw-ups and where did the 7th tradition go and why didn’t this get entered, and who put the money in the drawer. That’s all the stuff that drives us crazy, the what if. I know what happens with me at work, a lot of times I have to talk to the other trades guys, I have to talk to the super on the job, I have to talk to the salesman I do the work for, I have to talk to my partner. And I have to work, and get stuff done. So I have to multi-task. Quite often, I will be well-meaning and intending to go talk to this person and do that, and I get tied up doing something and I forget. I forget. I don’t have a vote unless there are special circumstances. Bottom line, I wish for better, I hope to get better. I don’t think I’m quite at the point where I have to recommend pulling the plug. I see problems, I see a gap between what I want and what I’m getting, but I still see somebody who can sit there and convince me she still cares enough to try.
Trevor: The motion is to recommend that the World Service Office Board Chair replace the Director of Operations.
Richard: Mr. Chair, I would like a show of hands rather than a secret ballot, unless there is opposition from the voting members.
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Trevor: Your request is duly noted. There is a provision in Roberts Rules of Order that at the chair’s discretion I can call the vote in the way I see fit, unless you want to challenge my decision on that I am going to ask for secret ballot.
Richard: Not challenging, but there is a provision both ways.
Trevor: In the World Service Manual, page 60.4 under the methods of voting. Secret rarely is, but the chairperson may call for a ballot when the anonymity votes are considered important.
Richard: I would like you to explain why you feel the anonymity is important.
Trevor: I have experience at other levels, and I will stress the other levels, that there is sometimes and expectation or influence for the vote to go a certain way, and while I would never accuse anybody here, I am hopeful you guys know I am quite about the appearance of, and this is one of those times, I just think that it’s almost a spiritual principle to write down, without any influence, either you are in favor, or no, you are not.
Richard, Thank you, I respect that.
Trevor: Once again, I want to stress why I would never accuse anybody here of doing that. To me it’s about the spiritual principle of truly.
Richard: I agree with the influential part. I accept that, thank you.
Trevor: Please put yes if you are in favor or a no if you are not in favor of the motion to recommend the World Service Office Board replace the current Director of Operations.
We will be recommending to the World Service Office Board chair that he replace the current Director of Operations.
Randy: Do you recognize the vote as substantial unanimity since it is a secret ballot?
Trevor: The vote was five in favor, two opposing. That is substantial unanimity. It is 2/3, this Board has spoken, we will recommend to the World Service Office Board Chair that he replace the current Director of Operations.
Joy: May I add an item of new business?
Trevor: What is your item?
Joy: Regarding the salary for the bookkeeper/administrative assistant.
Trevor: How would you like us to handle that? Do you want us to instruct Richard as the acting WST or do you want me to do it. I will go to Tom with our recommendation if…
Joy: Chair to Chair.
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Richard: It is more appropriate.
Trevor: I will speak to Tom tomorrow or at my earliest opportunity.
I asked and the Office Board members in fact all successfully ratified.
Richard: Correct.
Trevor: Therefore, now it is time for us to ratify them, or not.
Richard: The World Service Office Board was ratified by ballot as it is supposed to be and the Chair announced the results as all members being ratified.
Randy: Lawrence and Robert, you were on my subcommittee for the transparency for the trustee response that I just finished and for the H&I, is it okay if I send it out to everybody?
Lawrence: Yes.
Robert: Yes.
Trevor: With respect to the business item regarding the Director of Operations, that item is now complete, for Kim’s record.
Kim: If it ever comes up again, it is a new item.
Richard: Yes, absolutely.
Joy: Who are we ratifying, just the Board?
Trevor: Just the Board, unless there is a different action that does not reflect on what we just carried out. We are ratifying the entire Office Board, with the exception of the Paid Director. Put yes or no. You may put yes for all, yes for all except blank, No to all.
Joy: Does this include the World Service Office Trustee and the World Service Trustee?
Richard: I do not believe it includes the World Service Office Trustee. They ratify that Board, the other ratification is separate.
Trevor: Technically we ratify…
Richard: Their slate? We ratify their entire Board?
Joy: Yes.
Richard: Then we should check before we vote, it’s important. I would hate to ratify or not ratify somebody incorrectly.
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Joy: The office board consists of the following: Chairperson, Vice-Chair, Secretary, Treasurer, Directors-at-Large, World Service Trustee, World Service Office Trustee, Paid Director of Resource and Project Development, Paid Director of Operations. The only people not included are the Paid Directors, the Pacific South Regional Trustee or the World Service Trustee. Yes, the World Service Office Trustee is considered part of the CAWSO Board.
