CA WORLD SERVICE BOARD OF TRUSTEES REGULAR QUARTERLY MEETING MINUTES
February 15- 17, 2008 Final Approved Minutes
(Approved by WSBT for distribution on May 20, 2008)
Since this report is a confidential CA document, for members only, it contains 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.).
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WSBT February 2008 Quarterly
Los Angeles, California
Friday, February 15, 2008
Opened meeting with a moment of silence and the Serenity Prayer
Introductions:
In Attendance:
Kim Sherwan, MWRT
Lawrence Matlock, ASRT
Trevor Scheible, PNRT/Secretary
Carl Warlick, PSRT/Chair
Bobbie Harmon, TAL/ Acting SWRT /Vice Chair
Earl Henderson, WSOT
Bruce Watson, ANRT
Nicholas Lynn, ERT
Hayward Hunt, WST
Off the record for personal sharing
Reading of the 12 traditions: Earl Henderson
Taken out of order:
Review of Agenda-add the following
2008.02.08-Online Service Area selling speaker CDs
2008.02.09Venue for meeting locations
2007.11.03 Implementing the DOO
Carl: In everyone’s region, Lawrence had this problem regarding what to put on flyers or directories. Should we put churches names, buildings’ names? I know we already discussed this once, but we need to discuss this again. He had this problem again in Georgia.
Earl: We dealt with this already a couple years ago, Tony and Jay, it’s in the archives.
Kim: Isn’t that some kind of meeting location tradition violation.
Hayward: It helps define the location of the event.
Bobbie: Venue for meeting locations.
Hayward: We are looking to craft some kind of policy on that?
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Carl: Some type of policy or we will go into archive and check there. Kim did you want to talk about that thing about the convention under new business or under convention?
Kim: I guess under new business, Brian T. sent a letter that I will forward to you all so you can review it before then.
Carl: Ok, that is 2008.02.10.
Trevor: I would like to add on there SR14 issue that I would like us to discuss, about the Saskatchewan folks joining the southern Alberta area. Traditionally they were never an area, but they belonged to Kim, the Manitoba Area. They have since joined Southern Alberta. They showed up at the last area and wanted to be a district. I want to make sure you are all ok with it before I just show up and petition for it.
Carl: Ok, 2008.02.11, is there anything else?
Bruce: I have a question from Southern Ontario; they want to know why they cannot get HFC vol. 1? That could be addressed in the board to board.
Carl: Take a quick look at the board to board agenda to see if there is anything we need to bring there.
Earl: Do you show through item I, do you show J being theme and logo-2009? From last night’s board meeting, we want to talk to you folks about the theme and logo from 2009.
Bruce: Southern Ontario, they want to get HFC 1 and 2, in English and they cannot get one.
Carl: Ok we are down to L-cant get HFC 1-Bruce.
Kim: Item B-says logo
Earl: Oh that was added? I did not see that on my copy.
Carl: Okay let’s take it off of item B and leave it there at K. We need to bring that issue up with the WSOB about 2010?
Kim: Yes.
****Break for Board to Board****
Ended session at 11:22pm, we will reconvene at 9am on Saturday, February 16th.
Reconvene at 9:16am on Saturday, February 16, 2008
Read and Discuss tradition 12: Hayward
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Read and Discuss Tradition 8: Read by Carl
Earl: This is perfect for this time of year, they are talking about 12th step work and that needs to remain unprofessional. There is work that needs to be done, go ahead and hire those people that need to do it.
Hayward: Anyone ever heard of those that charge to sponsor people?
Nicholas: Sober Coaching
Earl: I thought about it at one time, because he was a handful and he could afford it. I have been paid many times over.
Carl: Bobbie and I were looking over the agenda and some things hit me that this would be the time of the year to look at this tradition and concept 9, which is very import for what we are doing right now. Some of the discussion that we had and reviewing tradition 8 in the long form it talks about hiring one particular guy who was around the clubhouse. They kept asking him to do things and he said what you want is a janitor. That tradition really came out to be the way that we do pay our workers. I am in the belief that we are going to hire the best possible candidate that we should be willing to give them the appropriate amount of money. We can pay some one at the office but I don’t think we need to pay someone $ 45,000 to pass out chips that would be really inappropriate. When I first came around here I was shocked and appalled that someone would be paid to work at WS, what an honor and privilege it would be to work there. Then someone said if I am here putting in 8-14 hours a day, then I need to be compensated for my time.
Lawrence: I was thinking about both of them together. We are starting to embark on selection of the Director of Operstion. We came up with the process and the questions. We going to have discussion and put the best one in. Then too in the coming months we are going put our process together for the election of the trustees and put the best possible one in there too. We will continue to function at the level that this board has come to get this thing going and growing.
Concept 9:
Trevor: One of the things I have been thinking about with this Director of operations process that we have been going through. We are really not just picking someone as a manager, we are picking a director of the fellowship and we are granting that person full rights. They will have an equal vote and an equal voice. Today is not only a pretty big task, but also a huge honor to get to be a part of that. It is something that I have been trying to keep in mind as we go forward with this process.
Carl: Even at picking the greeter at your home group, that is a still a huge task. You could pick someone like me who was new to stand at your door or you could pick someone that was a friendly face, like I saw when I got there. I really like this concept says at all levels. It goes down to the greeter, the coffee person, the clean -up. It is indispensable at all levels.
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Kim: Trusting the process, there are guidelines. I have been in meetings where people say they are just suggested, yeah but when you have a GSR in a meeting who only has 30 days is that the wisest? We have these guidelines in process, to trust those guidelines and to respect them. I have sat in meetings and I may love the person running for GSR, but I have too much information. It is about respecting what we have put into place and those who have come before us, honoring that.
Nicholas: people are so quick to railroad people in; it will be good for them. At 29 days how do you know what is good for them? Make the tea and they have never made tea. The group is responsible for choosing the right person. When someone says that they are only suggested, it is usually because it says something they didn’t like. When jumping out of an airplane we suggest you wear a parachute. The office manager is really important, but so is the person that greats. She or he is the person they see. I couldn’t even do the greeting properly. The last part says, “Future functioning and safety”, so we can continue and carry on. There is no lowly position in CA.
Bobbie: At home, up until five or six years ago they were not practicing tradition 9. Because some one was my buddy or pall, even though I saw they could not manage their own finances. I am going to make sure that he gets in; I am going to rally him in. I hear you talking about the greeter position that we no longer have. I see them putting in a secretary with 60 days at the area meetings and they waive the rules cause it will be good for here. Then they watch her relapse and they get mad when we ask her to step down. We need someone who relapse it the last thing on their minds. We mix our friendships with the best service leaders. Back in the day Bill and Bob have already gone through this. Concept 9 is so important.
Chairpersons remarks-none
Approval of minutes
Bobbie: I make a motion to approve the minutes from the November 2007 WSBT/ WSOB, January 2008 Conference call, the October 2007 Conference call, excluding November 2007 WSBT Quarterly.
Bruce: Second
Kim: Trevor did you receive the corrections from me for the January conference call?
Trevor: Yes I did.
Earl: They were incorporated into what we are approving now.
Trevor: yes the master copy that I will post after it is passed.
Carl: Motion passed.
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Approval of online business between November 2007 and February 2008
Bobbie: Motion to approve the record of online business between November 2007 and February 2008 Quarterly meeting.
Hayward: Second
Carl: Passed
WSBT Officers’ reports
Bobbie: Motion to approve the officers’ reports (Chair and vice chair), excluding the secretary’s report to be approved online.
Hayward: Second
Carl: Motion passed.
Trustees’ reports
Bobbie: Motion to approve all the trustees’ reports
Hayward: Second
Carl: Motion passed.
WSBT subcommittee reports
Bobbie: Motion to approve WSBT subcommittee reports.
Hayward: Second, Kim sent Bobbie an email about something in the manual about the conference committee.
Bobbie: that is the next motion.
Carl: Motion passes.
Trustee conference committee reports
Bobbie: Motion to approve trustee conference committee reports, excluding CASWO 08, 09, 10, and 11.
Hayward: Second, Kim sent Bobbie an email about something in the manual about the
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conference committee. Did those get incorporated?
Bobbie: Yes, the redline has been taken out. The correct conference committee statement of purpose.
Carl: Motion passes
CAWSO 2008
Trevor: Motion to approve CASW 2008 reports
Bobbie: Second
Carl: motion passes.
CAWS 2009
Bobbie: Motion to approve 2009 report.
Hayward: second
Carl: Motion passes.
CAWS 2010 (Kim)
Kim: Motion to approve 2010 report.
Bobbie: second
Carl: Motion passes.
CAWS 2011
Bobbie: Motion to approve 2011 report.
Hayward: second
Carl: Motion passes.
Old Business:
2007.05.09 Revise the 12 point literature process and publishing process
Bruce: This item refers to two different processes. There is already a 16 point literature development and approval process. The LCF guidelines have been approved by LCF. The publishing process has never been address and this is what caused various pains we experienced
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wit getting HFC agreed upon and produced and in production. I have a telephone conversation with the LCF chair and talked about looking thoroughly into what NA does to produce books and she agreed that would be worthwhile to look at what they had done. I will determine over the next couple months what process they used and share it with her and Trevor. I think there are two other members of this committee, Carl and one other last time we talked about this. If anyone else would like to be involved in this. I think there was, to summarize, there was some tension or a kind of “my side your side” dynamic between the office and the LCF committee about who should be doing what. Hopefully we can grow from this and we can see how one of our sister fellowship handles this.
