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August 2007 Board to Board
Los Angeles, CA
Board to Board meeting for WSBT and WSOB
August 2007
Four Points Sheraton Los Angeles, CA
Opened with a moment of silence and the Serenity Prayer
In Attendance:
Tony Drake MWRT WST Chair
Lawrence Matlock ASRT
Jay Finesilver SWRT
Trevor Scheilbe PNRT
John Bodkin WSOB Chair
Bobbie Harmon TAL
Nicholas Lynn ERT
Patty Flannigan Paid Director
Bruce Watson ANRT
Carl Warlick PSRT
Tom Phalen WSOB Treasurer
Earl Henderson WSOT
Hayward Hunt WST Secretary
Kathy Jo Rankin Vice Chair
Theresa Neighbors Secretary
Tony Drake: What letter did we leave of on, when the WSOB got a copy.
Bobbie: The letter H is blank
Tony Drake: Add letter H, address vice chair’s concerns. Add a letter I, delegate mailings to other countries, add a letter J which is WSOB referrals, and letter K 25th anniversary merchandise. Add letter L, which is hotel bill CAWS 2007.
Chair’s opening remarks: Looking forward to a productive meeting, we have two hours slated for this meeting.
John Bodkin: I am sure we all hope for the same. I still get a thrill when we go around the room and get to hear Nicholas say “European Regiona l trustee” we didn’t get to hear that when I was doing it. Good to be with you all.
Number 4 – Supplemental reports
Kathy Jo: I have made some changes to mine as far as what I want to get submitted.
Tom Phalen: I have an extra page and I will pass that around.
Bobbie: My question is about the proposed budget. We have duplicate line items. In programming, in programs you have a line item for lease purchase for equipment and then under administrative it is there again with a different amount.
Tom Phalen: We have for taxes, the American Lung Associates-they have 15% admin, 85% program services. We show 10% administrative and 90% program.
Bobbie: You have $600 for recorder under the trustee expenses, isn’t that paid for? Also the transcriber is only receiving $250.
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Tom: That needs to be updated then.
Patty: I think we also left TEC out there.
Bobbie: My other question is the NADCP, why is the number so high, when we only got approved $4000?
Tom: It is a template to work on, just to get something out there.
Lawrence: You have the common expenses and regional expenses. For this quarterly are they coming out of the common?
Tom: Yes, so spend some time on that figuring out what you are actually spending.
Tony: When a regional trustee has a convention coming up in their area they are traveling more the last 18 months. Are we budgeting that from somewhere else?
Patty: Yes it should come from Conventions.
Tony: It is coming from Trustees right now. So we stayed under budget. Are we going to change that since that is how we want it?
Patty: Yes.
Tom: So that should come to us and the conversation should be with Trevor.
Patty: But this one reflects Denver since it is 80/09.
Tom: Right, but we can modify 07/08, with better information.
John: This is historically a document that really needs input from the planning committees, not just the trustees. I assume you guys will be talking about this and kind of revise.
Carl: Are you sending a referral to the convention committee?
Tom: We are going to do that from Finance.
Patty: We thought finance should discuss it before they go to a committee to present it.
John: That is a good idea once it is adopted.
Nicholas: Is this revise report dramatically different? Do you still have concerns in under staffing?
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Kathy Jo. No it is not dramatically different. We are going to address that under a line item.
5A update and status on HFC 2
John B: I will let patty report on it because of her involvement on it recently.
Patty: They have printed the interior, exterior and by tomorrow it will be bound and ready. I spoke to them at 2:30 and they said they were ready. They wouldn’t let us come into document it, but they will take one picture of the first one as it gets bound.
Tony: Are we doing any 1st and 2nd edition together or any marketing or just here is the book.
Patty: The first part for the second first real printing is we need the H&I people to tell us if we have to sell it at $5. If we do then we are going to have to modify that. That was our first we need to know what our costs. Allow us to only sell soft cover in the H&I price category. Then we are intending to do our hardcover and soft cover. Which will not have the same discount. We want to do the anniversary 1st and 2nd bound together for our November 18th.
John B: Are you guys pretty up to speed for the reason there are only 3,000 copies. It handles the pre-orders, breaks even. At least we have it here for this event and it gets the word out.
Tony: Where are we on our inventory on HFC 1?
Patty: We had a lot, but we just sold 27 cases in the last four days. We don’t know if everyone thought if they ordered it in August they would get HFC 2. We had 15 cases on Wednesday and we had to order in house.
John: In Illinois we had 70 cases, 27 had been purchased. So we are around 50 cases.
Tony: I am interested in what it will be like. In other fellowships when they do a new edition they stop printing the first one.
Patty: Anyone who orders our book from now on they are going to get HFC 2, they will not get HFC 1.
John: This is the intention, the embodiment of our message.
Trevor: Are individual copies going to be for sale at the conference.
Patty: The WSOB has the intention to deliver the book to each delegate to take it back home with them.