Trevor: We will go offline to hold the ratification process. The time is 9:07 pm. on Sunday, August 29, in Los Angeles, we were offline conducting ratification. It was originally by unanimous consent that we agreed to take an item out of order on the agenda. It was then motioned and passed unanimously to ratify the World Service Board of Trustees. That has taken place. At this time I would like to announce the successful ratification of all trustees, with the exception of the World Service Office Trustee. I would like to stress, on the record, that this cannot leave the room until I have had a chance to speak to this individual, that is non-debatable. It cannot be any other way.
Richard: Mr. Chair you will let us know when you’ve been in any way been able to communicate with him.
Trevor: I am going to make every attempt to do this in person over the next 24-36 hours. I would like it, before we hit the floor for our opening report, because I would like at that time to include it should the notification be met at that point.
Trevor: We are back on the record at 9:23 am at the quarterly meeting of the World Service Board of Directors. Where we left off on the agenda, first we have a note about the logo issue. For the record, the logo issue is to be determined by the legal, we have instructed the office to investigate and get something specific from them so we can answer the referral correctly.
Kim: It will stay online until we get the information.
Trevor: We did approve the cost to a certain level.
Joy: Yes.
Richard: We were told a response would be $250, we said that was okay. There were two different topics, so it is possible there will be two different fees.
Joy: The first one is because he wants to make sure we can put the ® wherever without affecting the trademark and the other one is whether the CAWS convention logo is copyrighted.
Trevor: So those will be forthcoming from the office.
Kim: Can a motion be amended the next day?
Trevor: There can be a motion to reconsider a previously passed motion.
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Kim: Can I do that now?
Joy: Yes, then I will withdraw the other one.
Kim: I have a motion to the previously passed motion. The previously passed motion was to recommend the World Service Office Board Chair replace the Director of Operations.
Joy: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Kim to reconsider the previously passed motion of yesterday that we recommend the World Service Office Board Chair replace the Director of Operations, it has been seconded by Joy. Is there any discussion?
Nicholas: Do you have to have voted with the prevailing side?
Trevor: Based on Robert’s Rules, yes. Though it was a secret ballot, I will take your word for it. Is there any debate?
Kim: I believe the motion is lacking an important word, the word is “immediately,” to coincide with previous motions that have similar contents to them.
Trevor: Just for edification, this can also be done with a motion to amend a previously passed motion to add the word.
Kim: I withdraw my motion.
Trevor: Is there any objection? Seeing none, the motion is withdrawn.
Kim: I would like to make a motion to amend the previous motion, which was that the
World Service Board of Directors to recommend that the World Service Office Board Chair remove the Director of Operations.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Kim that the World Service Board of Directors recommend that the World Service Office Board Chair remove the Director of Operations, seconded by Richard.
Kim: I would like it to read that “We recommend the World Service Office Board Chair to replace the Director of Operations immediately.”
Trevor: It has been seconded by Richard. Is there any debate?
Randy: So this is voting on the new motion?
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Richard: This is discussion on the new motion.
Trevor: If you’re in favor of the motion, you’re in favor of adding…
Richard: Randy is correct, we should vote on the motion to amend is where we are, on whether or not we are amending the motion.
Trevor: No, you can motion to amend a previously passed motion. But we have to know what we’re amending to.
Richard: So now we’re discussing what the amendment is.
Randy: If that amendment passes, it changes the motion.
Joy: Correct.
Randy: So we are voting on the new motion, essentially.
Trevor: Kim is amending a motion that was previously passed, you can do that without going through the two-step process.
Randy: I speak against the motion for similar reasons that I talked against it before, so with the word immediately, I just don’t believe that it’s our role as trustees to hamstring, to put this undue situation on the office when we do not and have not considered the office’s opinion as to what it would take to finish this conference, to put stuff back in place, to start business on Monday, I just don’t think that’s the role of the trustees, to be that governing. The office board has to have the ability to run the office. We can make suggestions, we can make requests, but the fact that we’ve established a time frame for a bookkeeper is a financial concern, it is a secondary tiered position, I don’t think we’ve given them any assistance in any plan. If they need time to make that happen, we should give them more time to make that happen.
Richard: I speak in favor of the motion, in response to some of the issues or concerns that Randy brought up. I believe that this position is the key position and being able to hire competent bookkeepers, being able to hire an administrative bookkeeper, in my experience of the last year, sitting with the World Service Office Board is they all look to the Chair as to how to go and where to go, including the Director of Operations, everyone’s following the Chair’s recommendations, and the Chair has said in the one-on-ones and the Board-to-Board that he looks to us for direction and in the one-on-nine specifically in this area, he’s looked to us. I believe any specifics would be more of a help rather than an open-ended request.