Carl: This is what we are going to do, leave 2007.05.09 and it is going to be renamed to review of the publishing process.
Hayward: You will put a note that the 12 point literature process is completed and other part is to review the book publishing process.
Carl; Yes the first part, the action is already taken. It was taken care of at the conference. We are just going to review the latter part.
Hayward: Wasn’t there a 6 point literature process or something?
Bruce: yes, LCF guidelines, which were approved on the floor those contained a 12 point literature review process and an additional I think it is a 5 point publication process. Which have to do with the literature like the tools of recovery and yes you can start a meeting? That is in place and it is detailed. There is no clear set of guidelines when it comes to books. There is a difference between putting these two together.
Outstanding Correspondence:
2008.01.01 Response to Mona by the legal committee.
Carl: Trevor, did you post the last part?
Trevor: Yes
Hayward: we approved that.
Carl; Ok this will be removed then.
2008.01.02 response
Carl: OK I think we all saw the response to that. Yves White translated that and I think we have all seen the response. Then Bruce sent that up there.
Trevor: This should be plural, responses. I am getting at least one a week. I know how to respond to her as far as “go here and check out the website this is where you can find it”.
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Trevor: ***OFF RECORD****
Bruce: I have a couple questions, what does “Nkolminthe” mean? I think that any time we get an inquiry we should answer it in good faith, extending the hand in good faith. Not being naive or getting caught up in answering questions or providing materials that are outside of our duties. A starter kit in French, sure! At some point we can say there is nothing more we can do for you, I hope that CA continues to grow for you.
Nicholas: About five years ago, the UK had this from the Baltic’s, Romanian’s and Bulgarians where sending these emails that we not quite right. They look liked they were interested but they were not. We played hard ball with them. We sent them starter kits but told them we did not have anyone who spoke Romanian or Bulgarian. Then they asked can you help us come to England? We told them when our convention was, this is our helpline. I think someone offered to help someone sponsor someone online. Let’s just over our asses here and make sure we know what is going on. They do not need to see our incorporation documents. I think we all trust Trevor to do what you do.
Bobbie: when the people in IRAQ wanted to start a 12 step program, that 12 step program had to let them see their basic text to make sure their Koran wasn’t being bombarded, I guess. What we suggested was, because the documents that they are asking for we wouldn’t send anyway. So we suggested to direct her to the website, the manual is on the website, all the information about CA is on there. If your dignitaries are having a problem with what is CA, then there it is. This is what CA is. After that you have already given them the information if they want to come.
Kim: I read an email about what suggests the exclusion of a member. It sounds like to me that maybe they are dealing with people who are trying to come in and run the meeting differently then what the guidelines suggests. The way it is translated we think they want this, but really they want this.
To be completed by or updated at the February Quarterly:
2006.02.01 WSBT statement and position
Hayward: The website where we keep all the responses and it is like our archives. That is available to us, but it is not available to the fellowship. I am still trying to talk with the office. Every time I go in there, I see where people are hacking in there and people are putting up ads to sell cars and all kinds of crap. The web servant will have to do something to protect it better. I am still moving archives that I have on my laptop to the archive yahoo groups. I continue to work on that and work with the office. Once that is protected then we can figure out somehow to have it tied in for the fellowship to be able to send emails to the trustees and they will be able to look at some FAQ before they send us an email.
Bruce: do you have any idea when the access to the rest of the fellowship might be available? I have been asked by people that recognize that this is a tremendous resource and that some of the
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material there could be used to develop some of the projects that are ongoing in LCF.
Hayward: That push right there I can’t put some heat on the office. Our web servant is a volunteer also so this is just in his spare time. That will be some fuel for the fire.
Trevor: Do you need some professional hacker help, or is that a question I need to direct towards mike?
Hayward: he is going to have to figure out something, because there are people who sit around 24 hours a day surfing the net seeing what they can get into. They post a lot of stupid questions. Last time I had to delete 50 questions that didn’t mean anything. I will leave this on and update at the May quarterly.
2006.02.20 Copyright and trademark protection
Hayward: I have the latest status for our name, the letters, our logo, and slogan. The legal outside firm sends us a form about where we are as far as our legal protection and where we are in the world, if anyone would like to see that.
Carl: Let’s go down the list and see what we can remove. Canadian renewal 10-6 that is done ok.
Sweden and South Africa status.
Hayward: I presented you guys 3 or 4 quarterlies ago with this big bill and everyone kind of laughed. We had to pay a few hundred dollars to say that we are not going to spend the 20,000$. It is still the same, if we want to protect our stuff there.
Carl: Do we want to remove it?
Hayward: we can remove it if we are not going to act on it.
Nicholas: I can’t even get a hold of South Africa at the moment. I don’t see any threats or growth there. Sweden is doing well at the moment, they have more meetings now.
Hayward: I think I saw in your report there is some activity in Hong Kong?
Nicholas: Yes. I think that Sweden might be the one that might be in trouble. Chinese government you know, they still have their own version of 12 steps which is hanging. South Africa is a bit tough. I would like to Sweden left on there.
Hayward: I will find my document and update it to show only the cost of Sweden.
Carl: Ok we will remove Hong Kong and SA.
Bruce: I was under the impression that Sweden was under the EU and as such was covered by the protection that existed for all Union Countries?
Carl: It is not part of the EU.
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Nicholas: It is part of Europe, but not a part of the Union as defined by our council.
Hayward: I will provide all information about Sweden that I have.
Carl: ok the last part, it cost about 250 each, remain on the agenda until 3-7
Hayward: That can go too.
Carl: Next is 01.07 update at November quarterly can go too. We will leave on Status on protection for EU.
Bobbie: I just googled it and Sweden is in the EU. So is it not automatic?
Carl: There was something about Sweden and there was a reason that we could not cover them. It was on the agenda for the while. Hayward if you can find out? We want to know if they are covered by us and if not how can we cover them. Do you think you can find out by the conference call?
Hayward: Yes I can.
2006.08.13 Signature of corporate documents
Carl: Ok that remains on the agenda.
2007.04.08 TEC interview status-update at February Quarterly
Earl: Have you ever herded kittens? Here is the stat of the TEC; it hasn’t changed much since the last conference call. Other than we have had the Atlantic north, pacific south bring their slates forward. We have a spreadsheet and that is a tool that all of us can use during the course of this process. We need TEC delegate contact information and we could use the alternates. We need to be able to contact the alternate if something changes. I have the information from Southwest. I need two of the resumes from the candidates in the SW. I have the TEC information from the Pacific South. She is on board and can be in SLC and can help us interview. We have four candidates that would be available in SLC for interviews. I need TEC delegate and alt. delegate information from the Atlantic North. We have upcoming stuff from Europe. We have pacific north next month and we have our friends in the AS coming forward in April. We have March 8th for Midwest. As you get the info in your assembly, this is the time to get it. If we can get all that information in, it will really be nip and tuck from our April conference call to our May convention. The vast majority of people will not be at the convention or will be exercising the strategy that it is better to be interviewed at the conference just before the TEC elects. For regional trustee, for WSOT trustee and the TAL there are questions posted. We need to look at these sooner rather than later if we want to start interviewing people in May in SLC! I have gone over the questions and I don’t think that there is that much we may want to change. We have a candidate that is qualified for all three of these positions. I think we could take all the questions that are specialized and move them all to the regional list for that candidate. We also need to
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consider the order in which we want to fill these positions. Which are we going to fill first, the WSOT or TAL? It might be able to speed the process for us or it may not.
Nicholas: Reality is cant get hold of David from South Africa and UK has been around everywhere and there are only 5 people in the whole region that qualify. Me and you had a private discussion, but I wanted to bring this to everyone. There is a candidate in Sweden who has 6 years and we have had a lot of discussion on mandatory or suggestion. He has voted at the conference if it is brought here would it be entertained?
Carl: Yes, when we changed it to eight years.
Nicholas: I think we have two boys but they do not have the eight years. I think it would be good for them. The region has benefited from having me and Jackie as the trustees.
Carl: For smaller areas you bring who you have got.
Hayward: Which position do we fill first? The year that you were elected, Bobbie, how did they do that?
Bobbie: I only interviewed for the TAL because Jay was in the southwest region already.
Carl: It was one set of questions when I interviewed. This is a unique position this time, because we could interview one person for three positions.
Trevor: It makes more sense, if we are going to combine the questions, maybe extend the time because there are probably going to be a few more questions. Maybe we can extend it to an hour or hour and 15 minutes? I don’t want to interview each person three times.
Nicholas: Do you think there might be resentment if someone gets to interview three times. Not many people get the opportunity to be a trustee and this one candidate will get three chances at it. The person might have an unfair advantage. Maybe they should just have some humility and just go for one position.
Hayward: we have a situation at the office where we are bringing Willie’s name and Theresa’s name. She does not have the time. Would the office be considered an area? It is for active directors and not past directors.
Bruce: The regions have done their best exercising their group conscience and bringing forth the best candidates that they can. If someone’s name is on more than once it is ok, we have a pretty good process for selecting our trusted servants. In the end the group conscience and god speak.
