CA WORLD SERVICE World Service Board of Trustees and World Service Office Board MEETING MINUTES
August 2010
APPROVED
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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World Service Conference 2010
Board to Board
Meeting Minutes
Trevor: A moment of silence, followed by the We version of the Serenity Prayer. Welcome, everyone, to the 2010 CA World Service Conference Board-to-Board business meeting. We are going to start on my left and go around the room for roll call.
Yvette Love, World Service Office Director of Operations.
Tom Phelan, World Service Office Board Chairperson.
Randy Groen, Southwest Regional Trustee.
Richard Schafer, Trustee at Large, currently acting World Service Trustee.
Nicholas Lynn, European Regional Trustee, WSBT Vice-Chair.
Lawrence Matlock, Atlantic South Regional Trustee.
Richard Leve, World Service Office Board Vice-Chair.
Robert Lyle, Atlantic North Regional Trustee.
Teresa Neighbors, World Service Office Board Secretary.
Joy Hutcheson, Pacific South Regional Trustee.
Kim Sherwan, Midwest Regional Trustee, WSBT Secretary.
Barry Jacobs, World Service Office Board Treasurer.
Trevor Scheible, Pacific North Regional Trustee, WSBT Chair.
Trevor: Chair reports, for myself and Tom.
My opening remarks: We are a little late; we’re going to try to blast through it. So hi. Tom?
Tom: Nice to have everybody here together again, looking forward to doing what we do this afternoon.
Trevor: Any questions for myself or Tom regarding our opening reports. Business item number 3, supplemental reports, if any, from the World Service Office Board and questions from the World Service Board of Trustees.
Tom: I have nothing to add, I see our treasurer does.
Barry: I passed out a brief statement. In a short form, the numbers that were reported in July were exaggerated, there were some bookkeeping mistakes made, we went through them, and corrected them. That’s the short version, without going into everything. In correcting it, the World Service Office Board Chair, myself, the Director of Operations, the bookkeeper, and I also brought in a trustee with knowledgeable accounting experience to shed a little more light into this, we’ve all pretty much concluded that the numbers are correct as stated now. We do show a loss for the year of $9,672.00, if you look at your year over year sheet you will see than less than previous loss. With the state of the economy, the less our loss of book sales and a lot of the other situations that have happened over the year, even though we have a smaller staffer we had a payout of a former employee. We had moving expenses; we had other expenses regarding paid services, a consultant and other services for setting up the new office. I don’t think after
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everything is said and done, we did that badly. The convention was a success, not as big a success as we thought back in July, it was a mistake. Our bookkeeper enclosed a letter stating the situation that happened. As our board, I think we will bring up some solutions as to how to handle the situation and go from there.
Joy: Thank you. This is perfect; this is what makes it easier to read.
Barry: Hopefully by Tuesday there will be graphs. We’re working on it. The 7th Tradition has been holding its own with, again in this economy, the word is getting out to put the money in the basket and send the money in. Our biggest concern is sales of chips and literature. I want you to know because we did approve that we have a stockpile of the old HFC II books that we are now going to sell at a lower price even if we sell the same amount of books, we are going to have less income. It will help, because we own the books, we need to sell them, we need to get them out, however, we’re going to be getting $4.75 instead of $9.95. It’s both a good and bad thing. We need to sell these books. We own this inventory; it’s hard to eat books. We’re going to get them out to the fellowship and we’re doing a good thing when you stop to think about it. People will be able to afford our book better now.
Trevor: An interesting note, with the three year analysis, is that one year of a good economy and two years of a bad economy, basically we are right where we were at the start of 2008, which is not ideal, but something we can live with. We’ve held our own.
Barry: We are going into next year’s convention with a proven convention site and area, we should have good things. We will have the new office, it does cost us less. We are working on making it even more efficient.
Richard S.: This has been previously discussed, not on the record. The accounting error that occurred, it was originally reported that it was a $72,000 net gain in Milwaukee, I see the exact number is $27,000…
Barry: When we went through everything, it was only approximately $20,000 after everything was said and done.
Richard S.: The same bookkeeper still says $27,000…
Barry: And that’s his letter to me right after, the first time, this is not updated. He never created a second letter.
Richard S.: There is a discrepancy, I’m just asking for a clarified final what happened, how much was an actual error, and what the final number actually is.
Barry: The final number is right here.
Richard S.: There is no way that number is incorrect?
Tom: There is another $500 bill we’ve gotten.
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Richard S.: The final number is?
Joy: $52,140.50.
Barry: That is what we’re reporting.
Richard S.: How do you see that lower number impacting the budget for the following year?
Barry: I’ve been in touch with the finance chair and Tom, we will have to adjust our budget.
Richard S.: Do you have an idea where?
Barry: Number one, we are going to change some of the operating expenses, and the program expenses have to be adjusted more ___________.
Richard S.: Budget lines are going to be modified.
Barry: Yes, some will go up and some will go down.
Tom: The net effect is zero.
Richard S.: That is almost exact amount of rent, the savings.
