CA WORLD SERVICE BOARD OF TRUSTEES REGULAR QUARTERLY
MEETING MINUTES
May 19- 21, 2008 Final Approved Minutes
(Approved by WSBT for distribution on November 7, 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 May 2008 Quarterly
Salt Lake City, Utah
May, 2008
Opened meeting with a moment of silence and the Serenity Prayer
Introductions:
| In Attendance: | MWRT | Lawrence Matlock | ASRT | |
| Kim Sherwan | ||||
| Trevor Scheible | PNRT/Secretary of WSBT | Carl Warlick | PSRT/Chair | |
| Bobbie Harmon | TAL/ Acting SWRT /Vice Chair | ANRT | ||
| Earl Henderson | WSOT | Bruce Watson | ||
| Nicholas Lynn | ERT | Hayward Hunt | WST | |
Off the record for personal sharing
9:16 pm
Reading of the 12 traditions: Bruce
Discussion on tradition five-
Hayward: It is funny how it says never organized, but we have to be organized. It seems that some board that I am involved with at the area level thinks that the body is responsible to them so they want to make their own decisions. That causes a lot of problems because it should be the other way around.
Bobbie: This is the one that always seems to stump people where H&I and the Convention committee are concerned. They think that they operate separate and apart from the area, where they want their own bank account as apposed to line items. They want to dictate what happens with that money. They do not want to look at you are a sub-committee. You have done some fundraising and when it is done and the bills are paid from the event, the money should go into the area account because it was an area convention. I watched this happen. I had to explain to them that they are a sub-committee and they cannot decide how the money is distributed. Tradition 9 covers this, brush up on this one.
Carl: When you guys are looking at this make sure you put that in there. I was dictating this with my Dictaphone.
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Bruce: I would like to say a little bit about it. Whenever we try to do a little organization and this gets thrown back at me. I have people say you are a trusted servant you do not govern. I have had people say wait we are not supposed to be organized. I think the goal here was to make sure that the fellowship not becomes some type of ridged, inflexible organization. We run best at the local level. This is about stuff happening in meetings.
Trevor: My favorite part of this tradition is that whenever some one screws up they put it on “well we ought never be organized’.
Carl: In some of the stuff that was written in these other book. All these people back then were business men and they looked at structure the way it was supposed to be. What bill talked about was the leas amount of organization. When you start talking about the office or here, we have to be organized because this is the business of CA. I know people do not like talking about that. We have to create these service arms to take care of the day to day operations. Bobbie I liked what you said. H&I wants to tell the area what to do. My friend would say H&I is organized under the 9th tradition. I liked that because they are not a separate entity.
Concept 10- Read by Carl.
Trevor; you cannot ask someone to do something if you do not give them the authority to do their job and to do it well and to stand behind. It’s a pretty important concept.
Earl: I often think of this concept when I think of how our structure is between the boards. The board of trustees has asked the WSOB to conduct the business of the world service office for the fellowship. In order for them to perform that function, they have given them a line of responsibilities and what their expectations are. They have also had to entrust the authority to carry that out. It is delegated and I often think of this concept in the execution of my responsibilities as the WSOT.
Carl: For me we talk about this equal authority. The scope of such authority to be well defined. As board of trustees everyone in here knows what we are supposed to be doing and sometimes it is so easy to cross the line. Once we go from being a trusted servant and we have to remember that we serve the fellowship they do not serve us. It is so easy to cross that line. We have the checks and balances systems here and we have to check each other on what we say. People already think that we have the ultimate authority.
Trevor: I answered a couple questions about our authority and power as trustees. As a group we do have some authority, but as a trustee myself I cannot tell anyone what to do and try to make them do something. As a board we do have some authority to run the business of CA. I am just a small part of this whole thing. It is something that a lot of people in our fellowship do not understand.
Bruce: In two years what I have discovered is that they disregard what I say when they want to. People call me up that I don’t even know and ask questions that are designed to get a certain answer. So they are able to go back and say “I talked to the trustee and he said…”. That is one of the most startling things; we have no power except for the power that people give us when they want guidance from us. When they want us to give them direction which
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they were already inclined to go in. it is a good thing we are not organized and that we are on the bottom of the pyramid.