Bobbie: When we get up there and the slates get ratified. Tal is just an automatic assumption if it is open. But you have the regional and the office that is the only thing that is getting ratified. Kathy Jo was actually interviewed for the office board and the pacific south at the same time. It is a unique situation only here, in the pacific south. In the ER your guys would only be interviewing for the ERT and the TAL. The pacific south is supposed to do a minimum of six
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because they have so many positions to fill. I like Earl’s idea that we take for that particular interests. No one will pay attention to when they are interviewing for what.
Trevor: We don’t put any restrictions on how many times a person can interview. Knowing my region and seeing the past history, I would bet that people from my region that are going to be TAL candidates were people that had interviewed two years ago when I was up for election.
Kim: Same for the Midwest region, some people will be on the slate. I remember last year someone making a comment, well he interviewed before so he knows the questions. So my only suggestion is that we are mindful of that. I have no idea how they have been changed over the years, but I am sure that people from my regions have got those answers good cause they have interviewed before.
Lawrence: We have a candidate who will be on the slate again.
Earl: I am looking around the table that was interviewing the last TAL, which was part of the TEC when that happened. I will contact Elizabeth and Jay and ask them what they did. You probably interview those people with the TAL questions first and then the balance of those slates you interview with just the regional. You can consider the top two for the TAL.
Bobbie: For the south west and their three names, the top two vote getters would interview for Tal but also be considered for the south west region.
Hayward: The last TAL was Jahid, he was the TEC chair?
Bobbie: No he was the year before; he probably knows what they did with it.
Earl: This board votes decides weather or not they will fill the second TAL position. I don’t recall at what meeting we make that decision at, prior to the conference at sometime. I would like to make a motion to not fill the second TAL position.
Bobbie: Second
Earl: I believe that we will probably have a lively and interesting election process coming up to fill three trustees. I don’t think we need the added pressure to fill another position. And the financial considerations impacting our budget, we don’t normally budget for that extra position.
Carl: ok, you want to say due to budgetary, financial restraints.
Motion passes
Earl: We will have an update on the April conference call. Kim and I will be talking on the phone a little more.
2007.10.14 NADCP preparation in St. Louis in 2008
Bobbie: I think we beat that horse last night, Mr. Chair.
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***Break*** Resume at 10:51pm
2007.10.15 Status of the European office inquires
Carl: Did we beat that horse also last night?
Nicholas: We did really and there is nothing more I want to say. I will get the three figures together and get them into a document and come with a proposal in May.
2007.10.21 Need article for our holiday flyer
Carl: I think we can remove that item because we have something new on there and it is called venues for meeting locations. So we will remove this.
2007.10.22 Relationships between clubs and groups
Bobbie: This is something I wanted to redo the article that is in the Newsgram. We have re-run it a couple times. When you hear them read it, you hear them say we support clubs so I just want to re-write this. I will post it before the conference call so you all can look at it.
Carl: So update this online.
Lawrence: Is there something in the archives?
Bobbie: I think so; I think you sent me something. I will try to incorporate the answer you sent them.
Carl: How about posting it to everyone’s regional groups and in the delegate mailings.
New Business
2008.02.01 date and time for next quarterly meeting
Carl: It is May 19th 2008, start time 7pm.
Nicholas: If I fly in on a Saturday it will be $200 more expensive then if I fly on that Friday, but the hotel would be cheaper.
Carl: Why don’t you check it out and email us all.
2008.02.02-date and time for the next WSBT Conference call
Carl: It should be in April.
Bobbie: I motion to begin the next conference call on Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 10am, CST.
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Kim: Second
Carl: Motion passes. We will skip item number 2007.11.03 and we will take the rest out of order and we will address that one after lunch at 1:30pm.
2008.02.03 Remove
2008.02.04 Difficulties in payments to the office is other currency than the dollar.
Shipping costs, literature orders, ECT.
Nicholas: They are now informed, if you want to make a donation you can now make it in any currency and the office will take the brunt of the cost of the exchange. With shipping and literature they are not going to take that costs, it all has to be with the dollar. Ms. Patty and Tom and earl and I will try to make inquires on weather or not we can get another bank to help facilitate any one out side of America paying in another currency. Right now it would be preferable in Euro or Pounds and their money could be accessed by the office online. The two banks we approached at the moment needed to have a minimum of 4k. The history is that there is money sitting in bank accounts. A few people look at these financial guidelines and see them as rock solid and they see that you will not mix CA funds with personal funds. They see a runoff payment by credit card to the office as a way of paying as going against the guidelines and when you put it like that it does. But this is the only method we have at the moment. There are groups that said until such time they will hold the money in the bank accounts. They will be glad to hear that they can send an English check and the brunt of it will be taken by the office. Tom and I have both been to Citibank, as long as we keep a minimum they will allow us to do online transactions. Have anyone else had any experiences with this, Trevor in Canada?
Trevor: The only thing we have had to deal with is buying something and then trying to sell it or give it away was killing us. Quite often the dollar exchange rate is so bad, that is the only issue. My bank I can go in there and change Canadian dollars into American dollars and the only thing I pay is the exchange, there is no fee. The difference is with the free trade agreement we have no charges.
Nicholas: Any ideas or feedback?
Trevor: I think it is a wonderful idea if you can get Citibank to do that.
Nicholas: 4k, it is just a figure that allows it will only be sitting in another bank.
Carl: I think it is brilliant if you can get the money across here.
Nicholas: Patty and Tom talked to me about cash flow, not cash bundle. And I know it will get here faster if we do this. You can facilitate and get a plan; you make a better financial plan if you knew it was coming. We would make sure they could not withdraw, they could only deposit into it. It would be the World Services bank.
Carl: I have a bank account set up for my son, where only I can put in and he can only withdraw.
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I think it will work for us.
2008.02.05 Kim and Carl
Kim: I posted, I was contacted by Timothy Stewart regarding fundraising program. I chatted with him on the phone and out of courtesy told me I would share it with the board. I forwarded it to the yahoo group so hopefully everyone had a chance to look at it. I talked with him regarding potential concerns and liabilities. He proceeded to tell me he understands the traditions. He is in Missouri and he contacted Jeannette and she put him into contact with me. I told him to send me some stuff and he sent me those emails. My concern is the liability of that situation.
Carl: Tell him that we have discussed this and at this time it is something we are not interested in due to liability reasons.
2008.02.06 Spending notes
Earl: You all saw them in the email and again last night. I have been overlapping trying to create a spending policy, transfer, and payroll policy to wear you are not going to get bugged over a lot of routine things, but still allow you to have your responsibilities and be able to execute those responsibilities. The very top of course we don’t have any problems with that. The part that we think would help this board out a great deal and also put in a mechanism that is limiting the amount of transfer. You can exceed that amount in a 90 day period. You said, ok the amount is $3500 and there is nothing that says you can’t transfer $3500 a day. So we thought it would be an extra security to put a 90 day time frame, but to increase the amount. Say we need to cover payroll or we have ordered a large amount of chips. I don’t want to have to the WSBT for mundane things. I am not ready in terms of; I am in the middle of crafting that policy. I have just a rough draft. The other thing I think we need to change is the staff pay. I would like your input. I need to add another item to the agenda-pay increase for staff member Susan. I would solicit elicit input as far as suggestions to the spending guidelines. When we work online, even when we have an emergency motion, it can sometimes that takes up 5-6 business days. Do we want to be passing a lot of motions to this board and sometimes they will come in the form of emergency motions. When money matters come up it is always an emergency.
Trevor: My recollection of this it was along the lines of lets get something down on paper and if further tweaking is required it will be brought back to us. This is the experience of this is what we did, this is what we found out and this is what we are coming back with. This may be a more workable solution and I don’t see anything here that raises a lot of concerns for me.
Nicholas: Is the 90 day period cause we meet every 90 days?
Earl: No
Nicholas: Do you need the 90?
Earl: It does not have anything to do with how often we meet.
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Nicholas: Why do you want 90?
Earl: Patty and I felt that there should be a time frame for the amount of money you can transfer during a period of time. You can’t move more that 5000 in a quarter. We can still come to you with a motion. This is just giving us a guideline and a limit. If we need to transfer funds the WSOT will bring a motion or emergency motion online to request that.
Nicholas: I was just thinking we could shrink it a bit. We always talk every 45 days.
Earl: I have no opposition to it, we just wanted to through a safety valve in there.
Nicholas: It gives you a lot of leeway, if an emergency comes up it will have to be an emergency one anyway. A smaller timeframe that we do have oversight, we always have a conference call or we do meet up I think might be more helpful. There is inflation and there is stuff.