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Carl: What are the individual costs of the hardcover, soft cover, and per case?
Patty: We don’t have hardbound yet. The prices we have, the per price is $15.95. I anticipate it will be closer to 17.95. The soft is 9.95. The people that pre-purchased paid $15 per book.
Nicholas: On the flyer about HFC 2, if you don’t live in America phone this number? Do you know how many people called about that? Do you know if you got any orders from outside the US?
Patty: There are 492 books pre-sold, Russell has a case. Less than 50 or so.
Nicholas: Any individuals? How much to ship it too them?
Patty: We sold it to them at the $15.
Nicholas: I am going to beg to see if I can take one to Spain. When will there be more to order? You’re going to have to ship them because there is only going to be 50 in Europe.
Patty: We have a couple of issues in this book that need to be addressed before we print, well that is completely not true. If I run out of those 3000 books, I will print them just like they are. I think LCF is ready to face those 4 or 5 issues we have right now. That should be ready by October 1st.
John: Recognizing that there is a need to keep H&I supply. It is nothing we are waiting on.
5B NADCP areas of concern
Tony: We are going to put that one on pause and move on.
5C European Office
Nicholas: Did members of the WSOB get the document that was forwarded? I am part of the subcommittee. We talked about it on the board and we think the wish and desire to have a European office. We wanted to bring it to this office that will help implement this. Is there still the wish or desire to have a European distribution hub? Any thoughts or comments on the NA model I quoted?
Patty: Yes, where are we going to get the money?!
Nicholas: Yes obviously. We are going to work on this and come back with more research. Any initial thoughts on how we could fund this?
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Patty: I think the best thing to do is to do an 18 month plan of fundraising, with two major fundraising events. These funds would be your seed money. This would be the ultimate in self-supporting. You know I want us to have a meeting over there.
Nicholas: If it is a world service office venture, would you put on the fundraisers?
Patty: I would love to do that.
John: Logistically it has always made sense to me to examine the cost benefit of having a distribution hub. I was never sure that that was going to be a regional office or an area office that we will piggy back on. We haven’t had much time to talk about this, but see it as an agenda item to work on throughout this year.
Nicholas: any thoughts or ideas on letting the book be printed over there.
John: Absolutely that is what we are talking about as far as cost benefit. It is a way to serve our members our customers over there more effectively. Not just cost but making sure people have what they need when they need it.
Tom: The thing I was thinking about what having a bank account there for EU currency. Books at world service and the conversion done at your end that would absolve some of the cash flow issues.
Nicholas: If I continue to work on this as the lead of the subcommittee and we can continue to communicate on this.
John: Yes that would go through earl between the two boards. Let me ask a question; at this point is it on your agenda or n the LTP part?
Bobbie: We are going to leave it also on the international structure and development and we are also going to work on it as a board.
John: And it seems logical that we will put it on our agenda for regular updates and we keep that loop up as well.
5B NADCP areas of concern
Bobbie: On that item, I am showing you all this to get an idea. We went with this, Nick brought me this. This would be quick, we wouldn’t have to worry about the letter, and they would go home with that. It contains posters; they have their meeting schedule in it, world contacts, and info lines. This is just an example. We don’t have all this, like the NA one, but that is ok. In their pamphlet it is directed just to the drug court professional. I wanted to get together a referral to PI, we could put together one for the drug court professionals saying this is who we are. We would like to see us getting started on this. They do not have to worry about getting something late; they are going to go home with it. As far as for next year, I sent it to Earl. Cynthia did a time line pass it on. 90 days out
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we are here, it is a full plan. The only thing that was left out was who does the database when we get back home. If we can do this the mail out is a simple and a cost saver, we are sending them one sheet of paper in an envelope instead of a packet with high postage costs. I did my best to save us money. We wanted to see us go in there as a professional. Now we have better ideas and know what we want to be there.
Patty: The UK has 1500 pounds a month to spend on their PI information outreach. We have no budget on World. You were discussing on how to reduce your NADCP costs and then you just gave me a piece that is going to cost us $4000 to produce.
John: Well maybe not so much. It is a good idea.
Patty: No but if you don’t reduce your budget if you left it at $7000 and we only spent $4000, there it is. Not that I told you to spend any money.
Tony: I think you can easily argue that the largest growing area is the UK.
Patty: The literature that is created in the NA handout was done by the office staff and not the PI people. One of the ideas we have for the new office director position is that they work towards communication and raising money for those certain things. It doesn’t need to be done by a committee that does not have all the information. We can work on that ourselves. See if it works and then bring it to the committee and say this works.
Bobbie: I remember it being approved on the conference floor. So we can use this.
Patty: The pricing of that to print this is $5 in the US, we don’t know if we have anyone who will buy it at that price so we have to find that out first.
Bobbie: Who are we trying to get to buy this? Our PI people, they might if it is available. I see what you are saying. You move stuff, what is not being spent. We have the money we just need to move it around.