Kim: Recently at the service workshop we did this came up. What I take from authority is my experience and education that I can pass on. We were talking about that every service responsibility is matched by equal service authority, your experience. It is like when people put a GSR into the position with only 30 days. The authority is having the experience and education for that.
Hayward; what I have learned from you guys is to no be so quick to give an answer. I always say I think I need to talk to my “colleagues” about that.
Lawrence: Sometimes I think that they come to us and we can just listen. They already have the answer they just need someone to listen.
Review of Agenda/Add new business items
Carl: For the approved minutes, February 2008 WSBT quarterly we will move that to online if no one objects to that. No meeting this quarterly. For New business we are going to start at item number 2008.05.08.
Nicholas; I would like to bring a question from a member “Can the trustees provide him with a list of all mind altering substances”.
Bruce: The answer is no.
Bobbie: Should we name this request for list of mind altering substances?
Carl: Ok we can call it that. 2008.05.01-Date and time of the next quarterly meeting, 2008. 05.02 date and time of the next WSBT conference call, 2008.05.03 online submission releases from link to web page, 04-referral of all inclusiveness.
Bobbie: To close the unspoken loop.
Carl: the reprint policy that is something that keeps coming up.
Question from Steve A.-nomination of Taffy to D of O, Earl. Now we are at 09-Bruce
Bruce: I got an email about a young people’s meeting of Cocaine Anonymous. I sent a copy to you folks earlier today. He asked me a couple of questions, was it necessary that counselor’s be present, is it true that we need to eliminate all references to GOD.
Bobbie: Assistance to creating a young people’s meeting.
Bruce: yes he started a meeting and they have heard something’s about how the meetings are to be run. He posed four or five questions. Clarification on policies or procedures on a young people’s meeting of CA.
Carl: 10
Bruce: Apparently there was an issue involving a website called “norockonbrock.com”. This is linked to the Southern Ontario website and it has an AA symbol on it. It has a fair amount
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of his own perspective on sobriety, recovery, ECT. There is a dispute about what to do about what people are calling a renegade website.
Carl: Let’s put it as website issue “norockonbrock”. Number 11, anything else?
Kim: I would like to re-visit the situation for Wisconsin area-off the record.
Bobbie: We still want it on the agenda, at some point we are going to have a paper trail showing we are dealing with this.
Hayward: Is there some additional stuff since the letter we sent to them.
Kim: Yes.
Bobbie: We don’t have to show what the discussion is. Okay do it under your convention.
Approve the minutes-minutes from the April 2008 WSBT’s Conference call.
Bobbie: Motion to approve the minutes of April 2008 WSBT’s Conference call.
Hayward: Second
Carl: Motion Passed.
Bobbie; motion to approve the record of online business between February and May 2008 quarterly meetings.
Nicholas: Second
Carl: Motion passed.
Bobbie: Motion to approve the WSBT office reports, chair, vice-chair, and secretary.
Hayward: Second
Trevor: I just want to let you know, part of my job as secretary is to put all of our correspondence on our website. In the process of doing that there were some personal ones, as far as naming names and the Wisconsin issue so I decided to hold it off. I talked to Carl and he said don’t put it on there. That is what we are apparently supposed to do. I just wanted to let everyone know.
Hayward: did you look at some of the examples on there; there are no references to names.
Trevor: I could not find a way to edit it so that people could not know who was being talked about.
Carl: any objections to that, Motion Passed.
Bobbie: Motion to approve the trustee reports, excluding Atlantic north and the Southwest region.
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Hayward: Second
Earl: Why did you want to do that?
Bobbie: I wanted to pull those out because I have something to talk about on the southwest and I know he wants to talk about his. Just like we do for the conventions.
Carl: Then we will go back and approve those one by one. Motion Passed.
Bobbie: Motion to approve the Atlantic North Regional Trustees Report.
Bruce: Second. I would like to speak to the motion. I have been blessed to be a part of this fellowship for quite a while, for 10 years now, my sobriety date is December 25, 1997. it has been a wonderful blessing to serve at the area level, then as the delegate, then to be selected as the regional trustee. What I do for a living is work as a lawyer and I am ½ owner of a law firm. Our business is in trouble and I am facing personal financial problems as a result of that. Because of these difficulties I have found it necessary after consulting with my sponsors and my friends in CA and praying in this manner to resign as Atlantic North Regional Trustee. It is my intention to make my resignation final at the end of the August Conference this year of 2008. It is my wish to do this as gracefully and in a way that is as helpful to the fellowship and to the Atlantic north region as I can be because I love this fellowship so much. Therefore, I offer my resignation.