Tom: It doesn’t have anything to do with that. It has to do with next year’s. This was done. This won’t impact next year’s budget. This loss is done. We have a new working budget…
Richard S.: I’m clear on that, I’m just looking at next year’s budget and the actual shortfall of the income comes up.
Tom: Oh, we’ve already eaten it. Next year the considerations are, we’ve got a new budget from 2011 convention, their net amount is relatively the same, they’re about $83,700, but they’re coming back with about $84,000 so it’s not a big deal. Our big change, the big considerations are revenues from chips and literature are lower so we have to consider that, our cost of sales is about 40%. Books are about a 90% spread but it’s going to 50% markup. The issue is we’re going to add the third quarterly for the trustees.
Joy: There is more than that. I’ve got it all here.
Barry: I brought Joy in, I’ve already discussed it with her, to bring her voice and your voice in to finance committee a little more, because I am going to need her help.
Richard S.: Regarding the third quarterly, is that an open discussion here?
Tom: We were told to add it.
Trevor: We already talked about it at our board.
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Richard S.: I know that, is it workable, doable, no major issues?
Barry: Spending money is always an issue.
Trevor: That is more of a finance conference committee discussion.
Richard S.: We felt the need, I recall that.
Barry: It’s going to be needed, so we will have to figure it out.
Richard S.: Do you have any thoughts on how to figure that out at this point?
Barry: Number one, like I said, we came really close this year, and we’re coming into a better convention, I’m assuming that’s going to provide more.
Tom: That number is already in the budget.
Barry: I don’t think it’s going to be a consideration; we will have to work on it.
Tom: This was sent out on an SR14 so…
Joy: I have my redline and I’m going to give that to you. It’s not in the 2010-2011; however, it’s in the 2011-2012.
Tom: That’s because their convention numbers are going to be less than…
Randy: You have our convention at what?
Tom: $83,700. The overall net minus $40,000.
Richard S.: So you have a little more concern right now, Tom, with it not even being…
Tom: Yes. Almost all the trustees go to $2,400 for their annual…Directors’ travel to the convention will be an issue. We’re going to have to talk about that.
Trevor: We’re going to move along with the World Service Office Board Director of Operations Any questions regarding Yvette? Richard.
Richard S.: I would like to request and offer my IT skills so you don’t have an expense for IT. I am offering my expertise to the office and look forward to assisting you in consulting needs.
Trevor: Items for discussion number 4 is convention, anything regarding CAWS 2010, now that we have the final number?
Tom: Attrition was a big deal, it was a killer.
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Kim: We did well in offsetting the hotel bill and buying the food and so forth. The pass it on, you did receive it? Will that be available at the conference?
Tom: Should we just make it available to the convention committee? 2012 has it.
Kim: If anybody else wants it, you can send it to them electronically.
Yvette: Okay.
Kim: Karmen was amazing, she was key in making everything work. We’re done with the middle, thanks for supporting it.
Trevor: 2011?
Randy: All systems go. Preconvention got off to a fantastic start, I think that, they, if anything, may have caught that excitement with the first couple of events and maybe lost some imagination to continue with different types, so they’re redoing the WEtreat and Change for Change. The WEtreat has not generated the number of registrations at this point in time that they have before, they’re still really strong, they will do fine. The expenses are still being kept low. From that perspective, the convention committee met at the Biltmore last month and made some decisions to enhance the convention. They have a huge conference center, at one point in time we thought about using that facility for almost all our events, then really rolled back into the campus itself, so some of the folks that were there in 1990 will remember we are using the same rooms, and we will just do our major speaker meetings and committee meetings over in the convention center. We will be in the Frank Lloyd Wright part, give the event a really cool feel instead. The three issues I had coming here, two have already been addressed. I got a message from Yvette that the insurance company does want us to have the members sign off on waivers prior to our special events, specifically the horseback riding and those kind of things. We are going to try to set up some sort of way that there is a sheet with that paragraph, and people to sign in before they get on a bus, something along those lines. It’s too late to change the registration. Had we understood that early on, we would have blanket added it to the registration. We will do something. We are receiving registration, people are booking hotels. Past experience says most people don’t begin registering until after conference, so I think there’s some excitement. There are about 13.
Barry: Are they going to have movie in the pool? On the Biltmore website, they promote that.
Randy: The main pool, where that takes place, we have difficulty having any of our kind of activities designed around that pool. Those cabanas are rented. To provide entertainment there on a Saturday afternoon becomes difficult. The way the Biltmore is built, there are several pools. There’s an area that we have essentially signed on to and made arrangements with, they’re going to fill this portion of the facility first and that puts the essence of a three or four buildings around a pool. That will probably be where our activities, Caribbean music and stuff like that will be. They’re going to move a little bit away from the main pool because of their normal customer flow. Child activities are big, though, we have a lot of kids, we do babysitting at lot of our meetings locally, so we are going to have the WElympics, things going on for the kids. They’re
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talking about making arrangements with the Phoenix Zoo has a mobile presentation that they will set up at little or no cost, that may be brought onto the facility for the kids. It’s really going to be a party, we are designing it around throwing a party. I think it will be a good one. We have three additional committees above and beyond the normal structure, we have an H&I, a volunteer committee chairperson, there were so many people that wanted to get involved that rather than have them chase down committees we literally said anyone that wants to get involved, Linda Fisher heads a volunteer committee, so if the subcommittees need help, they go to Linda, she gives them names.