Kim: Speaking to my motion, I just feel that without any verbiage in that motion, it really leaves it open-ended and it could be a week, it could be a year. I feel the essence of the original motion was that she is to be removed. We are recommending that she be replaced and without any time frame, that could have an effect on the fellowship as a whole.
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Trevor: At this time, I am going to rule the motion out of order. A motion to reconsider_____________ must be made the same day unless there is prior notice given, this was not. At this time a motion to rescind a previously passed motion would be in order, it would require 2/3 vote, because there was no notice given. I apologize, Kim.
Kim: I make a motion to rescind…
Trevor: You can motion to rescind a previously passed motion, then we would start again with a clean slate.
Richard: Written notice for today, will put it on tomorrow.
Kim: I will reserve the right to advise you of one day’s notice to amend.
Trevor: I am going to rule that we have been given the minimum required one day’s notice, if it turns into longer, however, we have had the minimum one day. Therefore the 2/3 requirement would be waived, and it would be a simple majority vote to amend the motion. So that this time the motion stands as-is. Because of the situation, I’m going to let you know now, until such point in time as the matter is dealt with, even though it technically has been, I will reserve discussion with the World Service Office Board Chair until such point in time we have come to a final conclusion. I believe we have not, as of yet.
Randy: When are our actions at this quarterly are presented at the conference, at the opening report?
Trevor: The opening report contains all information that was worked on throughout the year, it is to contain the results of both Board-to-Board ratifications, and it is to contain answers to referrals. Anything that was done at this quarterly would be reported when the minutes, other than the actions that are required to, such as election of new officers and new corporate structure, I believe they will be in the December delegate mailing, if they’re passed.
Randy: So the work we’ve done throughout the year would not contain this quarterly outside of the elections?
Trevor: Unless it is a motion we are bringing to the conference floor as a result of the quarterly, anything that we discuss here and we make a motion to take to the conference floor, will obviously go into this conference record.
Kim: So the motion regarding the bookkeeper and the motion regarding the Director of Operations, are those included in the in conference report? I think that is what Randy is asking.
Trevor: No they would not.
Randy: When does this quarterly end, then?
Joy: Usually at the end of conference.
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Trevor: When we complete the final agenda item and adjourn. That’s usually reserved as long as we could.
Richard: There is still TEC, we meet after that.
Joy: The 2010.08.10 that was tabled last night…
Kim: Is this under new business?
Joy: Yes, I would like to remove it from the table and then withdraw.
Trevor: You can make a motion.
Joy: I would like to remove from the table, item 2010.08.10, salary for bookkeeper/ administrative assistant.
Kim: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Joy to remove from the table, item 2010.08.10, salary for bookkeeper/administrative assistant, seconded by Kim. Is there any debate? All in favor? Motion passes with unanimously.
Joy: I would like to withdraw my motion regarding the salary for the bookkeeper/administrative assistant.
Trevor: Joy has asked for unanimous consent to remove business item 2010.08.10, salary for the bookkeeper/administrative assistant. Is anybody opposed to the withdrawing of that motion? Seeing none, the motion is withdrawn by unanimous consent. The next item of business still on our agenda, other than the group inventory closing is the creation of a trustee manual. Where we left off last night, we agreed to say in the opening report that we’re working on it. Has that changed at all? Is there any desire to put forth what we have, and it can continue to be updated and worked on, and rereleased as the time comes?
Randy: I would like to make a motion we move the creation of the trustee manual online.
Joy: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion by Randy that we move the creation of the trustee manual online, it has been seconded by Joy. Is there any discussion?
Richard: I speak against that, I am opposed to that. We didn’t do so well from the last quarterly until now. I think it’s an action that we’ve had, we have started, it’s deserving of our attention and not to be pushed online. I use the term pushed online because we didn’t do well between our last quarterly and this one.
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Nicholas: I read it a bit last night and then again this morning, I don’t think we are divulging anything that is threatening or compromising the Yahoo information. I think it would look good if we answer the referral. 10,000 members are not going to immediately want to read it, it’s going to a limited number of people. It reads well as a document and it can always be amended. I don’t see anything wrong with it, I’m not frightened of it. I think we should put something out, and do what we were asked to do, which is create the manual, otherwise it might drag on a bit. I don’t know why Randy wants to put it online. I think it’s all right. Most of it is in the manual, so that’s already seen and approved, it’s just the little bits that Nick, the maker and certain other people want to see. They don’t get to sit at this table and go through the process, they just want to see what we do.
Kim: I speak against the motion. I feel it is good to go as it is now. It is a piece that will be ever-evolving, and that if we want to revisit what is currently posted on the Yahoo group and revise that information, based on our service positions, we can do that. It can be updated at any time. It’s not a document that needs to be approved by the conference floor, it’s an internal documents we are, based on their request, supplying information that may help them to understand what we do and who we are. It’s probably not a bad idea that the regional trustees and WST and WSOT revisit their roles and responsibilities to make sure they update, because it is always changing. I feel, right now, it is good to go. We can keep this on the agenda as something we review on a regular basis, annually or bi-annually.