Bobbie: When we originally did it, because there was nothing in place and we wanted something in place. We have the right to be wrong, but first I need something in place long enough to know that we are wrong. I have not seen a problem. What I have seen from day one, we have the chair, the dript, and the treasurer and immediately. Why not leave it at the 3500 that we said? We have internet and we have conference call. We interact just enough for it to not be a problem. Patty is now the director of project development and her role does not interact with the staff to determine who gets raises and all that. This is really no longer a concern for Patty; the bottom part shouldn’t even be a conversation with Patty. I have a big problem with the first paragraph of the bottom part. What we are saying is allow the trustees the oversight that they are supposed to have. What is so wrong with the trustees saying if you want these increases, that is what our office trustee is there for? They are also working online. If the director of operations sees that they are about to do this, if they are not about to meet online she can say I need this to be referred to the WSBT, this is what I want to do. However you make things happen. This cuts us out of the loop again, we put this into place because we were not in the loop and we had nothing in writing. At the same time it is only been in place for 6 months, we have not even done a full year to see how bad an idea it really was. I don’t see anything with fine tuning it. Within this 90 day period, I like that. I like the bottom part with the paid director and the decreases. The other part with the staff, if the staff is going to get a raise, the approval needs to be by the WSOB, but the WSBT has no role it. Are we really doing our job at over sight, how many of us really looked at Tom’s report? We might see it or we may not. This keeps us on top of what is going on. You are going to be rolling off soon too. This keeps you all in the loop. Sometimes the old habits of the WSOB and the WSBT of didn’t get along didn’t know what the other was doing. We have gotten passed that and we keep each other informed.
Hayward: I know it is more work for Earl to bring all of that. That is a lot of money $ 5000, we are not paying them that much. I would like to see more detail. If we want to transfer 5000 to take care of chips and then I go and sign some checks and it is 2500 for the chips I never see any paper work. I never sign any of that stuff. I don’t know what it is; we transferred that money over there.
Lawrence: The first part I have no problem. The second part it looked like the office board had
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all the control and we don’t have any. We need to have some oversight.
Carl: When we go back through it, we are going to leave the transfer amount to 3500 and we like the 90 day one time frame and we are going to leave in the italics policy. “It is the policy of the WSOB that effective immediately all increases”. Take out Staff, other than, other than the paid director.
Earl: The existing policy is what you see italicized and then under each is notes and possible suggestions.
Carl: Lets do this and go down, keep italics one, keep bold 2, keep bold 3-$3500 and keep the 90 day time frame.
Bruce: Is that sufficient to cover payroll for 90 days?
Carl: we use a payroll service.
Earl: Well we still have to transfer funds to make sure we can cover it. If the bill comes in for books and we have a huge bill to pay that may leave us short to cover payroll. Whereas we can transfer the 5000 for the payroll and maybe some other bills. It is just to keep us from having to come to the WSBT for mundane transfers more than you want us to. This is kind of seasonal because we are spending a lot of money just prior to convention and we have not had much income. After the conference we pay a lot of bill and we do not have a lot of income. Sometimes we need transfer funds just to pay our regular bill. Say the French translation is a large sum of money that we want to pay and we want to print up a large number of HFC 1 and 2, we never know when that bill is going to hit. When it comes we generally have 30 days to respond and we may not have the funds to cover that and we are going to have to make a transfer to cover it. I think that the 5000 will keep the office board from bugging you so frequently.
Hayward: We just received 5000 from the UK or whatever it usually shows up in the report. I like monitoring it and I like staying on them and keeping them honest. If it is a little more work for us, we are here to work. I don’t like letting it get away or getting it out of hand. I would like more detail in the motions when they transfer money, this is exactly what we need it for.
Bobbie: We just recently in the last two months passed a motion for a transfer of money for the French books, printing and the translations. We try to keep $ 30,000 in the operating at all times. As we are paying and they need a transfer they come to us. I don’t see it as mundane I see it as what we signed up for. Check your email, you knew you were going to have to check your email everyday, talk every 45 days, and be in LA 3 times a year, and answer question that no one else has the answers to. As the governing body, we do oversight of the office board. We are doing what the conference does only once a year. When a delegate calls and says I read your minutes and I see where….they read it more than anyone. We are trying to figure out why the fellowship doesn’t like us, because we just let anything fly. We are getting free trips, but we are not taking care of what we all love so much. We start at 3500 and we let time work it self to get them to and it might be till august and we say yeah 5000 is a better number. Robin is making a nice amount and Patty is making a nice amount and the others are not. I don’t see the transfers being so high,
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since we are always complaining what we are paying them. If we are paying them what they deserved to be paid. You know we also put this in place, because when the convention is over that money has to be transferred we were not tracking that. When that money leaves SLC how is it being divide up and what accounts is it going into? That might be some new way of us holding us tight. Instead of putting it into Tom’s report when we can’t understand that, have it on a separate piece of paper in paragraph form. Put it in words, we put this much in the operating account, we decided that yeah we are sitting on $75 in prudent reserve, but why not have it at 125 since we doing so well? Show how it is broken down. If we don’t put it in place that you have to ask us, when you going to tell us? They will find out before we find out, they see each other every two weeks. Earl will put it into his report, at some point you are going so fast you might skip over a report. I have to take the time to read everybody’s report to make sure I did not miss anything. In my last year I might miss something. I want us to really go slow.
Kim: I can’t help but wonder if Bruce posed a question that maybe we don’t want to change the amount, but maybe the time period? Is 3500 enough to cover a 90 day period? Maybe we change it to 45 days. We might need to get involved and approve something. I don’t want to approve something for a 90 day period and we know well that they are going to come back to us anyway. So let’s tweak it up to 45 days, the previous policy said they could do $ 2000 every day and we would have never known about it. So maybe we can consider changing it to 45 days at $3500.
Earl: I am the office trustee and I do bring a lot of things from the office board to the trustees. I agree with the oversight. I have to bring these transfers to you and I want to know what they are for. I need to be accountable to you people. I don’t have any strong passion about any of the particular items. I worked closely with the office to get some of this to you folks. I like the idea of the 45 and I like the idea of keeping it at 3500 while shortening the time frame. I am glad that last September we came up with some kind of guidelines. Do we need to tweak it?
Bruce: My mind has shifted from one side to the other as I listed to everyone. I do believe we need oversight, but I don’t want to micro- manage the office. We have to trust that the DOO that we are going to hire to be doing the work that he or she is trusted with properly and honestly. I don’t see the need to approve every single expenditure. On the other hand I want to know what is going on and I want to be able to get answers. It is about this balance, where is the line between too much oversight. It is not about us being bothered, but about the new hire feeling like they do not have sufficient authority or has to run to us every time. In the first conference call in the fall there were a number of motions, which all passed with no problems. Since then we have not been asked to approve any transfers. It is not as if by raising the amount or shorting the duration will cause us more work. Where is the line between appropriate oversight and micro-managing? As long as this is enough money to cover if a big bill comes. I think modifying this is a good change, it adds a durational time. And 3500 is probably enough money for a 45 day period at this time.
Carl: we are about to this afternoon bring in a new hire and we are looking at policies that we set last year. We are tweaking them based on someone else’s efforts; the new hire has not even seen the old policies. Bruce was making the point and I was looking at our online business. Most of our online business was November, December and Bobbie hit on something for me. We are trying to change a policy that we put into effect less than 6 months ago. It is not a big deal for us
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to post an emergency motion if need be. We can also reduce the number of days for discussion and also the number of days for elections. We can do it within hours if everyone is on board or we can pick up the phone. That is not an inconvenience, which is what we are here for. As far as changing the policy it is at the discretion of this body. We have 9 minutes left before lunch; we can either make it or change it or come back later and make a decision.
Earl: We do not have to decide any of this; we can move it to online or keep talking about it. I can report to the office that we are working on it. There are a couple things that we do need to continue to talk about here and that is staff, other than paid directors and their pay treatment. If I want to give someone in the shipping department a 50 cent raise, I don’t know that the WSBT needs to be bothered by that. That is micromanagement. When it comes to the directors and their treatment, most defiantly come to the board to get a recommendation. This body will determine those pay treatments. If I am paying someone 9 and I want to give them a raise to 10, do you folks really want to be involved in that? Do we trust the office board and the office staff to make these decisions or not? We need to make something that suits our needs at this board and helps us execute our responsibilities at this board.
Bobbie: I don’t think it took it 5 minutes to deal with this in September and at the time we had Tony and Jay still with us. Tony was adamant against micromanaging and made sure we always stayed away from that. Math is not my forte at all. It says all increases and decreases in pay to any paid employee of the WSO in excess of 3 % at anyone time, or in excess of 5 % annually. If I am making 9 and you want to give me 10, that is more than 3 or 5 %. You are coming to ask us to approve, not to jump to that item. I would like to ask, how much is she making right now and how much do we want to approve giving her? Now I see your point having to approve a 25 cent raise. I guess that 3 or 5 % is looking at a larger number. We need to look at the percentage, if the office has a new person and the new person realizes that I’m going to give you a 10 cent raise, but I have to call Earl. Then Earl has to call us and it will take 7 days to get back to you. We have a number to lock them; do we not want to worry about the in excess of 3 %? Leave the 5% annual so that we know at some point they got a couple raises or they got one lump.
Carl: We will break for lunch and return at 1:30pm
***Break for Lunch
Carl: We are resuming, it is Saturday afternoon, February 16th, and we are at item number 2008.02.06 (spending note) and 2008.02.07 (spending/transfer guidelines).
Earl: We were talking about the bottom 1/3 of notes where it says, “Staff other than paid directors would be best left as the previous policy. Raises to staff, other than the paid directors are discussed with the WSOB treasurer and the WSOB chair. First increase given traditionally at the first 90 day review and will be completed at the discretion of the director of operations. Any increase of 5% or more would be approved by the WSOB.” There are responsibilities and directives that are given to each board. This falls under the “purview” of the WSOB, those employees. I don’t think the intent of what we created last September was to micro-manage every raise that the paid director thought that a staff member should receive on a regular review date. I would like to see us go back to that. I am bringing a motion later on the agenda that I do
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not believe should be on there.