Hayward: I hate to hear this. How would we go about filling this?
Earl: I will discus it at TEC.
Carl: Motion Passed.
Bobbie: Motion to approve the Southwest Regional Trustee report.
Bruce: Second
Bobbie: This is not in the convention committee report. In the Southwest regional report under Colorado, one of the delegates made note of their disappointment in the lack of participation by the trustee, which would be me. In my understanding of the guidelines, when you are almost two years out, they are not in their year of the convention, so the trustees travel is not where you go two or three times. Fortunately the southwest regional trustee prior to me was able to travel on his own dime and have it not affect CA’s money. On the other hand, in this particular year, 2008 there is only one particular trip the trustees should be doing. Now based on my own personal issues, I have not been able to get away. I wanted it noted that I did not change this report; I put it in exactly like he wrote it. I wanted it to be on the record that according to the report they are not happy. They do not think I am participating as the trustee should be participating. In my own defense I am part of their yahoo group, they have had two spending committee conference calls that I have been on, I have been on one teleconference-though they were doing it in a very large room, so it was too hard to hear on a cell phone. I have spoken to one of the other individuals and I will fly out there in June or July and stay at their house to keep the costs down. The way they do it is the convention committee meets on a Sunday and the steering committee meets on a Wednesday, so I would
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extend my stay from that Sunday morning till that Thursday. I wanted this to be on the record that I am in the process of rectifying my error.
Hayward: The conference call, you said the room was too big?
Bobbie: They do not have a teleconference phone. The one time they tried it Beth used her cell phone and it was too hard to hear and they could not really hear me on the phone. So the purpose of me being there was defeated.
Hayward: How soon after do you get the minutes?
Bobbie: They are pretty good about posting the minutes. When I get the minutes, I read them and I have not seen a reason to jump in there. In all honesty Jay is right there and they will be using a lot of his expertise.
Trevor: Bobbie when I read that I was a little shocked and I was very impressed that you did that and I knew you were right and that you had integrity and you were not trying to hide anything. I really appreciate you being honest and upfront about it.
Carl: Motion Passed
Bobbie: Motion to approve the WSBT sub-committee reports.
Hayward: Second
Carl: Motion passed unanimously.
Bobbie: Motion to approve the trustee conference committee reports, excluding CAWSO 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011.
Hayward: Second
Carl: Motion passed.
Bobbie: Motion to approve CAWSO 2008
Nicholas: Second
Carl: Motion passed unanimously.
Bobbie: Motion to approve CAWSO 2009
Hayward: Second
Carl: Motion passed unanimously.
Bobbie: Motion to approve CAWSO 2010.
Kim: Second
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Carl: Motion passed unanimously.
Bobbie: Motion to approve CAWSO 2011
Kim: Second
Bobbie: We just recently had a conference call and we were going to try to put together some of the steering committee. Most of the participants that we have right now are from Phoenix. He wants to get a larger part of the area to get involved. We are going to get back on the phone call June 14th. We do have some good qualified people and we should have a good steering team together by the conference call.
Hayward: Do they know where they are going to have it?
Bobbie: No, not yet. They do have some ideas though.
Carl: Motion passed unanimously.
OLD BUSINESS
Carl; I think there was some discussion on removing this from the agenda. Old business item number 2007.05.09 review of the publishing process, the first part was taken care of at the conference. We shall review the latter part and update at the May quarterly.
Bruce: Cynthia has drafted some material already. She got to point 16 and I have that draft here with me. I feel like we need to look at what NA does with book type publication processes. Let’s try to learn from their experiences and not try to re-invent the wheel. LCF will be talking on Saturday. She feels that it is important in having a process in place before we get a whole lot further down the road and gathering material for the meditation book. I think we all want to avoid the stumbling blocks that happened with HFC II. I would like to address this online rather than waiting till August. I hope to have some better answers then.