Tom: Not necessarily.
Bobbie: If you say so. I know it can be done, it is weather or not we really want it to be done.
Patty: We are out of room on our section we borrowed it from Ya’ll.
John: This is what makes this time in my life incredible. Goals, objectives, planning; it’s a process. Maybe we speculate a little bit, we talk to Tom a little bit. After this year I think all things are possible. I believe the first step in all of this is where you guys got together and said we want to create a position that deals with this specifically. We will get a lot of more focused attention. The office was always serving a lot of needs through one channel. I know we will do better the next time we go to that event.
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Tom: We just move things around, the net effect is 0. The truth about this last year, while it shows you a positive result you guys were there throughout the year. I am telling you that things didn’t look good up until the end. In June we got a surge of 7th tradition and a not successful convention, but a successful financial convention. If you took out the auction then it would have been at a significant loss. Our revenue and projected numbers are high. We are going to look at this in the finance committee.
Carl: Did you ever consider touching the prudent reserve this year?
Tom: Did we ever think we were going to loose money, yes. Patty kept an eagle eye on everything out there. Things that were budgeted may have not gotten spent.
5D Creating a new position on WSOB, international liaison officer
Nicholas: We are now going to call it, Customer service sensitivity awareness. I am at the sharp end of; “I phoned the office and they didn’t understand what I was talking about. I know I am Swedish but my English isn’t that bad, I live in Holland Nick can you help me. I live in Australia what is the WSO number”, EC T. Only one person in this entire room noticed that I left one with five mistakes from the Swedish chap. Most people, who phone the office from Europe, don’t have English as a first language. I have to edit all their reports, one I just left one. Monica had a problem, she talked to a couple people at the office and she had trouble getting her point across. If we can be more aware that this is difficult for foreigners to get their point across. Could I be CC’d in, “Nicholas I am having trouble here could you phone this person. I need to phone them up, I do speak some Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Italian, and French. I am not privy to the telephone calls. They tell me my delegate mailing did not come from 6 weeks after the person in Utah. Do the people who don’t live in America get posted first because it has further to go? Or do you post it last cause it costs more money and you are afraid you are going to run out? Some of them do not get them four or five weeks later than the rest.
Patty: No we don’t send them last. At least two years ago, we went to sending DHL or united posts. That includes Canada, but we have no problem with them. The direction is if it is not USA, that those labels get put on the special mailing where we are spending considerably more money to send it. If that is true that she did not receive it, I believe the service says 10 days. We contacted the company and we got a refund from them. It is 10 business days; all international says 10 business days. It will not be quickly as California.
John: I hear a larger issue; we have this new dynamic to contend with. This is not something we spend a lot of time on. I think the focus will shift. All of the document creations we do are now thought of with a more global perspective. We have to be more sensitive. A larger initiative, in please in all the work that we do, in the delivery of all those projects that those outcomes are speaking to many different cultures and languages. I think that this is also part of the new position that you are petitioning to the conference. I think it is great to create new operating procedures.
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Nicholas: Is everyone offered an electronic copy. I could sell the idea, would it be possible to send it electronically and then follow it up with a paper copy. But then do away eventually with the paper copies all together. Would that be beneficially financially?
Patty: The Conference committee is working on that, they put the checkmark on there. The intention for me is that I send you an email that says go to the website it is there to print out.
Nicholas: So at the moment the only way is to get it to them by postal.
Patty: Or they may email me and I can get it to them. The Conference committee may finish that this year. They are working towards that.
Nicholas: If they do not get it within 10 days in the mail, then they should contact you?
Patty: Yes. My intention is to make it electronic. If you are going to give me a small list, I am sure the conference committee will allow me to send it to them.
Tony: I have signed up for that electronic version, three times. My wife and I both get separate copies, it is very expensive to spend it to print and mail all that twice!
John: To your point Nick, as long as the conference committee includes in its things peoples last names then we have to remain sensitive to that. If there was a registered list that we could verify. There are other policies that we have to include. Along as these were verified email addresses. It is database management.
Carl: Most of the trustees have a Yahoo group, you could send it to the yahoo group and we can disperse it from there. Therefore people are not getting duplicate copies. We have all our groups set up. That may just be an ideal for an office, utilize us as your outsource.
5E review of 12 point literature and publishing process.
Tony: We had this an a agenda item. Have you drafted anything to bring to this conference?
Patty: I wrote a referral and sent it to LCF.
Tony: Following these referrals is, LCF has been part of the problem. We don’t know if the problem is going to fix the problem. I can’t fix my own addiction. If it means the WSOB and WSBT crafting something down the road, we are committed to that. This is such a broken process, it needs to be fixed.