Carl: Our policy now says the WSBT is responsible for this now, right?
Earl: Yes, it says that all increases or decreases to any paid employee of the WSO in excess of 3% at any one time or 5% annual be approved by the WSBT before the increase or decrease. I don’t see where it would be this boards business if we were to decrease someone’s salary or to fire an employee due to budgetary reasons. That is the business of the WSOB. We have a budget for salaries and wages and as long as we are not going outside of that amount, I don’t think the WSBT should be micro-managing that activity. When it comes to paid directors, yes but the rest of the staff no.
Next item that we are looking at, paid director increases or subsequent to WSOB reviews. Should the WSOB indicate a raise of 5% or more, WSBT approval would be required. We support this; certainly the WSBT should be involved when it is over 5%. Decreases are left to the discretion to the paid directors as we have often used layoffs of part weeks to balance our spending to our income. Empowering the paid directors in this process would increase efficiencies and allow the flow to be natural.
Carl: Our policy right now says 3%, not 5%. So you want to change it 5% now?
Earl: Yes.
Bobbie: On that particular topic, 3% of 45,000 is $1350. Ya’ll wouldn’t want to know that? Just talking about the staff, you are going to give me a whole 1$ is 11% or something about that and we would not want to know. I tend to fall back on that I don’t know math that well, so you could pull one over on me. I don’t think that the intent, one of the people that was driving the train when we put this together was someone I respect a lot and would always pull my chain when he thought that I was trying to cross the line. He said it was time that we as a board took responsibility to know what was going on. I don’t think this was put in place to run CAWSO from Texas, The UK, Canada, Boston, and Chicago that is not why it was put into place. If it is within reason, if they come with a justifiable answer we are going to approve it anyway. It would have to be really out of the box for us to say no. We are always hearing that they are not paid what they are worth. In Texas 45, 000 would be great! Not here in Los Angeles with the cost of living so high. In California making $ 9 an hour is like making minimum wage. I don’t see us saying no. All we are saying is let us know, keep us in the loop. When you are going to give you a 25 cent raise, no problem go to your supervisor and give it. But when you are going to give more than that we want to know. Going back to when the WSOB and the WSBT didn’t interact. The WSOB attitude was they don’t need to know that. Am I fiscally responsible today, but when I go home tomorrow is it no longer my business? Am I part time or full time fiscally responsible?
Trevor: I was one way in the beginning then I switched to the other side completely and now I am somewhere in the middle. I hear what Earl is saying and I hear what Bobbie is saying. To not do the micromanaging by not doing our approval, but could we put someone line in there saying, mandating that they let us know when they do this. So we are still fiscally responsible and we know what is going on, but we do not have to have our fingers in the jar. It is budgeted and they can afford to do, we give them the power to do it.
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Bruce: For me it is about what are appropriate role is. There are two boards, which is a subject for another day, why we have two boards. I think NA has one board. We have two corporate entities. As far as I am concerned, our duties as far as members of the WSBT are to look at the big picture of Cocaine Anonymous. To deal with, longer term-issues, guide the traditions, guide the trustees to the extent that we can. I don’t want to get placed in the position of doing what the WSOB wants to do and that is making sure the office is well run, that is there job. I don’t want this stuff to be a secrete. I don’t want it to be difficult for me to find out how much people are making or when they get raises. I think reviewing stuff quarterly is enough for me. I don’t want to tire the director of operations hands. I don’t want them to be seen by their subordinates as the director who reports to john. We could come up with different numbers; I don’t want to know if someone gets a $1 raise, $1300 is a little more serious. I don’t see my job is to see if the director of operations is making a little too much or too little money. My job is to see how well he or she is running the office. I am generally in favor of Earl’s motion.
Earl: I want to stress autonomy. There are two boards; there is a different between oversight and having your fingers in the pickle jars. Yes the board of trustees needs to be informed, it says in the job description of the DOO about being prepared to present to the board of trustees any reports that are necessary. If we want to know what all the pay increases are in the quarter we can get that. For us to get into this kind of deal means that you know what you should combine both boards and just have one board. You have two trustees sitting on that office board. I think we do need to maintain some autonomy and display and execute a level of trust.
Bobbie: We are in the process of hiring someone who is not familiar with these guidelines. We don’t know their take on these guidelines. I don’t see why we can’t wait to see how it works for the new person. Let us see if the new person likes it. Fresh mind, fresh outlook that will come in and say this is crazy or this work for me. Consider giving that person the opportunity to work for him or her. This is Patty’s take on it; this is not the new persons take on it. We came up with our own idea on how we wanted to see something done and Patty did not like that. I think we are being unfair to the new person. If they are really savvy, they will be how Earl says. We do not know that yet though. Is there a purpose for us rushing?
Hayward: The office is responsible to us, yes there are two boards. They work for us. I would like to see this move to online; we have done a lot of discussing. I would like to move it there.
Earl: I want to go on record to say I am in strong disagreement with what Bobbie said; I think we are mixing personalities. I would not disregard throwing in the trashcan someone with 9 years experience in that position and knowing what is best in terms of a process. I would not say bring in a greenhorn rooky and let them see weather or not they are going to know what needs to be changed or corrected right off the bat. It is going to be 2 years before they even know which direction the wind is blowing when it gets into something this detailed. A policy can always be changed. This is going be a policy that the new director is going to follow and not necessarily question unless we ask them to question. I strongly disagree with that. You can throw your ideas and opinions out as to why they did not like it. This was an item of business from the office board, this concerns the whole board not just one director. These are just suggestions, we can put them online. I don’t think there are any crucial needs right now.
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Carl: We will move 2008.02.06 and 2008.02.07 to online.
2007.11.03 implementing the director of operations ***offline for discussion***
Carl: After lengthy discussion and vote by secrete ballot all on yellow paper provided by the Midwest trustee. Our new director is Taffy W. She will start when?
Earl: as soon as she can give notice and be there.
2008.02.08 online service area selling speaker CDs
Carl: I think we had something close to this before; San Diego was doing something like this. They were not selling them, they were just providing them. They were doing it as a fundraiser. The delegate and area chair sent me an email and I told them to wait until we discussed this at our meeting. That way we can decide if this is something that can be done or should be done. If you guys can give me some input.
Trevor: Did we not work on this for S&B a few years ago?
Bobbie: Yeah
Hayward: Are they talking about retaining the funds?
Carl: They are talking about doing it as a fundraiser.
Kim: Speaker CDs, where are they getting these CDs from?
Carl: probably someone already has them. If you purchase a CD from coast to coast, then that is there property. If you post it with the intent of selling it, then you are talking about close to copyright infringement. Am I right Bruce?
Bruce: Yes.
Hayward: shouldn’t the online service area be referring that to the office? Should be referring that to the office to purchase them.
Carl: The CDs that the office has are of convention and from archives.
Hayward: No one speaks at online meetings. Do they have a link?
Carl: They have not done it yet, they sent us an email first.
Trevor: Our response in S&B was that no, you can’t do this and it is against a whole bunch of copyright laws. They are going up above S&B’s head because we said no, so they are going to go
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to the trustees. It is one thing at a convention, you are a member when you say you’re a member you can come to the convention and buy that CD. Then you can turn around and sell that CD online, we have no control over that. Then we get into who is a speaker of CA, when can we say that this is an approved CA CD? I encourage fundraising, but something else that can have us in a huge lawsuit.
Bruce: I need more information. If these CD’s are already made and copyrighted by a company and they are simply re-selling them. I spoke in PA and someone there had made copies of my share and if they made 10 extra and those 10 extra are going to be sold online, I don’t think that is a copyright issue, a fundraising problem, or any other type of problem that immediately jumps out at me. It is the same as selling them at a convention or out of the office. I don’t know what is going on here. Are they duplicating themselves, which is a copyright infringement? What speakers are these and so on?
Bobbie: I remember vaguely, we had something like this in the last three years. We told them no, part of our concern was that we wont be able to monitor if you are selling an NA speaker CD or AA speaker tape. We run to big of a risk of you not selling CA message.
Carl: What Greg had was a link; he linked a radio to that website. You could go on there and you could listen to the previous speakers. We asked Greg B and the San Diego area to de -link it. If you read further into the email, she already knows it will create some problems with us. If they have not been recorded by a third party, then that is the same reason we had to ask San Diego to de-link. We cannot determine who the messenger or the message is.
Kim: Let me get this right, I would tape myself and then submit it to them for them to sell?
Carl: Yes.
Nicholas: We have this sort of stuff in UK, they do what they do and they don’t listen to me. If you go to a WSC, which is a special event a CD does not have a CA logo or name on it any where, it says HP on it. There is no contract, other than the vendor and the buyer, we step out. These people are trying to use our good name and they are selling it to CA members and the implication is that CA is behind it. By implication of how they are selling it and how they get the audience, it might be seen that we approve it. We have no control. It wouldn’t imply, it would say Cocaine anonymous.
Carl: What they are saying is that it is just like buying it at a regular meeting. I attend a meeting where you can buy your CD or the speaker CD for a donation and that donation goes directly to World Services. This is different, because now we are dealing with the internet. I will go through the one for the archives, find the one we have from San Diego. Doctor that up and then send it to them. Any objections?