Carl: Between myself, earl, and Nick, we just happen to have an answer for you on what NA does. They put the book together and they send it out to the entire fellowship.
Earl: A written process, I think that is what Cynthia would be looking for.
Carl: How they do it is they create it and send it out to the groups, the groups make whatever changes they want and they send it back. Then they decide if they want to make those changes and then they send it out to the groups a second time. After it comes back to the office the second time that is it.
Bruce: So there are two reviews by the fellowship as a whole.
Carl: So we actually do it a very easy way with the 12 point literature process. We have this committee that reviews it. They have the fellowship that reviews it. We need to schedule an appointment with them in August.
Earl; they are so big that they have one person assigned to that book. Someone who deals with all that stuff and they are employed.
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Bruce: So it might not be possible for us to use NA’s model for CA.
Carl: You are talking about a multi-million dollar business and they have paid employees, not volunteers. If you are getting paid to do the job you are probably going to do it real good. I am going to go there one day when I get back from Milwaukee.
To be completed or updated by the May Quarterly
Carl: 2006.02.12 WSBT statement-combination of two old business items, Hayward and Bobbie.
Hayward: I would like this removed from the agenda, because the help desk site it going to take care of all this. We never really used the share point site. So I have removed everything from that site. The majority of it has been moved to the archives for our yahoo group.
Carl: Any objections? Ok Item number 2006.02.20 copyright and trademark protection, Sweden.
Hayward: I recently sent the agenda item that addressed that that showed all the protection and I sent an update that shows this. Sweden is part of the EU and that coverage extends to them. So we can remove that
Bobbie: I thought we were leaving it on the agenda for review. We should just be removing the part about Sweden.
Earl: Yeah, the Sweden part goes away.
Carl: Any objections to removing the last line. Ok, it will remain as a book mark. 2006.08.13-Annual corporate documents, we skip that.
2007.04.08-Tec interview process.
Earl: I am a little disappointed that we are jammed with everyone up here, because I thought in my communications with everyone I thought that we would be spending a good portion of Thursday and Friday interviewing people. I thought we would be able to do more on Thursday, but by the time I got all the information on the candidates. Most of the people I had contacted had already made their plans to fly in on certain days. Most were not flying in on Wednesday. I was really constrained on being able to fill up Thursday. This means there is a lot going down on Friday. I have a few problems with the interviewees. We have 9 people slated to be interviewed at this particular point in time. Two of those will be a problem where they are scheduled right now. Between now and Wednesday I will try to work on this schedule and talk to these people. Our choices are we find a spot for these two people, which is going to be an hour of our time sometime somewhere in our schedule. If we do not do it between the hours that we designated for it. Or we can push these people into the conference for their interviews. We are going to be spending a lot of time in LA in the TEC meeting. We only have three trustee delegates here that are going to be part of the process so they are going to be locked up listening to recordings at the Conference. As to the Atlantic North they put together and submitted a slate for the TAL. Now that the position of regional trustee for the Atlantic north has become available that slate can expand to four people. The third vote getter
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in the process can be brought into the picture. I just got that individuals name and resume. We can possibly interview them here at the convention. The winner is…anyway so we have another one. I have got in this package all the interview forms that I think we will need. We have that customized form for Willie Bailey, so I only have to interview him one time. Now we are going to be having a few more regional interviews.
Hayward: did the office spend any money on any per diem or travel expenses for any of the delegates?
Earl: As it is turning out, I have a lot of money in the budget for the TEC. We were going to try to help out with the room deficit, but because of their travel plans we were going to cover their Wednesday. The only one who will qualify for that will be Willie, Susan and Theresa.
We will per diem Susan for the room night because she is going to interview early for us. We may start our quarterly meeting in Palm Springs.
Carl: With the way this agenda is looking and you figure with things that we have to carry over. We might just have a day and a half of quarterly and then we start interview that next day. When the conference starts we will spend that time there, but we will also have time to continue interviews.
Bobbie: if my understanding of how the manual says this, the top two vote getters are the ones who interview for the TAL. If there is a regional position open the third person comes in. Do they interview for the TAL and the regional?
Earl: Just regional.
Bobbie: Based on that you have Kerri W. interviewing for TAL and he was our third vote getter. For Randy you have him TAL and Southwest regional.