Patty: Their people, they are not following structure. LCF directly communicating with the webservant is not in our structure. Because then we do not know what is happening on there. Bringing it back in line of our structure, that is a big one. It wasn’t just the
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webmaster, it was the NewsGram and it was someone else. The other one that is they want to have a printed proof that their whole committee wants to approve before we let the printer go. That is ok if you want to pay. A proof on this book was $850 for each additional proof. Now on the welcome pamphlet, newcomer, the proof was $32 each and they wanted a dozen or so of those sent out. The longer we go between it being signed off and it coming back the higher the price it is on the press. The company we are working with has a printer to make proofs. Most of the printers we are working with do not have a proof printing process. They just set it up and do it. The argument I am having is that the electronic copy is approved, let us take it from there. You decide what you want it to say not where it goes on the page.
5f Follow up on vendor licensing and process.
Jay: I was curious about where are we in terms of process, all that.
John B: I saw the agenda item and said do we have anyone signed up yet? No, they are not beating down the doors. We do have a couple people that it is out to. It has been distributed for this purpose, but we do not have any vendor license.
5L Hotel Bill-CAWS 2007
Hayward: The names, Allen, Lawrence and John Whitaker.
Patty: Allen W. was the speaker we did pay his room. Lawrence D. I don’t know who that is, so I had the hotel take them off the bill. I took the $350 off the bill. John W was late in the registration process so in order to get him in the block we put him on. The hotel was supposed to take him off, they did not. He was billed back and has paid his bill. Many people here have paid their bills. Some people have not, Jahi is one of those people.
Bruce: Lawrence is the Massachusetts area chair and he did not belong on there. He rented a suite and was there by himself. He was charged for one day and he figured sooner or later he would billed correctly.
Patty: He will probably just have a charge on his card from the Hotel.
5G spending guidelines
Tony: I believe Earl updated you, but I will read you the motion that got passed at our quarterly that will go into the WSBT finance committee guidelines. “It is the policy of the WSBT that effective immediately all expenditures by the WSOB in excess of $2000 be approved by the WSBT before expenditure, unless an item is already a part of the unaltered conference approved budget for that item. It is the policy of the WSBT that effective immediately that all WSOB transfers by and among WSO accounts in excess of $3500 be approved be approved by the WSBT for transfer. It is the policy of the WSBT that effective immediately that all increases and decreases in pay of any paid employee of
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WSOB in excess of 3% in any one time or an excess of 5% annually be approved b y the WSBT before the increase or decrease.”
John: Thank you. I did receive that from Earl, I did not get it out to everyone. It is always good in a manager and employee relationship to understand the basis and facts for these decisions. Can you share a little of your thought process behind this decisions?
Tony: There were certain numbers out there of the way we had just always done it, but no one could really find it documented. I was recently asked and did some research and other than the $500 contracts for the T and C. We also got some feedback from the WSOB at times was unclear of what needed approval and what didn’t. Now we have something documented and we can move forward and can adjust it as necessary. When you tell me this is the way we do it, because that is what we have always done that is a good way to get me to not listen.
John: In the first part, unaltered conference approved budget. What do you mean?
Jay: Knowing that there are times when the budget is moved between line items. The intent was that there might be a change to a line item internally. Whatever the perceived budget was at the conference.
John: Kind of a way of honoring the conscious of the conference. In some cases we have found that the conference was not as well informed as it might have been in various spending situations. Under the way this is written we would still be able to come to you and say they were not informed and we need to make an alteration.
Jay: It was just a threshold that we wanted to be said; Earl said there might be more motions. We haven’t turned one down yet.
John: There are real specific thresholds here as well, on the topic of salaries. I think the whole point of this motion is to set a benchmark so we don’t go crazy. This takes a little bit of, I always wonder about when the authority to act as a manger or the authority to select a threshold of our incremental award or something like that is limited. It concerns me; I don’t think that 5% is an unreasonable number . It is just concerning from a managerial standpoint. You guys are the principal financial planners and I respect that. I just get concerned; this does the job that someone may have already decided on. We will rely on you to get what ever expenditures we need approved.
Tony: Anything of excess of 5% was always what it was. We just wanted to get it down on paper. The intent was not to limit what you can do as a manager.
Kathy Jo: When the final verbiage comes out in the finance. In the 2006 WSM page 46 the last two paragraphs talks about the board of directors and the spending committee an they have nothing in there about the limitations.
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Tony: This is not going in the WSM for the finance committee. This is internal for the WSBT financial guidelines. So it just exists between us and the office board.
Kathy Jo: When it is in conflict with what is in the manual, should it be clarified?
Tony: The manual can be verified, the new language is not going to be put in the manual.