Trevor: Any other debate? Seeing none, we have a motion to move the item creating the trustee manual online. It has been seconded and debate has taken place. The motion to move online clearly fails.
Joy: Can we make sure that all reference to Yahoo group is removed before we distribute?
Trevor: I would have to ask by unanimous consent, without a motion, to remove any and all references to Yahoo from the document. Seeing no objection, this will be taken care of by Trevor. Our response will be done in the opening report. We have now not moved this item online and agreed by unanimous consent to remove all reference to Yahoo from it.
Joy: I make a motion to present the Trustee manual to the conference floor in response to the referral #6140.
Richard: Second.
Trevor: Motion by Joy to present the Trustee manual to the conference floor in response to the referral #6140, seconded by Richard. Is there any debate? Seeing no debate, all in favor? Motion has passed unanimously.
Kim: May I have verbiage to that?
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Trevor: In response to referral 6140, the World Service Board of Directors is at this time pleased to present to the fellowship this version of our manual. I want it in the response that it is not to be edited.
Randy: So are we printing all 20 pages 120 times and putting in front of everybody?
Joy: Yes, to be attached with our report.
Randy: That’s a book.
Richard: A hard copy is available, as is a PDF copy.
Trevor: Anybody who would like a copy can see the office.
Randy: No other committees are allowed to do that.
Richard: He’s right, we have to print it.
Trevor: Last year we printed and released the entire How It Works saga and they deal with the manual, and for all the other committees, this is the World Service Board of Directors manual, we have to print it.
Kim: I don’t believe we should call it a manual.
Trevor: Ok, handbook.
Joy: It is duties and guidelines.
Kim: I don’t want anyone on the conference floor to confuse it with something that needs to be approved on the conference floor.
Joy: Maybe we should make the disclaimer big and bold.
Richard: This workbook? These guidelines?
Trevor: I would rather say these guidelines.
Joy: It says duties and guidelines, it does not say manual. So we did not create a manual.
Trevor: The title is Cocaine Anonymous World Service Board of Trustees Duties and Guidelines. That is I will put on the cover page.
Richard/Joy: Perfect.
Trevor: It does say in here that there are portions taken directly from the manual, it doesn’t specifically lay out the first nine pages, but that’s what it is. Everything after that is ours, and it is
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not for the conference to change. They can make a referral or talk to us, this is our internal working document, it belongs exclusively to this Board, operating as a separate entity from the fellowship. That is right from the manual, we’re not…
Randy: It’s important what words we use, if we call it a manual, if we call it a guidelines, the perception of the fellowship is that it’s intended, it’s in front of the conference floor ________, all the other committee guidelines…
Kim: Maybe our response can be “The World Service Board of Directors has compiled a piece called Cocaine Anonymous World Service Board of Trustees Duties and Guidelines, which includes the following disclaimer, and I will just copy the disclaimer from the front page.
Randy: If we’re concerned about the perception, whether it’s …
Joy: We’re being transparent, we’re doing as we have been asked and giving them what they asked for.
Kim: We can include, being respectful of the cost of printing, those who would like a copy, please see Trevor.
Randy: The other committees, are we saying the next committee can say due to the cost of printing, they’re not going to hand out this stuff either.
Kim: The only time a committee prints their guidelines to present to the conference floor is if they’re making changes. They are supposed to do strikethroughs and corrections on that, otherwise, H&I doesn’t show up with their guidelines attached.
Trevor: No, but it’s in every delegate notebook when they get here.
Kim: We can make it available in the next delegate mailing.
Trevor: Would everybody be comfortable with the conference chair making this decision? To print or not to print?
Randy: I kind of like the idea that we have finished the manual and we will have a PDF sent out to the delegates in the next delegate mailing. The reason I like that is because it’s not up for conference approval, in response to the referral, we have finished it, and it will be presented in the next delegate mailing.
Nicholas: This is unique, there is no instruction, guidance or action required. It’s just a read. We don’t have to print it, we don’t have to go to the conference chair.
Kim: If someone asks when it will be available, or do we need to approve that, the simple answer to approval is no. Our guidelines are in the World Service Manual. Internally, we have
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documents that indicate rules and responsibilities. It can be made available in the delegate mailing.
Richard: My thoughts are that I’ve come to the conference, the trustees are giving their report and they say that in response to this referral, we have produced this document…
Kim: We don’t read the responses into the mike, we don’t read this report.