Hayward: Will we see it first?
Earl: I am not sure that all the issues are parallel. There is no copy write and I have spoken at conventions and there have been CDs made of me by members that we there. He burned a CD
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and then handed me a copy of that and then they sold other copies of it. I am a certified member of CA. Did they bring up last names, and then we are going to bring up a liability. Specifically what traditions would this be violating. We have to root our response in that we are guardians of the traditions. I am not sure all the same logic as San Diego applies here.
Kim: Her question here is also who decides who carries and message of CA. Most areas select their speaker. So regardless of who tapes it, that area has selected that message of CA and who will deliver it at their meeting, convention, conference. In essence doesn’t the online area have the ability to choose that? That area, without more information, that they are choosing their speakers. It is no different than someone putting together a basket of speaker CDs for the silent auction. That particular area and it is theirs. I put together silent auction baskets and someone recently donated some tapes that were certainly spiritually bound, but not CA bound. So I choose to not include them in the baskets, well the committee did. How they plan to get those.
Carl: I understand your concept, but we are still talking about online. We are talking about it being on the internet. This is huge for us if we decide to do this. On aa’s website you can download speaker tapes for free. NA is probably the same way. Now we have the CA online service area who wants to put them up there and sell them. You don’t want to say sell them, but ask for a donation for them. We may need to look at this as a fundraiser for the office if we decide to go this way.
Kim: Are they downloading audio files on the internet or is there a physical CD that they are going to sell you?
Carl: We don’t know that yet.
Earl: We don’t have the nuts and bolts. We now see the big picture as in terms of their intent. This is the online area and I know that there are a lot of people in those meetings. How would they sell them from that online area? Do they have a webpage and would they be controlling them in that manner. I am not worried about the tradition part and the group conscience part, if these are speakers who have spoke in CA functions and they were brought there from a speaker selection committee. I would like to know more about how it is supposed to work.
Carl: I have three questions right now-Do you have a page, are you going to link, are you going to mail them, is it downloadable.
Nicholas: XA, they stream stuff. All these are CA speakers. I know members download these and give them to new comers. It could be an office thing and not just a one area thing. Otherwise other areas will want to do it. Someone in Alabama buys it and the online area is making all the money to send the conference delegates and the Alabama cannot send their delegate. It might end up in places you don’t want it. You let go once it is online. There is a difference between buying it at a convention and getting it streamed online.
Carl: I will send her these questions then.
Carl: We are going to take item number 2008.02.13, pay increase for staff member Susan D., out
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of order.
Earl: Thursday night at the WSOB meting a motion was brought forward to give her up to a ** raise. She has been there for 8 months and she is light years ahead of where we thought she would be. This was discussed at length and it was decided that we would give her ** per hour raise. I would like to motion to increase Susan D’s salary.
Hayward: Second
Earl: We call Susan little miss sunshine; she is one of the brightest spots we have had at the office in a long time. She has been taking on much more work and handling it better then we thought. We would like to reward her for that and give her incentive to stay with us. The logic was don’t through her everything at once, lets give her $1 now and then at her year give her the additional. We feel she is worth it.
Nicholas: What is the minimum wage here?
Earl: It is right around 7 or 8 per hour.
Lawrence: She has been very helpful to me; she compiled a list of North Carolina meetings for me when I needed that.
Kim: I am in favor of the motion. She is always very cheerful and receptive and I can feel that even in her emails to me.
Hayward: I speak in favor. She is doing a great job!
Carl: Motion passed unanimously.
2008.02.09 Venues for meeting locations
Carl: In most regions it is different. When I was in Las Vegas, they have listed in the meeting directory the meeting name, name of the location, time, and date. Here in LA it says something like the church located at…and an address. It does not include the name. What we need to do is unify this and make it all the same.
Bruce: Say there was a meeting at the Blessed mother Theresa church at corner of Dorchester and Colombia aver. People call it the old St Margaret’s, that’s what it was before the name change of the church. I don’t think that implies affiliation.
Trevor: To me I question how we are going to enforce that. Will it be a requirement to link it? We might end up de-linking everyone. The enforcement of it is a nightmare.
Earl: I agree with both of you. The important thing is that we are trying to guide a new person to a meeting. By identifying a place as a restaurant they should be able to find it, we don’t need to put on there that it is McDonalds. In terms of enforcing it, we are not the CA police. We do lead
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and suggest and maybe there is some type of guideline out there. I don’t know who is bringing it and making it such a big issue. Can you describe it without giving a brand or denomination with the description?
Nicholas: do you say CAUK 16 at the big hotel on the road where there about 10,000 hotels. Are we worried if you say the name of the church; it is all covered in the pre- amble. If you are new you are new anyways and you wouldn’t know what a pre-amble was. Do you think the maker of this is worried we are going to be associated with a specific restaurant or church? I remember when Patty came and she saw the colors of the leaflets and said “hey they are different’. She sat down with Jackie at the time to get them to get the same colors so they all were the same. On the front of the directory a small caption saying all locations are just addresses and do not imply affiliation. Rather than making them re-print them and take all the names off. Oh it down at St. Mary’s its how they all know it. To show the newcomer that we are not a restaurant chain. If you just say none of these venues are associated with CA.
Bobbie: What I am finding is that if your delegates are working hand in hand with you they will run things by you. The Arizona newsletter person is like clockwork now. I remember at home you have to remind them to not put the club on there. If you give me a physical address, you have an address and the name of the group. If you put the name of the business you have affiliated our CA group with that church. If the newcomer sees the name of the church they think you trying to get me to go to church. We are sticklers on something’s and we push the wires on other things. I have a problem with the hotel name being on the registration forms. I tell the delegates I am working with to only put the address on there. How I teach the newcomer is how they are going to teach someone when they become an old-timer.
Hayward: don’t we have a disclaimer?
Carl: Yeah, we have one that Jay and I wrote a few years back.
Kim: We use that for our newsletters.
Carl: Not only newsletters but the hotel. We put on the convention registration.
Hayward: I have no problem with it saying the address and the church, does not need to have the name of the church.
Kim: I understand the spirit of it. I have not seen any problems. I like the idea of adding to our current disclaimers something about us not being affiliated. Illinois area website has names of clubs, churches, restaurants, and hospitals. Sometimes it is easier for the newcomer to identify with the name of the location. If we are going to do this then we need to blanket it to everything, even us talking. We would just tell them the hospital in what city and the address, we could not call it by the name.
Lawrence: We used to always put the names. In Georgia they had a newsletter they had a name of the restaurant. I asked them to take it off. I can see the affiliation. Either one of the two; blanket it all the way or come up with a disclaimer.
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Nicholas: We use adobe Photoshop, we use Paypal. Just because I go to a meeting at McDonalds doesn’t mean I eat there. In my experience when you tell an addict to do something they wont, especially if they have been doing it another way. If you ask them to add something, they will. The CA meeting at the church of….is not implying we own or work with the church. It is merely a location for the meeting of CA. Just because we use Paypal does not mean the CA owns or likes it. It just works for us. The same is true for adobe Photoshop. That does not have a disclaimer on it when you open something with Adobe Photoshop. We can ask them, please can you add this rather than telling them they must do this or that. I would rather go the loving route. What are we going to do destroy their directories? We say love and tolerance, let’s practice it. Bring me something else here, on the translations and they talk about the essence and the feel of it, rather than it being completely right. We are not the law. I hear what you are saying about the newcomer passing the right message. The right message is we hold the meeting at McDonalds, but we have nothing to do with them. Tradition four is it going to affect CA greatly as a whole. There are no clubs in the UK. We can be gentle and say we have no association with any of the venues.
Bobbie: I think we are all on the same page. In the pre-amble and here it says we are not allied. No we are not the police, but when no one else is the guardian of the traditions we are. If we don’t uphold them, who will? If we allow the fence to be made of rubber. Don’t align yourself in any way shape or form. In this one club at home there is an AA and a CA meeting. The rent is a certain amount, they have a dance every month, and a coffee bar that is self-supporting. They make enough money to pay the rent, ECT. We do not affiliate with them. We have members of CA at home. You know who holds the checkbook at that club, the treasurer for the club. They charge more rent per group then what they actually bring in per month. That club has full control of that group. This is because someone before more didn’t stand up. The truth has to stand alone. I have to have courage to stand alone. I can tell you you’re wrong in the right way. I cannot make you do anything. What is the real purpose of putting the name of the location?
Nicholas: Exactly, because everyone know where McDonalds is. They will just call it the meeting at McDonalds. 10 people out of 100 people will be looking for something other than McDonalds. You can write it is AT somewhere, and then they should know it is not a part of just at that location.
Bobbie: You can say it however you want to, but it implies affiliation. If I see McDonalds I think I am going to eat at McDonalds.
Nicholas: In Europe they all know there is no association with the church it is located at. I have never had this come up, ever. I have no experience with the church giving us this or McDonalds giving us free food, ECT. If we tell them this and they completely ignore us. How should we enforce it?
Bobbie: As long as you know that you have given the information, you don’t know the spirit might touch them and then wake up in the morning and say he is right. I am obligated to give the information, but I cannot de-link them. I don’t like that.
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Hayward: I like Kim’s idea to all agree on this and move forward.