Patty: I didn’t get the memo yet today, the $3500 transfer; I don’t care what the number is. Whatever the number was we had before, we had a 90 day period. This does not have that? I could transfer 3200 every other day and I don’t have to tell you. I am going have to transfer 2000 here and there. Now you are involved in the day to day because now you are talking about my cash. So when you are tying my hands, but if you make it like it was before like $5000 in 90 days that is much more reasonable. It should have a day limit. I like $5000 better in 90 days. Put in something there so no one ever abuses this. My employee thing, I don’t have it in writing there are two exceptions. I give you minimum wage and then you have 90 days to come to your rate that is outside the 5%. I would like that as an exception, after the 90 day period I will ask permission. Can I get, I know I am going to do a review; can I get it approved from you like a pre-approved loan? Can I make the request and maybe not cash it in and then tell you what I did later. Because if you are involved in that decision now, you need to be involved in the whole decision which is like, I make a decision that it is the end of the year and we actually achieved our goals and I am going to give them the 3%. Then I sit down in the review process and say here is what I saw, you achieved the one goal and I think that is only worth 1 or 2 %, and they came back and say no I achieved these other goals and now I changed my mind and give them the 3%, what is my time line? I want to say I already have trustee approval. I want a pre-approval to make the decision. I want to come back and say I didn’t take the full option; this is what I decided on in the review.
Jay: Some of these things I have never seen written down. I can honestly say this is the first I have heard of the 90 day transfer. Our intent today was to get something down where everyone in this room could look and see what it was. Then to bring it back here for the next board to change, we know that there was going to be some tweaks to it. This was our effort to get something down. The 5% raise has been bugging us, because we couldn’t find it anywhere. You make some good points, but let us get it written down.
John: We never had an occasion to worry about that 90 day number; I was on that board that declared that be the policy.
Bobbie: Where it is going to be placed so it can be found and that is where we talked about putting in under finance committee WSBT’s finance committee. We were talking about putting it in the manual. The reason we new we had seen the number and the word expenditure was that it was in the manual. If we would have to place it here also noting that although they would have to do some research also they would still have to follow the manual to make it match.
Tom: I was thinking about some changes that we may want to bring back to you.
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Earl: Initially this goes into the WSBT finance subcommittee as a part of the description of what the committee does and the approval process. It would have a home where the document policy lived and that is where it will be. If we want to change it between the boards we would leave it there until we fine tuned the process. Then we could put it in the manual instead of putting it in there and changing the manual five times.
Tony: The portion in the manual talks about the WSO’s spending committee; it has nothing to do with us approving anything.
5H address Vice chair’s concerns
Kathy Jo: I still have concerns about our office staffing, especially after the convention and going to NADCP, standing rule 14 that has to go out fast, we have our fiscal year that hits fast right after the convention, we can hardly reconcile our receipts. We are working off the same amount of staff that we have throughout the year. I think we need to think about having some sort of payroll fund that can sit there and pull in temp staff sometimes. I think that my experience has been that we need to look at staffing at times of May, June, July that are excessively heavy. We are planning a conference on top of all that.
Jay: The language in your report was slightly different; I saw concerns about under-staffed, concerns about not getting your reimbursement and how to get that especially when you have convention issues and advances. It was a little broader than what you just said. I love your report it talks about some of the detail. I want to make sure your being heard. It is a concern about you not getting your money back.
Kathy Jo: Yes, the out of pocket part I just don’t know how to reconcile that. Is it not co-mingling when I am out of pocket on behalf of CA. How we reconcile that amongst ourselves. Why do we advise our other people?
Tony: From the auction standpoint, the auction chairs are supposed to be coming to the treasurers and requesting checks for those funds. There is a budgeted item and they should get checks from their treasurer and committee. There is a process that they can follow, it makes it a little more cumbersome.
Kathy Jo: Amanda sent us a check saying this is what it cost for the basket, but there was no receipt.
Tony: If we cut a check how did she come out of pocket?
Kathy Jo: Well she did we had a check and we sent it and she spent it and then she turned in receipts. I think that went around the process because it was so late.
Patty: Amanda was afforded outside the process based on a personal understanding of her possibilities. I knew if I gave Amanda a $450 check, she was going to give me receipts
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for $500. I don’t feel that with others. Often it is not auctions, more often with the food in hospitality. They go out of pocket more frequently on site. Because we don’t have a relationship with people out of town, WSOB has not been willing to take the risk. Kathy Jo is addressing that we do not take the risk with people we do not know. We don’t afford them this; it is one of the ways that we do business. You know that is the way we do it and are you guys ok with that?
Tony: I misunderstood your question.
Earl: I am really concerned about your statement, Kathy Jo “I’m still waiting for reimbursement for out of pocket costs” not aware of a reimbursement request from you or a problem from you. When did you submit the request?
Kathy Jo: A week or two after the convention.
Earl: Is there are reason it did not get on our agenda or was it not approved?
Patty: It is approved, what got in the year end, we entered in the computer, and the actual paper did not get sent to the accountant so he wouldn’t write the check.
Earl: We had it requested but we didn’t have backup for the check and because of that he wouldn’t write the check.
Kathy Jo: I provided that but it got lost in the year end shuffle.
Earl: I would like to expedite your reimbursement.
Patty: The check is in my room.
Kathy Jo: This is why my request came about more staffing, you have to take care of business and it is hard.