Earl: What are you looking at?
Bobbie: Your tentative interview schedule. Did you change it on me?
Earl: That is a misprint.
Bobbie: Randy and Richard were our top two vote getters.
Earl: Those are going to be the people that qualify for TAL.
Bobbie: Right, now in the manual it says if you have a regional you pull in your third person.
Earl: All three qualify for regional; it is just the top two that qualify for TAL.
Bobbie: Richard isn’t going to interview here?
Earl: No, LA.
Carl: Just because we did this with the office manager, are we going to give the interviewees a copy of the questions?
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Earl: No, we have never done that.
Carl: I have a problem with this process. In Bruce’s region the call went out for TAL only and you have people that submitted their names for TAL only. Now the regional position is open, shouldn’t we go back and ask people to submit their resumes. It would be only fair to go back.
Bruce: I was there and conducted the elections. I said we need two for the TAL, but you should bear in mind, I was already wondering what I should do about the issue I addressed tonight. I said you should bear in mind that I could be hit by a bus, I could decide to resign, and I need people who are prepared to step up.
Carl: It does not matter what you said that night, the position was not open. Now it is open and that is when people submit their resumes. You can say TEC or TAL and you might get one or two. When the regional opens up we get 12 people. So there is a big difference.
Bobbie: In the pacific south you can have 6 people in your slate so you want to get 12 so you can get down to 6 people. Every year and every region does a slate in case of you getting hit by a bus, ECT. In case something like this happens. The regional assembly is done a certain time of the year, everyone who is interested from that area that information is passed forward. Have the time it is a mute point, here is a good example of why you need a slate on time that is what this process is all about. It is not necessary for him to have to pull an emergency. We have a set month in the year, Atlantic North, Midwest, ER, Pacific North, Atlantic South we have a set time that we do it. We all understand that is the purpose of the slate every year.
Carl: What is going to happen when this goes to the conference, someone will say why weren’t we informed?
Earl: I do not think so. I will make a motion to approve the slates. I make that motion on the floor. I see your point, but I think also you have a huge fellowship and a huge region. It is very difficult to predict when that vacancy will come.
Hayward: I thought he was bringing forth three names?
Carl: He is, initially it was two.
Bruce: Three people were elected, the top two vote getters were going to interview for the TAL. I still have vote counting sheets that we used. There is not going to be any outpouring of people wanting to be a trustee from the Atlantic north region. I had to go area by area through that region and twist arms knowing who was qualified to get people to do it.
Lawrence: Seeing that election of trustee candidates by regional assembly the pacific south region shall annually elect up to six, but not less than four candidates to fill the trustees. The remaining 5 regions shall elect up to four but not less than 2 candidates to fill the trustees as needed.
Carl: This is what would happen out here, if I stepped down right now there will be 12 people that said we didn’t have a chance to put in our resumes. Weather the assembly is over or not. I just don’t want to get to the conference and see this come out of your region. All it takes is one.
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Bruce: My greatest fear is that all three will say wait a minute I did not sign on for this and remove them from the candidacy.
Trevor: My experience is, the year that I was elected to my slate for my region there was 12 different candidates that had names submitted. I had been attending the regional for 5 years prior to that and there had never been more than three except for the year when it was open prior to that when there were 9 or 10. This last year when I let everyone know that TAL was open we once again had about 9 or 10. When a position is there and people know it, there are people out there that want to sit in this room. I can hear both sides of the argument. It would be a real shame if there was someone out there who did not get this. I think the only real fair thing to do is to go back to the region and let them know. It is too “iffy” of a chance.
Bobbie: I remember every year that Jackie had to beat the bushes to get anyone to put in a resume. AN is not like SW, it is not like PN, not even like you. AN is totally different. It is like nobody, S&B kicks in for me. It has been done the same way every year. At the convention you are going to have a caucus, which would be where he would announce it. The trustees at the convention had to decide they were going to pull 06. It was in our caucus when we found out we needed to show up at the Conference. They have a caucus at the Conference. It is not like we would run into a problem and all hell is going to break loose for you. You have two opportunities to caucus with AN if you need to, but I fall back on you have done the process. It is like I am playing GOD if I start worrying about what is going to happen when I get to the Conference floor. There are enough people in AN that sit on S&B and they know the manual and the process.