Richard S.: Do you know where your fundraising is right now?
Randy: We’re net gain of about $25-26,000…
Barry: I don’t know about profit, I can tell you your account as of this morning is $21,220.
Randy: Our committee is showing up here Friday with shirts and coffee to sell. Fundraising will do better than $30,000 before they’re done.
Trevor: 2012?
Nicholas: A challenge, we’re 6,000 miles away. We’ve decided to trash Barclay’s and go with HSBC. Is there anything in the convention committee guidelines that you have power to direct?
Barry: There’s no guidelines, however, we told you and I’ve spoken to Russell before, HSBC is one of the few banks that is set up in the US and in England. They are ready and willing to facilitate us move money as opposed to the other banks. If we utilize HSBC correctly, we can do it at no charge. In other words, if we utilize them, having it open on your side and deposit a certain dollar amount in their bank, we will then be what they call a premier member and we can transfer funds. We’ve discussed that, which is one of the reasons I’ve met with them. I was under the impression that was what you’re doing as well.
Tom: I have a point about this. When we get close, when we get down to those last two months, banking can be very critical because we are going to be writing, we are going to need a facility, I think it is imperative we get it at HSBC, because we can’t get it at Natwest here. We can go to Barclays, it means going to downtown Los Angeles, not very convenient. Right now we’ve got an HSBC account, they even come to us. My concern is, when we’re paying bills, when we’re getting close, if there are any hiccups, it’s going to be a problem. I can’t specifically tell you what’s going to happen, but I might guess banking is going to be an issue, if we are with HSBC, things will work smoother.
Nicholas: Could you communicate that with David, strongly?
Tom: How do we do that? I thought we did that.
Barry: We opened an account on our side, we have an HSBC account. We’ve had it since before convention. I specifically, after finding out it was not at that bank, I did send David an email
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before he went to Paris, expressing my disappointment that it was not there. I need to further that.
Nicholas: So they could probably hold until I’m out and the new trustee could emphasize that he needs the account to be at HSBC. I will not be a signatory.
Tom: I guess we can say it has to be at HSBC.
Nicholas: Make it a banking directive. We need you to open an account at this bank.
Barry: I’m allowed to do that?
Nicholas: It needs to be that strong. David has a friend at Barclays, I told him it has nothing to do with a friend, this is the first time we’ve done this, we need to make it as easy as possible.
Richard S.: My suggestion is that the treasurer let them know they need to be with HSBC, that was what was originally discussed a year and a half ago with Tom. This is the direction we’ve taken, and this is the best option we have to working this out. I also believe that upon your return and all your goodbyes, you also let them know it should be HSBC, and Russell will also let them know it should be HSBC. That should get the message across.
Richard L.: Can we, as a board, make a motion that this is the way this needs to be done, that the World Service Office Board and the World Service Board of Trustees are requiring that this has to be done.
Trevor: The direct answer is that yes, we could. I would rather try to take the tack of we would appreciate you do this and here’s why. Give them the reasons for international banking and go through everything. Lay it out. Create a letter and say this is why, etc. so there is no miscommunication. I would rather try to do the spirit of cooperation than we said so you do it.
Richard L.: ___________________, and it hasn’t worked yet, that’s why.
Trevor: No, it’s been discussed, has it ever been laid out point for point?
Barry: I will bring it to them, point for point. I thought I did, I will reiterate and express to them that, as it was discussed in our Board-to-Board meeting, this was what should be done, I will also forward our contact at HSBC to find her counter-contact and let them do their job. They want our business, I talked to their business banking person. They would like our business. We have generally, approximately $100,000 in a savings account, always. If we move from Wells Fargo, just the savings and not do anything more or less with it for that year and a half that we are doing those transactions, we become a premier member, once you have $100,000 in your account. They are courting us, let them do what they can, which will facilitate us, especially in that last six months or…
Tom: I am concerned about how we are going to pay the bills from over there, with what medium of exchange. They are not going to take dollar denominated checks. The different
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vendors in the UK will not take dollars, they want to be paid in pounds. The only way we can effectively do it is if we have some control over it.
Barry: Excuse me, Nicholas, checks are going away?
Nicholas: Yes, they’re going. – Although I don’t have a specific end date.
Barry: So it will be bank transfers or SMS.
Tom: Again, all of their contributions to us come in the form of a check.
Barry: Correct, because there is no easier form of getting it across. If we had HSBC we could also…
Tom: We may have to address some of the issues in our board authority to do some of what we do.
Joy: My question is, you’re considering closing the money market account with Wells Fargo at what interest rate?
Barry: Because I cannot put it into anything less conservative.
Joy: So that’s how we might get HSBC to knock charges.
Tom: That’s one of their programs.
Joy: That’s saving us money.
Barry: Lots of money.
Joy: And exchange rate. I’m all for that.
Barry: It doesn’t have to happen at this moment, it can happen at some time.
Randy: Do we lose waiving of funds, waiving of fees at Wells Fargo?
Joy: No.