Tom: I am always amazed at how effectively business like this is take care. Once in a while this happens and thank you for bringing it to our attention. You are the only one that this has ever happened to.
John: I was really proud of the office this quarter for achieving full staffing. I have gone two years now without a director and we had full staff for a minute. WE are sensitive to it and Kathy Jo’s needs and concerns are well put. It is interesting because her concerns and our concerns. It is not something that we are overlooking in lui of cash flow necessarily. I don’t think any of you got to meet him, but it was perfectly staffed for one time. Additionally it concerns me, I never want anyone going out of pocket to do our business. Some people personally chose to do it, but it would never be an expectation. Probably needs to be talked about, we are happy to pay for the expenses but we don’t know the write amounts to get to everyone. I am not sure it is a decision that we can make ourselves. Maybe we should make some referrals and get it to the right people.
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Nicholas: Bullet point 3- still need to get back into the loop of why I am not allowed on yahoo group. Who can explain it?
Kathy Jo: I was in the yahoo group and then somehow when I tried to log in my convention committee wasn’t in my yahoo groups. I am out of the loop.
Tony: If you see me this week, I can help with that.
Kathy Jo: When we talked about money saving things. We talked about not having a trustee quarterly meeting. Another thing that happens, even as we speak is adding a trustee line item to the convention expenses. The board of directors are the last ones to get anything back from the conventions. It was stated that if we could move the line items around it will and stuff. If we could I would sure start paying myself back for expenses. But we cant because we don’t even have a line item on there. So I just wanted you to know that the very first line of defense of overspending is not paying us back so I don’t want any misconceptions. We would do that before we would not have a quarterly meeting for you guys. This year we just got a half a room night.
Tony Drake: I am going to take letter I off, I think we covered that previously.
5J WSOB referrals
Kathy Jo: Motion was made by Patty to add a remote director position and this will go to S&B so that we can have one person outside the 120 mile radius as like a online person. The next referral is to add a pre-convention spending guideline to convention guideline; there is nothing in the convention that talks about pre-convention only something in there that talks about at the convention money handling. The next is convention guidelines to replace the references to office manager and replace it with responsible office staff-kind of house keeping to get rid of a title that we may not always have. The fourth referral is finance and to H&I, the HFC be available for $5, with no discount for the hardcover. The fifth one to convention committee, add in the convention guidelines to add a registration form checkbox for “send me information on the contr ibution program”. The last one was to LCF to change the literature pamphlet and all LCF processes to be more realistically reflective of consideration inherent in the publishing and publication process. Those were the referrals that we as a board are going to be put out.
John: I believe there was a revised literature process document that will be presented this year?
Bruce: I recall some discussion on that in the conference calls and I have seen the 12 point literature process from last year. I am not sure to what extent the changes are. I believe they are not fundamental changes, they are minimum corrections.
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John: Were that issue to be raised in advanced, regarding this process, that would be an opportunity to perhaps present an opposing point of view to that. I don’t know how they intend to present that.
Bobbie: I was wondering about the first one, adding remote director position. Is this an additional to make it 11, when you say remote.
Tom: Yes, outside of the 120 mile radius,
Tony: I think the thought was there are talents outside the 120 mile radius and right now according to the manual we can’t do that.
5K 25th anniversary merchandise
Kathy Jo: Was it because we were spending money and we weren’t sure weather we needed approval for the expenditures from this board. I think that is why it is on here.
Hayward: We went back and forth on that. Where does that $4000 come from?
Tom: The budget for the items for which there is inventory is, its not like these other budgeted line items. The intent is not to sell it. We don’t really budget our costs. If we sell more we end up having to buy more.
Patty: A miracle happens and on my sales for C&L it goes from 180 to 250,000 automatically my purchases for C&L are outside my budget. Because I budgeted for 180,000, but I sell 250,000 I am going to do $117,000 in purchases of C&L. It could be a budget line item but no one would ever look at it. I run out of stuff I buy some more stuff. Even though it is budgeted it is relational, and if it is relational were not going to pay attention to it. You can’t have more expense on that line if you don’t reach your goal. As long as it stays in proportion then it is ok.
Tony: Would you consider 25th anniversary to fall under that. This is a special project. This isn’t just a book or chips that you would consider part of the routine sales and purchase cycle.
Patty: That could be a way you look at it. In fact I am not reaching my revenue goals, so I have to be generating something to get there. Which most likely will be in the form of a new product which will stay relational.
Tom: The perfect example, we have sold in the last four days 10% of the whole year. We will be ordering more inventory then we anticipated. This is an item outside the normal operations, that’s why were are talking about it. How it shows up as inventory. It sits in our balance sheet as inventory. If it doesn’t get sold, then we write off the inventory. In the meantime it is sitting as an asset.
Bobbie: Are we only talking about the coin that Hayward showed us.