Carl: Let’s move this to online.
Trevor: Does anyone object to me putting in a petition to re-draw the regional boundaries to include the province of Saskatchewan into the pacific north region. Presently it has never been part of; it was a tag-along with Manitoba in Kim’s region. But it was never fully recognized. It is five hours from me and 9 hours to the next closest which is Winnipeg.
Hayward: I would like to see it before you submit it.
Bobbie: Was the group ok with it?
Trevor: They were the ones who showed up at the last area meeting and petition to become a district. They were welcomed aboard. The guy was so happy he phoned me with tears. I will submit it online first.
Bobbie: I am going to talk to Terry. There is one restaurant in the hotel in SLC, but the mall is within a .4 mile radius. I will talk to him about the best place to go. Do they have their program together for that week?
Trevor: they are doing that the day before I get out there, the first weekend in March.
Bobbie: Do we want to wait until we get that program.
Carl: I would like to do dinner. What we did last year was really expensive and left me hungry. I want some more time to sit and chat.
Trevor: I am looking forward to it. This lets me know that I am not alone in this. It gives me a chance to talk to people who have walked this before me. Is everyone ok with something a little earlier? There is a steak place very close that we could go to.
Bobbie: Choose something that can accommodate our non-meat eater. I am thinking Friday, that usually works with everyone the best.
Earl: move that item to April follow up conference call.
Bobbie: We can do some of that online.
****6:16pm closed for the night-will return at 8am***
***8:11am Sunday February 17, 2008****
2008.02.14 Charity Status for the UK
Carl: Take a few minutes to make sure that everyone has read what Nick sent us.
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Nick: I saw this about a week ago. They have come up against a road block. It seems very complicated and they are trying to model it on the AA model. What everyone has picked up is, number four will be. Will accept money from that and donate money to it. Apparently AA do this, they choose some charity and give to it as long as it is not them. The committee is stuck, I think it all hinges on point one. You’re thought on weather or not we should purse this. That is a big thing. NA did not go down this route. My sponsor has lived in London for 20 years said it is wired and we cannot have it. They were talking about donations that we too huge that they could not take and they would just put it somewhere else. Is that not affiliated? Some of this worries me a little.
Carl: When you say large donations, what do you mean?
Nick: I can’t imagine someone giving say $10,000 to CA. The example I was given was that a millionaire dad is so happy that the program has given his son back to him that he donates 10,000 to the program. And he wants to give it to the charity. He wants to write a $10,000 check in an anonymous donation and sends to the office or wherever. What do they do with it?
Carl: Right now they put it back into an envelope and send it to them.
Nick: If they become a charity, In England, and someone sends you money you have to by law accept it. That is why AA shipped it somewhere else. I don’t think they should go down this route.
Earl: A few things concern me. It seems that instead of setting up an area and incorporating it. It looks like it is setting up CAUK world services. WE are talking bout assemblies and delegates and it sounds like more of a service structure instead of a corporate structure. There is a board of directors that are elected within an executive body. We have guidelines on donations so that we are not influenced. I have a friend who is worth 5 million, but he can only donate $5,000 a year. Now he can go to the auction and go crazy! If I was an AA member in the UK I would be screaming if you were giving the excess donations to the such-and-such recovery home. It is just not right. That is more than implied affiliation. It is not our job to tell them how to do it. It is certainly our job to try to educate and giving other examples of how it would work. It is difficult to say no you can’t do that and not give them what they should do instead. We should give them two or three suggestions that their committee could work on. I do not think it is up to this board to figure it out. Here comes the letter asking for guidance. I think we do need to take this and spend some time with it. Maybe call in some people with some expertise? Perhaps a barrister?
Nicholas: they do have a guy in the fellowship there who is a lawyer who attended one of the meetings. This letter is two weeks old so something may have changed since then.
Earl: We are certainly not qualified to set this up there. I do not know everything about California employment law, but I know I need to go somewhere and find out that information when I need it. That is where we are at.
Nicholas: They put 12,000$ away and I think the best thing to suggest is to use that for help.
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Hayward: I told you all this was coming. They are getting fed up with us and want to start their own thing. Earl hit everything I wanted to say. We just need to figure out how they can send all that money over to the office without being hit with all those cash transfers and stuff like that. If we can figure that out and how their area is set up.
Bruce: I am trying to figure out what problems this proposal solves? We do proposals because it takes care of some problem or some potential future problem, it is a solution. There is already a CAUK area structure. The reasons that areas structure as a non-profit here is partly because of liability. It means there are a corporate entity and a non-profit tax id number which can be used for venders to get appropriate treatments. It means a corporate entity can get insurance for events, so that individual members are not facing any liabilities. It sounds to me like what New York has done and I have an imperfect understanding of what they have done. They have an area structure and then they have a separate corporate structure which is call CAFKA <SP??>. They elect corporate members and they elect area members. It is kind of cumbersome in my opinion. It does not seem to cause enough problems in New York that they are going to change it. I am wondering what needs CAUK has that is pushing them towards this charitable status.
Nicholas: They are terrified that the IRS is going to come in and say you are shifting thousands of pounds into America and we don’t see a bit of it. It is all about tax and money and getting that all in order. They could be getting a tax bill any day. The UK wants to put in the bid for world and they want to get this all in order first. They send lots of money; they send 10,000 at a time. And they are afraid the tax man is going to come and say where is your tax status, your charity status? Are you registered, insured? They are not. There is no id number, there is nothing in place. I think they have run up against a brick wall. The good news is they do have $12,000 for lawyers’ fees and advice. They held some back because they knew they would need help.
Bruce: I think that the next step is a legal opinion on whether or not this is necessary and what issues. Or what alternatives and choices exist for the fellowship.
Bobbie: Here the areas become non-profit so that the money that ends up in the bank under the members names gets to high then Uncle Sam wont come and get it. If that money is not just sitting in the bank, if we are sending it to CAWSO and it was a donation I don’t see a problem. NA has not separated internationally at all. None of their areas are charitable, non-profit, or 501 status. The UK wants their own office, I see if they can’t go through the front door go through the back. We are not selling a franchise. I don’t have a problem with starting with the distribution hub and growing. AA is a how many million dollar company? I see them having their own conference and let me pay my parent. I agree we need to slow down and look at it. When we take a World Service Convention we need to make sure we don’t have to deal with taxes. And that would be something to think about, would it be a good venue for us if we have to deal with taxes. In America we are tax exempt. If we travel, our rules do not apply. If this is the process to get a non-profit status, then do we really need this? If our areas wouldn’t hold on to their money they wouldn’t need to be 501C3 status either. Maybe that would let them let go of their money. Did Canada have that issue when they wanted to have that convention?
Trevor: Was that a problem? Most of the people saw someone arguing at the conference floor
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against having it in Calgary. That was the number one issue; they had no way around it. No where in Canada do we have a tax exempt status. I believe Northern Alberta may be in the process or they may have just gotten it. They have a lawyer in the fellowship that is helping them with that. Whatever we would have made, how do we get it back from Calgary to the US legally? There was no way. Still to this day there would be no way to get it over. You can legally only take $ 10,000 across the boarder. If you take over more you are going to get in trouble. You are looking at the new record setter; it will be untouchable to have it there. I am a long with most everyone else it scares me. I was thinking are they doing this so they can make all the money and say screw you it is our money.
Bobbie: CAUK already has conventions and they send $ 20,000 across. So what is the problem? By now the tax man would have come if something was wrong. So last quarter they shipped all together $20,000.
Earl: There is beauty in the fact that if we are following the CA financial guidelines and doing the proper 70/30 split. If this is done on a regular basis and not large sums of money done at one time, that is what draws the attention. I suggest that we consult with the lawyer and the accountant in the UK. Advise us as to at what point do these amounts become a problem, become a flag. In our Country they monitor large cash transfers because of the terrorists. Let them know there is a California corporation called Cocaine Anonymous World Service, we could be Multi-national Corporation. Just like others operating all over the world. We should talk to Tom Phalen about that magic number of $ 4000, having that in an account. We are talking about 5 -10k max. If I write check for over $9,000 in this country the IRS gets a message about that. It would be good to know what the parameters and cut-offs are in the UK. Let’s keep this on the agenda and work on it. If you don’t take care of the problem, the problem will take care of you. I want to stay ahead here.
Trevor: In response to Bobbies questions about the donations coming from all the other places. I believe a conversation I had along the lines about why we do donations and not money. It is legal America Wide and you don’t have the rights to do business across the boarders and pond. If we are going to send a donation that is on us. If you are going to come over there and do business that is on you. Ultimately they are trying to get the world convention there and I am looking forward to it. We need to get our ducks in a row first.
Carl: You guys just made a donation, but you said they put away $12,000 for legal fees?
Nicholas: Yes
Carl: OK that is CA’s money right?
Nicholas: yes, it is in a main account saying putting our house in order.
Carl: How much money do they have in the treasury now?
Nicholas: They have $6,000 all the time to use for operating costs and $12,000 saved for the legal fees.