Bruce: There are relatively fewer people qualified in AN, that is because people have had to been a voting delegate. There are a limited number of these people. I know everyone by name that has been this and I know if they are available to be the trustees. I believe that I talked to everyone who is qualified. I will put it out on the AN email list and notify everyone of what we have done. The year I was elected there were 5 people who ran and four people that were elected. One of those four withdrew his name and we were left with three that interviewed.
Carl: It is 11:20 right now and I see a couple of things on the agenda that we can talk about real quick.
Earl; I am going to try to get a hold of Robert Lyle on the phone or email and see if I can fill him in on the 10am slot on Friday if he will be here or the 215 for Friday.
Carl: I was looking at 2007.10.14 NADCP-2008 in St. Louis.
Bobbie: All I know is that when I leave here on Memorial Day I go to St. Louis. Patty has been tied up with getting this stuff ready. Once she gets here I will have to get my information as far as the hotel. I know we are staying in the hotel where the actual conference is. I have to touch base and confirm what we have been talking about; taffy is going to be shipping there so I know what to look for when I get there.
2008.02.12 Trustee Dinner/Brunch
Bobbie: I have gotten 22 and that is including us. I told them 25 and it is right outside and across the street. Those who were not coming were more than willing to email if not me, the
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group letting us know they would not be able to come. Debbie will be able to make it. Craig cannot.
2008.04.14 Help desk
Hayward; Remember the email we got from John addressing some issues. I answered back to that. John, taffy, Patty they have been tied up with their convention stuff. So that should remain on there.
2007.02.06
Earl: We had pages and pages out of our minutes from our last quarterly and we moved it to online and that is where it has sat. We did not hear anything from anyone. I have been busy with the TEC and it is not exactly like this a barn burning issue. We are chugging along.
Bobbie: Do you want to leave this on for August?
Earl: No we will have time to work on it here. If we have time we should work on it. Maybe we do something at the conference, there is a policy that everyone is happy with and we can work on.
Carl: That will leave us with 5 old business items and the rest is new business for tomorrow morning. We will reconvene tomorrow.
11:37pm meeting closed for the evening.
Carl: We are on the record, Tuesday, and we are on agenda item 2007.10.15 Status of the fulfillment center.
Nicholas: I have been talking to Ms. Patty and I found over 46 fulfillment centers and I hope to come with the top 3 and the most economical. Some of the centers are very expensive; they want $3 per item! I explained we are like a charity and not a charity. We are still in negotiations and I am waiting on the rest of the bids to come in.
Carl; So update in August.
2008.02.06 Spending notes
Earl: You all want to work on this. We have 7 pages from our previous quarterly meeting, do you want to take a few minutes to work on this. I haven’t come to you with a proposed draft. It was online, but nothing was done there.
Carl: Lets do all the old business first and then we can come back to that. Does that fall along with item 2008.02.07 spending and transfer guidelines. Let’s remove 2008.02.06 since they are the same issue.
2008.02.11 SR14 Items
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Trevor: Jenn will now be bringing down the four that I started of the re-drafting of the regional boundaries. I failed to put them in my briefcase. I have the maps labeled as it is now and as it is going to be.
Bobbie: Is this something that we need to deal with or that country specifically?
Trevor: Originally when the boundaries were drawn they were put into Manitoba, in the mid-west; they have never been active until the last 6 to 8 months. From Saskatoon where the meetings are to the Midwest is 12 hours. They have got district status. When I brought it up last time the feedback I got last time was that I should draft it up and let everyone see it first.
Carl: They should do it and send it to you and then you just let us see it before you send it.
Bobbie: The regions work together and then have the conference floor approve it. That is not our stuff.
Carl: Do we have any SR14 items.
Bobbie: Only the one I wanted, but we are going to do that later.
2008.02.14 Charitable Status of the UK
Nicholas: I just resent everyone the 6 questions, they are very muddled.
Carl; Do you have the thing that he got from the government?
Nick: No that is on the server, it comes as two parts. There are three questions about charity. I did send it out along time ago. I can read them out loud. This is the original letter; all the questions are not about charity.
Trevor: I just tried to send it to the yahoo groups and I can’t send it either.