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Patty: I don’t know, I don’t think that I need to b ring in the coin specifically either. I just brought it because we didn’t know.
Bobbie: Are you just trying to come up with something to meet the remainder of the goal that you haven’t reached?
Patty: I will not reach the goal. I am $65,000 short on revenue we better think of some new items. I mean income.
Bobbie: Ok meeting your ideal goal.
Patty: I see a goal that there is no chance of me achieving. I already have the expense you guys, lovingly adjusted the relationship. The rate that we are selling chips at this moment we are never going to reach that goal. I have to do something else to generate income.
Tom: An expression of appreciation to the trustees, whatever you did to generate that surge of contributions in June was short of amazing!
Theresa: We have a special 25th anniversary version of the Newsgram that we are going to be working on. Here is my pitch to solicit articles for the Newsgram. We want it to look pretty cool, if you would like to submit something special for this addition you can find me or Cynthia this week that would be fabulous.
Jay: Motion to adjourn this board to board.
Trevor: Second
MEETING CLOSED WITH PRAYER
REPORTS
World Service Office Board Chairperson Quarterly Report to the World Service Board of Trustees August 2007
General Remarks
Welcome to Conference week. Once again it is my privilege to report to you on the status of our World Service Office operations and special projects of the World Service Office Board of Directors.
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Again I am happy to report that I have been very pleased with the professional direction that the WSO is headed presently. This quarter represents the first in some time that full staffing was achieved for most of the period. The result is an increasingly tightly knit team environment with a renewed enthusiasm for the work. As you will note in the Director of Operations report, the training of the new office manager is progressing well, and on schedule.
I would like to thank the WSBT for its swift attention to the policy writing that the WSOB has undertaken in the last two quarters. This has made it possible to implement and make available much anticipated procedures and information critical to our international outreach and vendor relationships.
Perhaps the most exciting news to report this quarter is that after more than 19 versions, the WSO received a final sign-off by the LCF subcommittee on HFC2 and was able to present to the WSOB a final review copy for production. At this writing, I am happy to announce that the board approved that copy and the book is now in the hands of the printer. It is proposed that a limited “first run” of HFC2 will be delivered and available for sale at this year’s conference event. I would like to particularly acknowledge the diligence of the LCF storybook sub-committee as well as Patty Flanagan and Teresa Neighbors for the tireless efforts to communicate effectively and bring this work to its ultimate completion. Similarly, I would like to thank all the WSOB members that throughout the year participated in the successful completion of several important projects.
We are very pleased to share your vision for a re-structured World Service Office organization, and look forward to conference adopting this important growth and development opportunity.
The WSOB shall remain focused on key issues Among these is the publishing, effective marketing and release of HFC II, literature translation, vendor licensing, new royalty agreements, Newsgram publication, Web Operations and seemingly ongoing process of WSOB director recruiting.
Composition of the WSOB
One WSOB Director Position remains vacant, but we continue to recruit and are presently collecting resumes. At this point we have only been able to forward one potentially qualified Director Resume. Experienced and or willing candidates continue to be difficult to recruit. I have not given up hope yet, however, that we will ultimately attract increasingly high caliber of Director Candidate as new programs and international outreach and growth continues. We continue to recruit using several methods including direct, email, Pacific South Yahoo group, and announcements at the Pacific South regional events and meetings. We are continually searching and will keep you advised of our progress.
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The Webservant is working well with the office and will be reporting under separate cover for this quarterly and conference event. The WSO will distribute a Newsgram during conference week. Quality continues to improve thanks to Cynthia C’s efforts.
The office manager is now regularly attending WSOB meeting and makes regular reports under the Director of operations report.
CAWSO
WSOB wishes to express its confidence and thanks to Patty Flanagan and Office Manager Robin Long, as well as all the staff, for there fine work outstanding customer service in the last quarter. I would like to take this opportunity to ask the WSBT’s understanding where I ineffectively communicated to the office, the decision made at the quarterly, to include two cases of books for the National Drug Court meeting in Washington D.C. recently. For this I apologize. I have great faith that we will be thoroughly prepared for next year’s event.
HFC
Completed. Delivery of first run slated for late August 2007.
Translations
A CAWS Policy on translations has been completed and approved by the WSOB and WSBT.
Vendor Licensing
A CAWS Policy on Vendor License has been completed and approved by the WSOB and WSBT.
Thank you for letting me be of service,
John Bodkin
World Service Office Board Chairperson
- Kansas City – 2007 Convention
- Attended and diligently worked on-site with Auction Coordinator as needed.
- Prepped receipts for reimbursement for out-of-pocket Auction-related expenses
- Participated in the Pacific South Regional meeting at convention
- Salt Lake City – 2008 Convention
- Reviewed Registration form and provided extensive list of fixes
- Brought forth concerns re: convention packages and associated costs
- WSC Convention Committee
- Attended Convention Committee meeting
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- Still need to get back in the loop regarding why I am not allowed on
- I spent much time reviewing other organization’s bid process. As a member of the sub-committee for bid substantiation, I hope to spearhead an effort to make updates to our convention bidding process and guidelines.