Nicholas: We have been troubles with getting members travel. Let’s call it a judgment or a call was made that set a precedent; they want to keep pursuing it, the $500 that went to travel. I have always towed the line that they should raise their own funds, so sending the $500 didn’t help. They’re aware of that; we had a discussion at the board, that’s a UK thing not an office board thing. When the fabric check came, could you tell us how much that cost changed? Did that come in pounds?
Unknown: $35.00?
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Nicholas: So that’s good, that’s cheaper in England, there’s going to be lot’s of checks going forward. The sooner the HSBC account is opened, the quicker we start saving money, that’s another point to tell them. Cause it’s not their money they’re saving, it’s our money we’re saving.
Barry: It will be quicker in our coffers.
Tom: Relative to travel expenses, it’s actually a line item in the budget.
Nicholas: So it will go to the floor. If it fails…Apart from that, they’ve got some more events coming up, I think it’s going to work, it’s a first for them and us, there is still, the delusion that they get to keep some of the funds and can’t understand why they have to do all this work you’re going to come into town and take all the money and that’s it. Some negative people have been spreading that, so we’re trying to be positive. I said you were going to give them a little bit of leeway and say they could make some pigs or something, some collection boxes and not the key rings or whatever, and said once the conference budget had gone to the floor it would make it much easier. What we need is to get the HSBC account opened that is what needs to happen.
Barry: Teresa, do you remember why the pigs ____________________________
Teresa: Well the first one we did online ___________________, the second one was in our board meeting, and a lot of people were not there.
Nicholas: They came to me and said they want to do a newsletter. I told them it might upset people. They said they’re still going to do it. I said the one we’re going to talk about at this convention is Arizona; this is the one that is coming. We are second, humility. This is an honor. Some people don’t fully understand.
Randy: One of the things that you will see happen as you get closer, I don’t know if you saw it in Milwaukee, in Arizona, the area stuff is going on, people feel world is squeezing us hard, the world convention…I was asked to come to an area meeting and asked them to remind them we volunteered, we had to take a position with the area folks who had those concerns. This is not a directive, we weren’t made to do this, we sent someone to the conference and enthusiastically bid for this. We volunteered to do this. What we found that through some of these fundraising activities and our history with world conventions is that our area increases from the enthusiasm that a world convention brings and we learn how to do some interesting fundraising ideas that we can now just do locally for ourselves after the convention is gone and all that money we think we lost during that year comes back threefold. We did have to go remind them we did volunteer for that.
Nicholas: It is a positive thing. One of my sponsees lives 50 miles away. He went to Birmingham. He got me in there. There are a lot of people up for it, there are a few distracters. It’s almost like there’s going to have to be like please, please go the HSBC route, this is how we would like to do it. These are the advantages, this would really help.
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Richard S.: After the contract was signed, Russell was going to send a copy to the office; I wanted to know if the office has a copy of the signed contract? That’s huge concern.
Nicholas: We can ask him, cause he’s here.
Richard S.: Thank you.
Trevor: Next item on the agenda is number 5, training requirements for WSO staff and status of training. Update, Tom and Yvette?
Joy: How was the class?
Yvette: It was very good. I had the same trainer that Joy had and I had and came back with QuickBooks, a disk and a whole stack of notes. And I called Joy, when she tells me “do you want to run this report?” I know how to go right to it. I know how to send it to her, also, she should be able to plug in to see what we are doing.
Joy: With the class, for an annual subscription fee, she can constantly get the five disk updates. So you will want to go to 2011. I think she can call the same number, spend the $99 annually, if you decide to do that and get updates, it also will enable her export into excel. The updates are amazing. There are little things in excel, because QuickBooks is attached to it, you can look at the split and breakdown in an excel spreadsheet.
Richard S.: Is there any other training planned?
Tom: I think one of the other things we’ve talked about but is not in a specific plan, is that we’re going to visit the NA office and look at some of the systems they use there. I’m very impressed with their order fulfillment. It’s pretty amazing.
Unknown: They use software equal to about half of our annual budget.
Tom: I just want to look at how they do it.
Kim: Three years ago members of the WSBT went, and they were very receptive to us.
Tom: I went there with Earl and Carl.
Yvette: I met them at Drug Court.
Tom: I want to look at their shipping facilities and get an idea of how their, since they’re so close.
Trevor: Any other questions on this? So it will remain on the Board-to-Board for continued office updates. Next item is number 6, HFC II storage/shipping fees/printing the book HFC II outside the US. I would say to you, give me a hard number right now on what you would want as a markup as a royalty agreement, what would you want it to be?
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Tom: Well pre-stickered, I would say $2.00.
Trevor: In the UK right now. If we said, you guys send the order and the money to the office, we have three different printers we could go with, this is the one we’re going to go with, the printer in the UK is going to print the books and deliver them directly to them, what markup per book would you want.
Tom: The royalty number is really like $3-4.00.
Joy: So $3.00 would be a happy medium?
Richard S.: $3.50 would be a happy medium.
Trevor: Have we seen the proposal?
Tom: I have seen $2.75 a book, they’ll print a 100?