Nick: Let’s just send it around the table. It won’t let me send anything out. I am trying to rip it out and put it into a word document. He has put it into 6 questions, but not all questions are about the same things. Question 1 relates to the charity, Question 2 and 4 also relate to the charity. Question 3 asks about how to transfer funds other than using a credit card that has nothing to do with the Charity.
Bobbie: It does at the end have to do with the charity.
Nick: Eventually the charity, but you have to address the first three questions to get to the fourth question. So I think question 3 should come last. Question 5 is asking about the UK assembly and question 6 is talking about the structure. So there are four that are really for charity and we have to answer the first three before we can come to the fourth which is about the funds. So the first one he starts talking about a donation above the allowable limit, I cannot find this limit written down anywhere.
Carl: Did you check with the office?
Nick: Yes, we cannot find it anywhere that it is written down.
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Earl: It is not that policy was made at the conference in 2004; Elizabeth made a motion to make the contribution limit $ 5000. It is in the minutes of the 2004 Conference, but it is not in a guideline.
Bruce: I have a global comment and a question. This is a remarkably complicated approach. I think as a board we would be making a mistake if we just answer the questions without addressing the overall issue as we see it. First and foremost is this good for the fellowship of CA as a whole in the UK? This requires going to your congress, the Parliament, and getting them to pass a special bill. This sounds expensive and time consuming. Isn’t a path followed by NA, which is bigger in the UK than AA, give us some type of guidance. Let’s keep it simple. He is talking about how many directors there would be how many districts, ECT. First let’s see is this even necessary? Are there cheaper ways to do it?
Bobbie: When we originally got this, went home and looked at it. I am on the same page as Bruce. The idea of more directors and trustees, you are already an area and have area chair, vice chair, secretary. Those are your officers. You have trustees, they just don’t all happen to live in the UK. I don’t know what the process is for them to get their 501C status; you guys call it charity status, so you can get together your bid. If it were really such a big deal, then I don’t see us getting the bid here. The charity status wasn’t that big an obstacle to get around. You are an area; if you want to send us 100,000 you don’t have a limit. Everyone already knows that as an individual is $ 5000 and if your mother owns a company we are not taking her $5000 because she is not a member. I think he is complicating it with the first four questions. The last two you could actually answer yourself without our help. This opens up a question, why do we need another board of trustees? Are you trying to do something in a round about way?
Earl: I would like a refresher course on this whole thing; we have got an item on the agenda that we carried over from February. I went bullet item by bullet item and gave you some suggestions, did you go back to him?
Nick: Yes and he answered all the questions and they said we need answers to the questions we asked you.
Earl: What authority is he acting on, “what we need”, has he been elected a committee head?
Nick: Head of ad-hock committee.
Earl: The reason for them to create this charity status is?
Nick: because they have been to the tax man under my instruction. The tax man said if you do not sort yourselves out I will tax you. He will tax the donations.
Earl: Here is the solution to the problem. The tax man isn’t going to tax you unless you have huge amounts of money in your treasury. According to the guidelines of this fellowship shouldn’t be happening. If the funds flow forward to world like they are supposed to, we do not have a problem with the tax man. Maybe you better draw them a picture and give them a better explanation because they need to understand that. You are creating a monster in trying to duplicate a special piece of legislation passed through the English parliament to create
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special charity status. AA was much bigger than CA is. It is like trying to back a horse up a ladder.
Nicholas: They answered all the questions. They have spent at the moment $ 5000 and the firm that is doing it wants to now double it. I have friend that will do it in 10 days if they become a limited company. Then that translates into a 501. They do not want to do that. I am a trustee and cannot tell them what to do. The questions are like self fulfilling prophecy.
Carl: The committee was formed to respond to Jason, that committee will be Earl, Nicholas, Bobbie, and Kim. They will complete this task before we are adjourned. That was item number 2008.02.14-Charitable status for the UK.
2008.04.14 – Help Desk
Hayward: We addressed that yesterday. To remain on agenda and follow up on the July conference call.
New Business
Date and time of the next WSBT quarterly meeting
Kim: Conference starts on the 26th of August.
Carl: Ok we need to be there on the 24th, what time do you want to start?