- World Service Conference 2006
- Discussed conference PowerPoint slides with Miss Patty – we hope to have a more polished WSOB report this year.
- Updated referral tracking for WSOB to review for possible items we would like to submit at Conference
- Subcommittee on Intellectual Property (was Reprint Policy sub-committee)
- Facilitated monthly sub-committee meetings.
Vendor License Agreement
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- Agreement and Certificate provided to WSBT for review and sign-off
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WSOB Translation Policy
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- Provided final copy to Hayward for sending to WSBT for review and sign-off
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- Miscellaneous
- Completed evaluation form for Director of Operations
- Reviewed HFCII as time allowed
- Reviewed the 2-Director Plan and provided feedback to Earl regarding same
- 1st Quarter CONCERN:
- Office is under-staffed and unable to produce all conference mandated articles (see 1st Qtr report for more details).
- 2nd Quarter follow-up to the above concern: WSO staffing is in a transition period which opens the door for a bit of office re-organization. I believe that the direction that this transition is taking will eventually resolve my concerns.
- 3rd Quarter follow0-up: I continue to have concerns regarding office staffing and the ability of the staff to keep current. We may need to think about hiring extra bookkeeping for year end. The timing of year-end accounting and the close of the CAWS convention causes many financial items to be delayed – e.g. I am still waiting on reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses incurred in May…it is now August and I am over $300 in the h ole…our guidelines say we should not mingle personal and CAWSO monies; dunno how to get around this catch 22 unless CAWSO wants to front me money for what is asked of me as a Director.
ILAS,
Kathy Jo
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August 16, 2007
Cocaine Anonymous World Service Office Board Treasurer’s Report
The year ended with revenues over expenses, (net income), of a little over Fourteen thousand dollars. Primarily, this positive result can be attributed to convention income exceeding the goal along with overall expenses coming in slightly less than budgeted.
Throughout the year, revenues, primarily seventh tradition lagged behind budget causing concern that needed revenues would not be available to offset budgeted expenses. A surge in contributions in June produced a positive financial result for the fellowship. The fellowship is solid in its financial affairs and at the same time should “continue to take our inventory as a fellowship, searching out our flaws and confessing them freely. Let us devote ourselves to the repair of faulty relations that may exist, whether within or without.
And above all, let us remember that great legion who still suffer from alcoholism, (cocaine addiction), and who are still without hope. Let us, at any cost or sacrifice, so improve our communication with all these that they may find what we have found-a new life of freedom under God”. Bill W., AA Grapevine, February 1961
While our year end result was positive, lets remember to remind the groups, districts, areas and committees of the financial guidelines set forth by the fellowship so that our primary purpose of carrying the message to the still suffering addict can continue to be fulfilled in God’s will.
World Service Office Board
Director At Large
Yearly Report 2007
- Worked on the LTC sub-committee of the WSOB, producing a document that has been approved by the WSBT.
- Worked throughout the year on the vendor licensing agreement sub-committee of the WSOB, bringing forth a final draft, that has been forwarded to the WSBT for there approval.
- Worked throughout the year, serving on both the Unity and PI conference committees. I started the year as the WSC Unity Chair and has since stepped down once ratified as director, but continue to be apart of unity. I just recently stepped into PI, but none the less have been available to serve.
- This has been a learning year for me and I can honestly say I have a new respect for the work that is being done in Cocaine Anonymous. I have learned a lot in a short time and I now that I have a lot more to learn and am willing to step up to the plate to ensure the job gets done. I thank you all for your vote of confidence and will continue to grow along spiritual lines, serving a fellowship that has help save my life.
Respectfully submitted
Willie B.
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WSOB Secretary
Quarterly Report
August 9, 2007
I. Drug Court
A. Had the pleasure of participating in the Drug Court Conference as a representative of the CAWSO.
B. Made several new contacts/connections within my own vicinity and around the world. Was surprised at the lack of awareness of C.A.
B. Re-wrote letter to be sent out and worked on merging database to prepare for mailing.
C. Researched data on locations for possible local meetings or for connecting them with contacts where no meetings were anywhere nearby to assist in starting C.A. in their area.
II. NewsGram
A. Communicating with Editor to ensure timely completion of NewsGram for Conference.
B. Working as liaison for WSO and Editor to ensure timely and effective production.
C. Working as liaison for fellowship and Editor to solicit submissions.
III. Secretarial Archiving
A. Organizing and maintaining all Board Meeting related documents in both electronic form and paper form (in 2 locations).
B. Forwarding meeting minutes and reports/documents to Trustees monthly.
IV. LCF
A. Worked diligently on the editing and production process if HFCII to its final stage.
B. Participate in on-line discussion and conference-calls whenever possible.
C. Function as liaison for the Committee and WSO.