Richard: We’re saying here is the response, I’m a delegate, four years, sick of the trustees, or first year, looking at the trustees. Either way I want the document. We finished this, why is it going out in the delegate mailing?
Joy: Because we’re respectful of the budget and don’t want to spend a lot of money to print this document.
Richard: It’s in the same budget now as it is in December.
Kim: The delegate mailing is 98% electronic.
Richard: I would want them to have it.
Joy: It is also a great tool for us to use in orientation, to give to the new trustees.
Kim: I think we are presuming the worst. Of course we would be happy to print it.
Richard: That’s why I spoke up, because we are saying it is going to be available in the delegate mailing.
Trevor: Due to the nature of this document, and for clarification’s sake, I know that it is not standard practice to read responses of referrals into the microphone. I would, however, I would like to mention that as a special order, we’ve created this document, and read the disclaimer. That way it is on the record. If you want one, it will be available on PDF or we will print you one, see the office. I only say that because of what it is. I don’t want there to be any dispute about anything. I want the disclaimer into the microphone for just that reason. I will ask Kevin. But that is what I intend to do. To acknowledge that it is something that was not the norm and here’s why. I could just say all referrals were answered including the creation…
Randy: I was excited to see the trustees completed the trustee’s duties and guidelines…
Kim: I make a motion to approve the following response which reads The World Service Board of Directors has compiled a piece called Cocaine Anonymous World Service Board of Trustees Duties and Guidelines, which includes the following disclaimer: This document is intended for information only for the fellowship of Cocaine Anonymous only. Portions of its content are internal to the World Service Board of Trustees and, as such, are not subject to World Service Conference approval or modification. Only those parts contained herein taken directly from the World Service Manual may be considered for conference action.
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Joy: Second.
Trevor: Motion by Kim, seconded by Joy. There is a motion to include this response in our opening report, it has been seconded.
Kim: Do we want to add something that says copies will be made available later this week, you must request your copy, copies will be included in the delegate mailing? What do you think, Randy?
Randy: I think we should make the copies.
Kim: Let’s do it.
Joy: All right.
Trevor: I agree, though I don’t have an opinion.
Kim: Do you want to print the copies and put them on the back table? Or hand them out with our opening report?
Joy: Hand them out with our opening report.
Trevor: I have a related question that is totally unrelated. If I take this in on the stick and put it in, and get them to print it, will it print on two sides or is that a special set up?
Joy: Tell them we want it double-sided.
Trevor: Okay, I’ve never done that.
Kim: Print your original copy, single page, tell her you want 150 copies, double-sided. And Randy will come back and pick up the box and distribute them with you, Trevor.
Trevor: All those in favor, and waiving the rereading of the motion? Motion passes unanimously. The Yahoo portion of the document needs editing and page numbers need to be added, addresses need to be removed.
Trevor: I got a response back from Tom regarding the assistance for the job description for the bookkeeper/admin position. I put forth Joy, Richard, and Randy as the people desiring to assist. He said sounds good. Technically we are done with our agenda, with the exception of the group inventory wrap up.
Kim: I have given notice to the chair regarding a motion that I would like to amend. When will that take place?
Trevor: Next time we reconvene. I will once again attempt to contact the office trustee.
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Kim: No food during TEC please. We will ask the hotel to reset the room.
Randy: When we add ten more bodies for two days it’s going to get really tight.
Trevor: We are adjourned at 10:22, we will reconvene later in the week to wrap up our quarterly.
Trevor: We are back on the record at 12:32 pm on Tuesday, August 31. We are continuing with the regularly scheduled World Service Board of Trustees quarterly. The next item on the agenda is changes to the Cocaine Anonymous World Service Trustees Duties and Guidelines Handbook. I am waiting for changes.
Joy: I have one, on page 20, under the World Service Office Trustee, I make a motion to delete the 4th bullet, under the World Service Office Trustee. It says “may help in Pacific South Region to fulfill regional trustee role in case of unscheduled vacancy.”
Richard: Second.
Joy: I believe that since the World Service Office Trustee comes from the Board and not the region, it should be the Trustee at Large that fulfills the regional trustee role in case of an unscheduled vacancy, not the World Service Office Trustee. They did not come from the region, their slate did not come from the region, and the Trustee at Large comes from all the regions, and that is why I believe that should be deleted.
Kim: I need clarification of what document this is originating from that it’s on our document.
Joy: It doesn’t say, I’m sorry.
Trevor: It came from the World Service Office Trustee duties on the Yahoo page. If we agree to these changes, I will go back to the Yahoo group and make those changes as well prior to the end of the week.
Randy: Logistically, the World Service Office Trustee is…
Joy: Not part of the region.
Randy: So is an unscheduled vacancy the same as the position being unfilled.