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Carl: I agree with everything being said so far. In here it talks about problems about sending over donations. I think that we covered that in the board to board. If they are concerned about individuals sending donation, why don’t you have one of your delegates put in a referral to raise the amount of the personal donations. We just did that a few years ago and we had it raised to $5000. There is ways around a lot of this here. What I see here is a corporate structure. When you are setting up this type you are really setting up a business outside of CA. Once we start accepting money and getting into property and prestige. I would like to see us one day be a corporate mogul, but I would like to see it done the right way. I don’t want to see us have a separate entity here and there. When we were visiting with another fellowship, they told us when you do finally set up your office over there. You will be separate and apart from us. All the income you bring in you will maintain there. You will not send donations here. You will be a separate entity and that will come in time. If you set it up the way these guys want you to set it up you will be receiving money from across all lines and you will be crossing the 7th tradition. I fear the way the structure will go. I don’t want to see that. I think we have a lot of work to do. If Earl and Hayward would accompany me maybe we can go see our friends and maybe they can help us find some answers and direction. We can leave this on until the next conference call and then we can respond to them.
Bobbie: The real question is how we, California Corporation, do it. What comes to mind for me is another solution. The UK is just making sure that we can have the party there. How do we become a world corporation? So that we can go to Canada and bring the money home and go to the UK and do business. The solution sits with us. The only questions that the other fellowship is ever asked is like when they wanted to set up that meeting in Iraq, their local government wanted to see their basic text. They did not say you could not do business there. You are sitting on $12,000 and if you are in the mind set of really caring about us so that we can go wherever and party. Then let us use the money to become a world corporation.
Nicholas: They have had 6 meetings and I have been getting minutes and I have only seen red flags for the last two months. I do not think, but I do not know, that they are after world domination. I genuinely think this is about the tax man and wanting to make it legal. I think Jackie realized that if putting on a world bid were going to happen then this needed to be taken care of quickly. I hear no desires or wishes for them to have their own office, but saying that they have everything in place. They have a storage facility already. As soon as we get the distribution hub that will help. Maybe we should help them lead rather than advice 6,000 miles away. If we can put this online and we can get some direction for them. I think some talk with the bank account. I think we are half way through these questions. Do we want to ask them to put this in as a referral or do we want to just give them advice?
Trevor: By you bringing it here, it is official.
Carl: It is in the agenda and on the minutes. Tell him that we are talking about it and we will have something for him. You will let him know something by the conference call. In the meantime have them pursue the legal and the accountant.
Nicholas: Well I think it would look better if Earl and I worked on a little something to send to
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him, could we do that?
Earl: yeah, I think that action needs to be taken on a number of fronts. They have $12,000 for ring fenced for legal fees. They need to be doing their research. I have some questions, which I wrote out for you, that they need to send to their tax lawyer. So we can have facts sent back to this board. Then I can pull in the board members of the WSOB.
Bobbie: Nick you want to send some response now. If we treat this like a correspondence, the normal response is that we have received your request and we are working on it. You will receive a response in 30 days, whatever. We would see another email, before you would send it off, about the questions you have for them.
Carl: The thing about sending the standard letter is that we already discussed it. Now would be the time to send the response that earl and nick write together.
Earl: The receiver of the email can say we are working on it and there will be further contact regarding the questions we have.
Bobbie: The secretary should, so it shows in our little thing. That we have received it. Then Earl and Nick gets on the top of the next one, we received it here is what we need.
Carl: OK, the letter came from Nicholas who forwarded it to you. So send them the standard corporate letter.
Trevor: I will email that today.
Carl: One day next week you guys are going to send them some questions.
Trevor: Can I ask you to CC me on that so I have a copy for the record.
Earl: I think the whole board.
Carl: Correspondence and responses and news gram articles. The last few Newsgram articles, are we going to vote on these? Or are we just going to say yes we like it?
Hayward: No stuff shows up and I don’t remember seeing it. I get an article and I send it to everyone to get feedback. Not so much a vote, but we decided that any thing that comes from this board be seen by the board.
Carl: Trevor’s article went out last year, so Cynthia has just been sitting on it. A lot of stuff that we sent, at one point we were the ones sending most the articles, so there is still a lot of articles. If you submitted an article it is still sitting out there in cyberspace and she will use it when it comes up. If we forgot about them, they have already been approved by us.
Bobbie: Newsgram articles we do not vote on them. It is us keeping each other in the loop. If someone sends me a question from the area and I don’t know or I am not sure how to answer that
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is when I shoot you all an email about it. When I know the answer I just answer it. At the same time it allows you to know the ones I am not sure of. We did not vote on it, but I just want to make sure we are all on the same page. When we write something I will send it to you all before I shoot it to Cynthia.
Carl: It is just like 2008.08.08 I am not clear on that and I want to answer it collectively. If it is something sent to you as regional trustee then answer it right there.
Hayward: I would like to see on our yahoo group a section for Newsgram articles so we can look back at it.
Carl: So add a box in there for news gram article. Why don’t we just broaden our Newsgram to include articles you approve in your regions? Some times we may want to reach in there and grab one to send to the national Newsgram.
***Break****
Carl: We are back from break is there anything anyone needs to talk about at this time?
Kim: For the record item number 2008.02.10 I will craft the response to Brian T and post it for review online.
Hayward: Did we ever deal with 2009?
Kim: Yes
Carl: Actually we can take that offline and finish our discussion. We have time. We never came to a conclusion on what we wanted to do with it.
Bobbie: Kim made a statement, if there is not a disclaimer, and I think you said there was one. Stick it at the bottom of the directory or the flyer. Some folks are not going to take the name of the church off of the directory. If I had that disclaimer I would pop that into any flyer they send to me to be approved.
Earl: That is the tradition.
Carl: so what you are saying is leave them alone.
Bobbie: No what I am saying is send them the tradition if that is what we are using as a disclaimer. Suggest that they put it at the bottom of the flyer. If they are willing to send you the flyer they are probably willing to attach that on there.
Earl: Are you tacking it on everything or just the things we immediately see as being problematic. Our directory will say the addresses and something like, church, community building, Alano club, restaurant.
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Bruce: I think that there is a practical solution here somewhere. If there is a concern that putting the full name of a facility. I think that this is driven because of the blur between clubs and meetings in the southwest. Then it is appropriate that a disclaimer based on the tradition be added. I think that is a neat and recovery based way to remind people. I will suggest that to the folk that make the meeting list. Having that tradition language somewhere on the document is the solution.
Carl: So we can remove this from the agenda. The answer will be to have them place the tradition on the flyer.
Kim: I don’t like it. I think there should be some sort of crafted verbiage. To help me out.
Hayward: should that language be universal for websites and..
Kim: We have a disclaimer already that we use for the internet. This is for the newsletters. Then there is the disclaimer for any time that we are re-printing something from CA and AA.
Bobbie: I like what Bruce said “as a reminder, in keeping with tradition six, Cocaine anonymous does not….’
Bruce: I think the simpler the better. The club, group dynamic I don’t like. It sounds like a tradition violation. For the most part though that does not happen in these churches or hospitals.
Carl: It is happening in Arkansas right now. The church members are the group members and the church is running the group and the group is running the church.
Trevor: 90% of the meeting lists in my area have the names on there.
Bruce: There was this guy who owned a bunch of recovery facilities, for profit. At one time all the meetings in this area were all at his house and the hotline was answered in one of the facilities he owned. We have got to separate his business from the group and as a result he canceled all CA meetings at his facilities. It is up to the area to say we cannot do this. I like the subtlety of using the tradition. It is a reminder that because we are using the facility name does not mean we are affiliated or endorsing them.
Kim: I like this, ‘In the sprit of tradition six, as a reminder, we are not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution”.
Bobbie: you have the individual who does not want to hear about the traditions. When he shares he will name the club and say that club saved his life. When I pull him aside after I tell him you are teaching the babies wrong. You have those that are adamant about not listening to the traditions. You turn around and have 10 newcomers and at least two of them are going to practice what he does.
Trevor: I am assuming as the secretary I am supposed to figure this out. As a reminder, in keeping with tradition six, we are not allied with any outside entity. In no way does a meeting or
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events location imply affiliation.
Carl: No we are going to keep it simpler than that.
Kim: I would like to make a motion that we have a disclaimer for all flyers, newsletters, and directories stating: In the sprit of tradition six we are not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution.
In unison: Second
Trevor re-read the motion.
Carl: Motion passes with unanimously.
Earl: I would like a quick review of the agenda. It is my responsibility as the WSOT to communicate motions and policies that take place in our, WSBT, meetings. I would like for you to be my backups as we go through the agenda. The big one that I need to communicate is that Susan gets a raise. I communicated to John the result of our process of bringing forward a director of operations. The status of the EU went away and became something else.
Carl: No that will be updated in May.
Earl: Ok now it is the fulfillment center and not the EU. No motions that resulted from that at this point. I will officially inform the office that our meeting will start on May 19 th at 7pm. Nick will update the issues with currency across the pond at the April conference call. Questions for Brian T, Kim will craft the response.
Hayward: That was also the action item for the office, oh no not that is was dealing with CAWS 2010.
Earl: Yeah ok. 2010 Discussions at the WSOB from the board to board. Sr14 issues for Canada. Charity status for the UK we are going to craft what we believe to be questions for them. Have I missed anything?
Bobbie: Motion to adjourn
In unison: SECOND
Carl: Meeting adjourned at 11:21am Sunday morning.
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For all attached documents and reports see pdf: 2008-02-15-17-WSBT-Quarterly-Minutes.pdf