Trevor: We are strongly in favor of them doing that, our concern is what to do with the current inventory, do we want to delay implementation and final authorization of printing overseas until we reach a certain point in inventory or do we want to just say we’ve bought the books, that’s not costing us, we’re already paying the rent, so that’s not costing extra storage, so let them go forward and print?
Barry: At our last Board-to-Board when we discussed lowering the price, putting the book on sale it was to deplete the inventory. We do have a large amount of inventory. Another reason was singleness of book, which is one of the reasons we are stickering all of the books. Why should another area have a book that is not stickered while the rest of us, or at least the US will be getting a book that is stickered until that is depleted. It will be two different books.
Richard S.: It is the same thing as us having HFC II while we were waiting on the reprinting of HFC I, there is also a second book out there. That’s not a second book at all. It is what we will be doing going forward when the inventory is depleted.
Barry: And I am saying let’s deplete our inventory before we get into doing that.
Robert: The conversations I’ve heard, and I have listened to a lot, is the UK is not buying the book like they could be, like we hope they would, even though they said they would take the stickered books. Part of the problem is the shipping of the books from the US to UK or Europe. A royalty agreement would allow the printing to be done in the UK and the end result there is that more books would be sold in the UK or Europe because it would be cheaper, basically shipping. I don’t know the dollar amount because it’s almost double the amount of the book with the shipping involved. This way the book gets out to the fellowship. Instead of them taking in the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous they will be taking our book. We need to get the word out. I’m in favor, we are going to be having a world convention over there, we need our fellowship to grow, we just heard how the fellowship grows in Arizona every time they do a convention, and I’m expecting the same explosion in the UK. That is why I’m in favor of doing a royalty
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agreement. We’re going to be making money and not really be doing much. We’ll be getting money for allowing them to do it. There’s no cost out of our pockets, we get $3.00 for each book, or whatever.
Trevor: We crunched the numbers, what it comes down to, it comes down to…
Nicholas: I think it would be advantageous to sell it about £5. About 250 on the mainland, worst scenario, about 500 books guaranteed, every month, no outlay, money coming into the office. No complaining about when the book is coming. We walk into a meeting, the book is there. It would make it so much simpler. I think we’ve got to be brave.
Joy: They go through about 3,000 books annually, multiply that by $3.00. And we don’t have to do anything.
Trevor: My firm belief is if they have them there, readily available at a reasonable price rather than the current £5 they can sell them, they are going to sell more.
Tom: Can we do a three year royalty agreement?
Nicholas: It’s up to you to put a deal on the table; I think we (European region) would be open to it.
Trevor: What we are saying is we want to do it, you guys come up with a number, we will reconvene later and stamp it, we will take it to the floor and we will do it.
Next item is number 7, conference update. We’re here, it’s happening.
Richard S.: The Palm Grill is only open for breakfast; I will discuss that at the BEO meeting tomorrow. I will see about concessions.
Randy: This is just something I heard, the conference yesterday ate at the Palm Grill went down and had lunch there. I don’t know what charge that was, I don’t know any details. It might be at least something to consider.
Yvette: Did we have a discount last year?
Joy: We have a discount. It applies at the bar.
Kim: Richard Schafer will bring it up at the BEO, some sort of concession can possibly be made this year, if not we can possibly pursue how it will affect next year’s contract and moving forward pursing bids.
Tom: What time is new delegate orientation? What time is concept presentation?
Kim: Orientation begins at 2:00 pm.
Trevor: Number 8, renewal of the CA logo.
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Kim: We need to know where the ® goes.
Joy: I got a request, sent it to Richard, Richard sent it to the office. You got email from the attorney but did not forward the emails to Richard, all you did was forward the information. We want the actual emails please.
Yvette: The called me so it wouldn’t cost us, they said it didn’t matter. I can get them to, it is going to cost us to do it.
Richard S.: I thought our conversation was I said “can you get an email from them?” and you said yes.
Yvette: Okay.
Richard S.: If there is a cost, what is that?
Yvette: $250.
Richard S.: At this point, I would say go ahead, does anyone dispute that?
No.
Richard S.: We need that information from the attorney, so if that is a service charge, please request that.
Joy: Regarding CAWS 2010’s logo, we have a response that needs to be written, I want legal clarification, because I don’t know how to respond. In the guidelines, it says it has to be trademarked or copy written.
Tom: We need to actually trademark?
Joy: Under copy written. Because the CA, see how the logo is actually inserted in the design, I need to know if because our logo, which is copyrighted, trademarked, if the logo, even though we know it’s the property of CAWS, because in the convention guidelines it says it’s supposed to be copy written, because the logo’s in the design, it’s automatically copy written. So I can respond to Quin.
Tom: So we need to figure out if the other question is if it costs us $2,000, or $1,500. Do we care?
Joy: It’s not whether we care or not, it’s a response I need to write to Quin, who wants to know is CAWS 2010 logo copy written because the guidelines say it’s supposed to be.
Kim: It’s sort of grandfathered into.
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Richard S.: If we attach our copy written logo to any artwork, does that therefore make it copy written material?
Joy: I need to know that.
Richard S.: Correspond with me, I will phrase and deliver it in an email.