Joy: Yes, I believe so.
Randy: Really, why?
Joy: An unscheduled vacancy? A trustee dies…
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Kim: All it says is “may help in Pacific South Region to fulfill regional trustee role in case of an unscheduled vacancy.” May help.
Joy: My firm belief is they don’t come from the region, they come from the office. It should be the Trustee at Large, whose name is put forth by the region, not the office.
Randy: I think what we’re saying is the original other places it talks that the Trustee at Large serves that position if it’s unfilled. This says the World Service Office Trustee…
Joy: There is an assumption that the World Service Office Trustee is going to take over in case of an unscheduled vacancy.
Richard: My reason for seconding this is that the current Pacific South Regional Trustee sees something or has a concern with how that vacated position may be filled. I agree and understand that the World Service Office Trustee possibly filling that could be a concern rather than the obligation of the Trustee at Large filling that, because the Trustee at Large has gone through the regional process, the TEC process, and was specifically tasked with the job of being able to fulfill the duties in multiple locations. The World Service Office Trustee is not. There is a different interview process for that individual, he or she comes from a different place. I see the word “may.” The question is, we know where this document is from?
Trevor: It is from the World Service Board of Trustees guidelines, amended and approved 06/08 document, it is on the Yahoo group.
Richard: You are making a recommendation to change an internal document?
Joy: Yes, I am
Richard: I have no issue with that.
Trevor: Seeing no more debate, we have a motion by Joy to delete the 4th bullet point, on page 20 of the Trustee handbook, under the World Service Office Trustee guidelines, which say “may help in Pacific South Region to fulfill regional trustee role in case of unscheduled vacancy.”
That motion is passed unanimously.
Trevor: Are there any other areas of concern with the document, other than the address, which has been corrected? Yahoo has been changed to online.
Joy: I would like to make a motion, on the World Service Board of Trustees Yahoo group, under the World Service Board of Trustees email guidelines, that we change page 36, paragraph 2 from every 3-4 days to every 1-3 days.
Nicholas: Second.
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Trevor: There is a motion by Joy to change the first page of the World Service Board of Trustees email guidelines 2006.02.10, second paragraph, first sentence, changed to “All trustees will become familiar with the World Service Board of Trustees online group and check these messages a minimum of once every 1-3 days. It has been seconded, is there any further debate?
Motion passed unanimously.
The time is 1:32 pm on Tuesday afternoon, we are going back on the record to say we are going off the record to go into the delegate orientation. We were offline preparing the last of our opening day festivities and duties to look after. We will reconvene at a later time to be determined.
Trevor: The time is 7:40 pm on Thursday, September 2. Happy birthday Nicholas. I am going to ask for the last time, for Nicholas, Lawrence and myself, for roll call.
Richard Schafer, Trustee at Large, Acting World Service Trustee.
Randy Groen, Southwest Regional Trustee.
Nicholas Lynn, European Regional Trustee, WSBT Vice-Chair.
Lawrence Matlock, Atlantic South Regional Trustee.
Robert Lyle, Atlantic North Regional Trustee.
Joy Hutcheson, Pacific South Regional Trustee.
Kim Sherwan, Midwest Regional Trustee, WSBT Secretary.
Trevor Scheible, Pacific North Regional Trustee, WSBT Chair.
Trevor: If any of you are like me, you might feel stepped on right now, but we’re getting there. A few more days to go and we can all where we’re going from there. I will get back onto items on the agenda. Since most of these are leftovers or add-ons, I’m just going to take them as I remember them, if there’s no objections. I would, however, at this time, like to have a report from Richard as far as anything that was needed to transmit back from the office board, they had a meeting today. I would like everybody to have a chance to hear that and discuss it.
Richard: The World Service Office Board met, it was today before the session started. First item on the agenda was that we went through the referrals and we had an executive session. That executive session consisted of Elizabeth S., a director, Barry J., the Treasurer, Richard L., the Vice-Chair, Teresa N., the Secretary, Tom P., the Chair, and myself. In executive session, the item on the agenda was the review of the Director of Operations, the paid director. Tom had emailed out a form for each individual on the board to submit a review and Trevor was aware that existed. Tom went through that and discussed the review. I reported what the Chair’s feelings were. Upon the completion of that discussion, a salary increase was discussed and it was decided that there would be no salary increase. That carried through the board. The Chair will be discussing that with the Director of Operations, no other member will. Based on prior motions put forth by your acting World Service Trustee while sitting on the board, one of the concerns of the motion made by the acting World Service Trustee was that there was no plan in place. The Chair had concerns that if current Director of Operations was either removed or needed to be replaced, either way there was a concern as to how that could be done. I brought forth a professional business plan, not documented, but verbally offered that I had researched that there
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are two temporary agencies within the Long Beach area that could quickly staff the administrative office manager position for less than $20 an hour and keep the office running and also be certain that the other two employees of the office were secure in their positions, and the business of Cocaine Anonymous would continue to run while the Chair could seek another option. The Chair was receptive to that and appreciated the thought out plan.