Trevor: Please copy both chairs in that email.
Number 9, financials and trustee budgets.
Joy: Done, redlined, I will give you copies.
Trevor: Number 10, 7th tradition/monies from abroad. We spoke about this earlier to both with regard to _______________ acknowledgements and just to clean up the system a little bit.
Richard S.: I thought there was a response, a thank you to every donation that is made.
Yvette: There is a letter.
Richard S.: There is a response to every single 7th tradition donation.
Tom: There was a time when our customer service person maybe wasn’t doing that.
Richard S.: I just wanted to make sure it was here and said.
Tom: When they’re trained, that is one of the things they get.
Joy: No more money, 7th tradition sitting in a drawer.
Kim: Mr. Chair, are we good with the motions, we went through with Tom and Yvette, is that all we are going to do?
Trevor: We are going to ask our liaison between the two boards to make sure they are directed properly to the Office Board.
Richard S.: Which is right now me. What is the directive I need to do?
Trevor: The new motions passed regarding the WSO policy and procedure.
Richard S.: Can I get an email regarding that so I can bring it to the Board meeting after.
Joy: I will email you a corrected version of the policies.
Tom: Would you copy me in on that?
Kim: Would you like the motion regarding the bookkeeper as well?
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Yvette: Nicholas, for the 7th traditions that come we need a return address and an email so that we can shoot it back to that group.
Nicholas: You’ll take care of your part, we can send you an email, and we will send a return to sender in case the mail loses it.
Tom: So we know who to send it to.
Richard S.: Wouldn’t it be easier, because if two different people are doing the job of reading email and one waiting for a check to come, if when someone sends in a 7th tradition it’s in an envelope with an address, say who it’s from.
Trevor: I think that is a very good point for regional trustees to deal with in our caucuses an in the coming regional assemblies for Nicholas, Lawrence and myself, to remind them when they are sending donations, to please include the return address, the office needs it.
Tom: The finance committee has as one of its items, with LCF, an upgraded 7th tradition handbook. NA has this great workbook.
Robert: When we talk about 7th tradition, what is status of the anniversary/birthday card program?
Tom: They are completed and they are here. It’s is approved and available.
Robert: Thank you.
Trevor: Item number 11, literature publication issues. What I’m going to ask is because I don’t want to get into everything and I don’t want to put you on the spot what I’m going to ask, not over the next week, obviously because we are busy, but when we get back to work, going forward, if you can make a list of any issues you’re having with publication, with LCF, and make sure Tom gets a copy, the chair of the World Service Board of Trustees gets a copy and ask it to be forwarded to whoever the new LCF trustee is, I’ve already dropped a hint into Randy that he would be great, I don’t know if he will do it or not. It is a challenge, I know it will be a challenge, I know some of the issues involved in the GLBT pamphlet going, some of them included when we do the cover page with the steps and traditions and logo, it should be standard, however, there are always typos and corrections. That needs to be fixed. Any possible solutions, get it out there so we know. We aren’t going to fix anything today, we just need to start documenting this stuff. Will the GLBT pamphlet be here?
Yvette: It should be here by tomorrow, Tuesday latest.
Robert: I have an email from Quebec. “Hi Robert. Thanks for the good news, I have informed our fellowship so they can fill our new orders [re French HFC II printing]. I wish you a good conference. Yves.
Trevor: Number 12. Status of the webservant and helpdesk site and literature posting.
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Richard S.: The email I sent to everybody re the webservant, I followed that up with a request to the chair with a suggestion that this be added to the opening report. It will be in my trustee report and the hope is this conference does not yield some good candidates that we look at, discuss the possibility of the office board, or rather they discuss it being a paid position to get someone more qualified to handle the position. The helpdesk is on hold until there is a new webservant. With Mike being willing to do what he is willing to do, adding anything to do that would definitely take away from anything else. The Spanish conversion is equally tabled. These three items are waiting for a new webservant. This is an action item the chair and myself have pursued monthly, me more so in the last three months. We are staying on top of it. Right after we decided to cut bait, I got the phone call that we was withdrawing. Hopefully this conference will yield some good candidates. If not we will discuss with the current webservant it being a paid position or search out others.
Trevor: Any time there is an updated pamphlet, it needs to be loaded on the web page. As of now, there are several on the website that our out of date. When we get a new webservant, they need to know that needs to be updated as soon as it possibly can.
Tom: Cynthia has a pretty good handle on that.
Trevor: Item number 13, World Service Board of Trustees decision regarding stickering of HFC II. I want to ask, we were informed that the World Service Office Board had passed a motion intending to go to the conference asking the conference to rule on our decision regarding the stickering. I wanted to discuss that.
Tom: I don’t remember the context of the motion, other than it was there. It was more Elizabeth’s motion?
Unknown: Willie and Elizabeth.
Tom: But it passed.