Joy: Did you discuss the bookkeeper in the meeting?
Richard: It was informally discussed at the office board meeting that the treasurer came out of finance committee meetings and had an allowance for a bookkeeper two days a week and an administrative assistant based on the salary range that was currently offered. With that administrative assistant maintaining that salary, it was affordable to have the bookkeeper twice a week. I conveyed to the World Service Office Board in session that the World Service Board of Trustees has discussed and fully supports the need, that some positions may require an increase in salary in order to get higher skill levels of the job descriptions that are currently being drafted. I let them know they have our support. I felt that was important to convey and for them to know, that we had discussed it, and we support them.
Joy: When the treasurer and I were working on the budget, some of the salary ranges, they had a 17% increases, are we okay with that?
Richard: I believe the discussions that have gone on over the last year, we keep saying they’re underpaid, we can’t find good people.
Joy: I agree, I’m think they need…
Richard: If they’re picking a number of 17%, I believe we will have to see what that looks like, I think it’s important that they trust that they’re not throwing around money at individuals, rather trying to find the best viable candidates in a healthy salary range.
Kim: There was also a meeting between myself, Richard, Jay F., and Lori P.. Maybe Richard would like to address that as well.
Richard: I would like the trustee of the conference committee to report on that. I will be happy to fill in.
Kim: Jay F. and Lori P. requested a meeting with Tom, myself, and Richard. What was discussed were several situations that have occurred in the last 48 hours with the Director of Operations with respect to her attitude and behavior with hotel staff that we agreed, for the most part, was unacceptable. There was further discussion regarding the past two weeks, the preparation and the extent that Jay had to do to keep the Director of Operations on task and on timeline. Lori discussed as well her conflicts and frustration with the Director of Operations and tasking, getting things accomplished. Tom was rather receptive to the information, concerned about it. Following that discussion, Lori and Jay left, the three of us had a discussion. I would say at this point there is more concern with regard to how we should move forward. We’ve met the one
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year mark, the overall concerns. The one thing I will take away from that meeting is Tom wants more communication; he and I spoke Tuesday night with respect to my upcoming position and the fact that we need more communication, not just at the Board-to-Board, but more regularly.
Tom and I have committed to that, so if there are ever any situations as we move forward that you would let me and the incoming WSOT and World Service Trustee know, and we can coordinate some conversations with Tom about that. If there are concerns about the office, office staff, and so forth. My interpretation of the conversation with Tom is that Tom and the board is probably more open-minded to recommendations from this board.
Richard: We currently have a good dialogue with everybody on the board, good communications, and openness. I don’t think it will take much work to maintain that, I would be concerned because I don’t think it would take much to break it and get back into a bad habit. I believe it is our responsibility to maintain this.
Kim: The previous motion was that we recommend the World Service Office Board Chair replace the Director of Operations, it was seconded and passed. I wish to amend that motion to state “Motion that we recommend the World Service Office Board Chair replace the Director of Operations following the close of the 2010 conference.”
Richard/Joy: Second.
Trevor: We have a motion on the floor by Kim that we recommend the World Service Office Board Chair replace the Director of Operations following the close of the 2010 conference, seconded by Richard/Joy. Is there any further debate? Seeing none, all in favor? Motion passes unanimously. At the present time, I am currently still the Chair. I would however, like Kim, as the incoming Chair, and myself to talk to Tom together, if there are no objections and Kim is agreeable to that.
Kim: I am agreeable to that.
Trevor: Kim and I will talk to Tom at the first opportunity and let him know our decision. Where we left off in ratification is that Willie Bailey, the WSOT was not ratified, I requested his resignation and asked him to have it to me in 48 hours, I laid out the specifics I needed him to include in the email or by letter dropped off here at the hotel. I checked my email before the start of this meeting, there is nothing there, and there has been nothing dropped off at the hotel. Therefore, at this point in time, it would be up to the members of this board to motion and pass that he be removed from the Board of Trustees from the position of World Service Office Trustee.
Joy: I make a motion to remove Willie Bailey from the position of World Service Office Trustee.
Robert: Second.
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Trevor: I have a motion to remove Willie Bailey from the position of World Service Office Trustee, seconded by Robert. Any discussion?
Richard: Currently, is it 48 or is it 72?
Trevor: We are supposed to give him 48 hour and we have given him closer to 72.