Richard S.: In the spirit of cooperation, that it be discussed here and the intent was for us to follow the wishes of AA, and what we felt the responsibility of the fellowship of having one message going out of hope faith and courage, regardless of what we found out afterwards from an individual in the UK who did bring it to an area, that Russell’s information came from and area, that they said they didn’t care. But the rest of the world might. In the spirit of unity, having one message, we felt it important. There was a lot of discussion behind it, for us to have one book. We did research to make sure the amount allotted, the one dollar per book was more than what we had found for the stickering, and discussed volunteers doing it and when we approached the office board with this it was that the volunteers would be stickering books. We knew it wouldn’t be easy, but it doesn’t feel like there’s an understanding of the cooperation and the efforts of what we were trying to achieve rather than we don’t like your decision, we don’t like that you didn’t like that we brought it back to you, and we’re going to go to the conference floor. And believe me, it may have even been me that said if you don’t like it bring it to the conference floor, cause that is who speaks. That is how this works. However, in cooperation, this is a good time to either seek cooperation and understanding of why the board can’t see what we were
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trying to achieve or maybe information wasn’t delivered as to what we went through to get to that decision.
Teresa: My recollection of the discussion was that apparently we don’t have volunteers doing this, it’s our office staff that’s using their time to sticker. There was at the time an issue of the price of the stickers, which has been addressed. In light of the fact that we were given permission to deplete our current inventory from AA was one of the issues that came up for sure. Do we have the staffing to do the stickering and is it really necessary. That is my recollection.
Joy: Now that we have some negotiating going on with the stickers, got a cheaper price, if I have to put the word out, all you have to do is ask. I will even grab my area, IE and WIE and come out on a Saturday to sticker books, when the office isn’t flowing. I can get my region, Vegas included. I can rally the troops. We can get this done and start selling the books get the flyers out that we created and got approved and get people to start buying the book.
Trevor: I just wanted to touch on a couple of things. I just wanted to touch on a couple of things Teresa said. She said we have AA’s permission to deplete our inventory. While I’m not going to say that’s false, we have their permission to do so inside the United States. That’s for the record. One of the things that really struck me in this aspect, and I don’t know, so I’m going to bring it up, when we do anything that requires an expenditure of bigger than $500 we need to go through the three vendor bid process, my surprise, disappointment, upset, was when I asked Willie to get me documentation of that I was given three pages that were printed off the internet that were dated two days after I asked for it, it should have been months before. Knowing very little about retail because I’m a tradesman, but when I have to buy something for work, if I buy one from a supplier, I get one price, if I get ten, I get a different price, if I get 100 I get another price. I felt that I was let down by what I got. I don’t know if it was originally different. When I got the numbers back from this board, it was originally was different, but when it was brought back to reconsider, I was given a figure, and then I was given what amounted to three. It was when you open up this page, then this page. I was upset. I wanted to let you guys know that’s our policy. I didn’t know what had happened.
Tom: The reason I let this be on the agenda, it didn’t have anything to do with the decision you’d made, it had to do with the fact that it was operationally burdensome for the office and volunteers weren’t showing up. So the only way, the orders would continue to come in. We are under a mandate to sticker all the books that go out the door. We can’t buy stickers from anybody. We got to buy stickers that work in the printer, so they have the disclaimer on them, cut them and put them in the book. I think you should come in and sticker some books, it’s not an easy process. It’s a disrupting process. And, we’re not paying anybody $500. It’s a minimal amount. The cost of it wasn’t an issue. The issue had to do with taking 28 books out of a case, they’re already cased up, they’ve got to be printed, cut, put in, be recased, resealed. Before, you took the case down, label it, ship it. Now, we haven’t added any people in this process. In fact, we’ve been operating at a deficiency of people the whole year. So this came on because it became burdensome, it was a burden to the office. It continues to be. It’s not a simple process. Stickering the books, it doesn’t happen by itself. How long does it take to sticker a case?
Yvette: An hour.
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Tom: And Andrew’s mood has really deteriorated since this has started. You open up a case that’s perfectly sealed and ready to go, tear it apart, you have to sticker them. That’s where it came from. It’s not because we disrespected the decision. It had to do with the fact that it’s not working.
Richard S.: It’s a question I had before, I haven’t heard any. It’s one of the things this board had anticipated was, a year ago, special workers were being used, through the court system. I haven’t heard of any being used in the last year.
Tom: There are two that show up pretty regularly.
Richard S.: And are they doing that?
Tom: That process has been in place.
Barry: Even though we are utilizing the special workers or volunteers, it still takes supervision, time, it still takes somebody to check and make sure they are doing it correctly. Then it still take Andrew his job of removing and replacing, his time and our money, even with volunteers. Andrew brought a suggestion, instead of utilizing as many stickers, possibly cutting a page, which would also make it easier to do it, which was brought it to our group. This would lower the cost, less time consuming, less space. This was brought by our employee, who is doing the work, made the suggestion. So I am bringing it back to your board for your consideration. We are doing what you asked, your board asked us to do that, we are. We are also telling you what we know. It is time and money consuming to do this, whether it’s done with ________________or not. There are some possible considerations that maybe we could do it and export it a different way, I don’t know.
Teresa: I yield.
Trevor: What would the numbers impact be as far as what gets ordered in the United States as far as what is ordered outside the United States? How many on average are you selling per month, approximately.
Yvette: 90% in the United States.
Tom: Maybe more.
Kim: So it’s not a board action, it will be in individual action.
Tom: Correct.
Trevor: Item number 14 follow up regarding letters to drug court contacts, question on our board, in the past letters have gone out to contacts made at drug court. Has this happened, if not how can we make that happen?
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Yvette: We have compiled a whole list of everything, we have not sent them out. Just need to do a mail merge. Have had so much to do for conference then the mailing. They didn’t go out last year either.
Trevor: I am happy the letters are ready to go, that’s good. Any other questions on this item.
Item convention spending requests. There is not a policy regarding spending requests.
Joy: Spending requests and check requests can come at the same time. They don’t have to be separate.
Richard S.: I wanted to make sure it was discussed here because it came up last night and I said that information was given there, we all looked to see where that came from and regardless of wherever it may have been thought to have come from, it is not in any of the guidelines or procedures. So everyone, because I won’t be there, knows, spending requests and check requests can come at the same time. Actually, spending requests aren’t…
Kim: Spending requests are not mandatory to be approved by the World Service Office Board.
Tom: What are they for?
Joy: They are for the convention committee.
Tom: What are they given for?
Joy: So the subcommittees can go to the treasurer and say these are our spending requests and send them forward. That is why they were created. So the treasurer can keep an eye on the budget.
Tom: Isn’t it a world service convention?
Trevor: But if it’s in the budget and the spending committee that’s in place approves it, then the check request…
Tom: Here’s my issue, I have spent hundreds of hours…
Richard S.: That’s why we were reading last night, we looked through everything last night.
Kim: We looked through the guidelines. That form is in there, my understanding is that form is internal.
Tom: So it’s convention internal. It always felt frivolous at some level.
Kim: A spending request does outline a lot of information, so it is good that they come together, but again, the check request doesn’t necessarily doesn’t necessarily have to be approved and a check written.
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Tom: So they send a check request and a spending request would support the check request saying the spending request has already approved it, here are the details.
Kim: Correct.
Randy: It says here is the information to track it on your side, if you like.
Barry: So if we deny a check request…
Kim/Joy: Why?
Barry: If we’re not getting a spending request to go with a check request…
Joy: You don’t need a spending request…
Barry: I said if.
Trevor: Here are the only reasons you could deny a check request, if it something is not in the budget, or over budget, or there is a tradition violation.
Joy: A convention budget is conference approved.
Trevor: The trustee who is on the conference committee would have already seen and caught it, hopefully.
Kim: On the other hand, a spending committee can make a motion internally to approve their spending request by simple majority which in my case did not even require my vote. So that may be something, the World Service Office Board needs to consider.
Richard S.: Three members make up the spending committee, three local members and the treasurer.
Kim: The steering committee from Wisconsin would send me spending requests for approval.
They approved their own requests. Once I didn’t because I couldn’t see the logo.
Richard L.: Thank you, you’ve decreased our five hour meetings to three hours.
Richard S.: To the current World Service Office Board secretary, it relies on the trustee, this board has not been getting the minutes from our meetings. Can you make sure whoever is fulfilling that.
Tom: You haven’t gotten our reports, none of them?
Kim: What we see from the board meetings are snapshots, or we were occasionally. In addition, we are not seeing minutes…
Tom: I apologize, our minutes over the last nine months have been the best I’ve ever seen.
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Trevor: May I request, I know we’re all tired and everything. We really have to try to keep some order. Please only try to speak when you raise your hand or are recognized. There is some excitement, we have to keep order.
Kim: In addition to that, any time there is a report with attachments, we haven’t received attachments. We receive minutes and nothing else.
Tom: I want to report our minutes have been complete and with very few exceptions, all directors have submitted written reports.
Kim: We haven’t seen those.
Teresa: I haven’t been attaching reports. In the minutes, I write down everything in the written report.
Tom: The minutes contain the written report.
Kim: I appreciate that, however, just to be clear and transparent, can we scan them?
Richard S.: It’s the obligation of the WSOT, I just wanted to be open in this area that if there are issues or things that just don’t seem right between the two boards, one of the boards might not be getting the information. That’s one way to make sure the WSOT is supplying the minutes.
Tom: What interests me is we repeatedly get asked by the WSOT for that stuff.
Teresa: I almost always send it individually to his email, separate.
Trevor: I want to suggest in the spirit of cooperation between the two boards, that the two secretaries copy each other as well. So when stuff is going out, obviously when stuff is going out that needs to go to the other board, copy the other secretary.
Richard S.: There is very little discretion needed between the two boards. I have had open dialog sitting on both boards with my big old mouth and opinions and there’s been very little discretion, only when it when it absolutely needed to be, was requested. I see no problem with the minutes going back and forth.
Kim: I keep those. I am looking at 2009 and I have 19 sets of minutes. This year I have one.
Richard L.: When I was doing secretary, I would ask people to submit their reports, I would ask them to send it in a word file I would say vice-chair report, that always made it easy so you would get the full minutes, maybe us as a board will be more conscious of that.
Richard S.: I brought it up because it is my job, it is my responsibility when there is communication failure, and that is what I want to make sure I’m doing.
Trevor: Motion to adjourn. 5:03pm
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