Richard: You have been mindful of what the requirements are, those have been met and exceeded, is it an appropriate motion at this time?
Trevor: All director trustees shall be ratified by secret ballot no less than once per year at a quarterly meeting of the World Service Board of Trustees. Such a ratification vote can be called at any time of the World Service Board of Trustees quarterly meetings by a simple majority vote. Trustee ratification requires a 2/3 majority vote by the World Service Board of Trustees. If the trustee is not ratified, the World Service Board of Trustees shall ask for the trustee’s immediate resignation. If the trustee is not ratified and does not resign within 48 hours of such request, the World Service Board of Trustees shall immediately vote by secret ballot on whether to remove said trustee. It is suggested that consideration of the vote for removal shall include the right to be present and an opportunity to be afforded the traditional rights of appeal. I spoke those words to Willie, that he had a right to be here if he was going to object. He indicated to me he did not object and would be offering his resignation. That is the only communication I have had with him since.
Richard: Thank you for your due diligence.
Joy: I have a question regarding the vote. So it’s yes to remove, no not to.
Trevor: The result of the secret ballot was the removal of the WSOT, Willie, he has been officially removed.
Richard: I have another piece of information from the World Service Office Board. At the announcement of the non-ratification, the World Service Office Board Chair did discuss the need for the World Service Office Board to remove him, as he is a signer on the accounts. They are looking into that, no action was taken at our last meeting, but I believe the World Service Office Board Chair is on top of that.
Joy: You also included Paychex?
Trevor: I did mention it, it might be good in the next day or so, Kim and I can certainly mention that.
Joy: I just want the office to be covered.
Randy: Leslie from Tucson is in charge of workshops for the 2011 convention. She has asked, she a base slate put together, one of the pieces of feedback we got from the last convention is
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we’d like to give a little more variety, maybe 2-3 different workshops going on at once. In an effort to do that, and again stay in budget, she asked me if I would ask the trustees that would be planning on attending that convention if they are interested in doing a workshop at the Phoenix convention. They would be willing to take the ideas, concepts, or whatever you’d like to do and work them in if schedule permits, if their slate permits. She did say they are going through the entire slate of speakers, they’re going to the trustees. I believe they said they are going to the World Service Office Board, anyone who is coming to this convention essentially on CA’s nickel, find out if they are interested in doing a workshop while they’re there.
Trevor: Is the requirement to be there on CA’s dime already or is it somebody that would be willing…if I tell you that I’m willing to show up regardless…
Randy: I don’t want to make it all about financial, because it’s not. They are putting together a slate it was is essentially, just can you ask the trustees to do this? I have forwarded you, I asked her to send me an email while I was here so I wouldn’t forget, and she did. Please get back to her if you’re interested. Quickly.
Kim: When do we do a buddy list? We should do it now.
Trevor: Richard S./Russell; Joy/Peter; Robert/Richard L.; Randy/Terry; Kim/Kenny.
Richard: Email received, Randy will read it.
Randy: From Waheedah. Good evening all. This email is to Joy, Kim, and myself (Randy). I Waheedah C., would like, if there is still time, to be reinstated on the trustee slate for this year interview process. It was sent at 8:02 pm today.
Kim: We completed our process sometime between 11:00 am and noon today, and I feel that the window of opportunity has been, unfortunately made unavailable to her. I will be happy to respond to her. Regarding the buddies, everyone certainly directs their buddy to the Yahoo group and asks them to review all of the documents, thoroughly read them and understand them. If they have any questions, they need to get back to you. It was heavily stressed to me when I came on board. We need to decide on the orientation call which we will do with them at the dinner.
Richard: Has everyone been notified?
Kim: No.
Trevor: Is there any other item of business. If there is nothing else, I would like us to do group inventory, but not close, just in case. On Saturday evening, after the dinner is over, we can go back on the record for a couple of minutes if there is nothing by that point and make the motion to adjourn.
Joy: Do you want me to discuss the budget changes?
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Richard: I thought you were emailing it to us?
Trevor: We are going off record to do group inventory.
Richard: I would like to spend some time with my committee. No fault of anyone, because of both boards, I’ve been literally been pulled from conference to World Service Office Board to World Service Board of Trustees, my committee has seen very little of me, it’s not for a lack of effort. May we take 15-20?
Trevor: Yes, let’s all do that; meet with your Conference Committees.
Secretary’s notes
Referral to LCF – requesting Newsgram articles, need flyer…communication – DONE >LCF – additional chips…4,5,6,7,8 months. Will be addressed by LCF. – DONE >Last item of business: Group Inventory (All) – DONE
- Close – Serenity Prayer – DONE
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For attached documents and reports see pdf: 2010-08-28-09-02-WSBT-Quarterly-Minutes.pdf