Earl: You absolutely need to do some interviewing on Monday. We will interview three people on Saturday morning. We will have about 11 interviews, and they run abut 1 hour each. So we can do 4 or 5 people on Tuesday. So we have 6 or 7 to do on Monday.
Carl: It looks like we will have to start Saturday night. Or we can meet in Palm Springs and we can do Friday the 22nd , 23rd and be done Sunday the 24th and do interviews on Monday the 25th.
Earl: We are spending more money to start early.
Hayward: The room rates are a lot higher than at the Four Points.
Bobbie: I am trying to think if I have missed Palm Springs; it is something I do every year. I did it on my dime. We will already be there. We talked to cliff and he was going to get us a room. We were going to do the quarterly there so we could be onsite with the fellowship.
Earl: Either way we have to come in early.
Hayward: If we come in on the 22nd of August we will be through on that Sunday.
2008.05.02 Date and Time of the next WSBT Conference call
Carl: July 13th at 10:00 am Pacific Standard time.
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Hayward: Motion to approve the WSBT Conference call for July 13th at 10:00 am Pacific time.
Lawrence/Bruce: Second
Carl: Motion passed.
2008.05.03 Online Submissions/release for links to the webpage.
Bruce: I forwarded an email or some email that I have gotten from Cynthia to you all. There are a couple of businesses, Readers digest and the chicken soup motivational books that have online submission devices. You can go to their site and you can post your submission right there. You click submit and it is submitted. Cynthia would like to do this for both submissions for the mediations and other book length things that we are soliciting submissions from the fellowship. As well as submissions for the NewsGram. Sometimes she will get the submission and the submission form separately. She also believes that this will increase the submissions. Patty has asked the web servant about this. It was his suggestions that we have one of those character recognition boxes; he reported that this was doable. I am here to propose that we authorize such a development of online submission device to be placed on the website.
Carl: My question is to you, Earl, wouldn’t that be the office? We have already given our permission for this. This should go to the office. If she has already talked to Patty then that should be enough.
Earl: Does she want our blessing?
Bruce: I think so. I think Cynthia felt that it was a step beyond what we previously authorized. I will report that this does not need our approval in our opinion. And LCF can continue to work with the office and implement it as is appropriate.
Carl: Ok we can remove this from the agenda.
2008.05.04 Referrals for all inclusiveness for the WSOT selection process.
Bobbie: I sent this to everybody. In the manual on page 42, it says the WSOT is an active volunteer director, who is not already a trustee on the WSOB of Directors. This referral would say, candidates to be considered by the WSOB must be presently serving on the WSOB or have served as a past WSOB director. Right now our office board is limited; we have Kathy Jo, who has decided that when she rolls out she is taking a year off from service work. That leaves Theresa, who might have 5 years, and Willie to be considered for the WSOT this year. If Willie is chosen for Pacific South, that only leaves us Theresa and we just got it approved that you got to have 8 years to be considered for the trustee. In all honesty disqualifies Theresa. I don’t think it is fair to the office board, they have a variety of people who know the stuff, but because of the way the manual is written they cannot be considered.
Trevor: I think just removing the presently serving thing. To be considered as a regional trustee we don’t say that you have to be presently a delegate. It makes a lot of sense.
Hayward: it doesn’t say you have to be a current director, but you had to be one in the past.
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Bobbie: Yes, you have to have been one. Just like you have had to have been a delegate and voted on the floor in the past. S&B will catch it and put it really where it belongs. The gist of it is to straiten this out.
Earl: I personally like the idea of this; it would broaden our pool of candidates. It is a very narrow field as it is structured now. I would like to know how the office board directors would feel about such a proposal. I think their input would be valuable before we start writing referrals. There might be some underlying spiritual reason for having it this way, that’s why we should talk to the current board. Maybe they want someone in there to be current with what’s going on?
Bobbie: We have people that we select as trustees that haven’t been a delegate or been on the conference floor for years. I don’t disagree with the idea of running it by them and letting them know. It is not voluminous, but because of the issue it pertains to some person could say this some serious stuff and you didn’t get this in on time. In the past I want to get it to Patty before the end of the Convention. It is not about blindsiding them.
Carl: You are going to talk them, Earl. Then you let Bobbie know what is happening and Bobbie let us know what is happening before you submit it. Good with you Earl?
Earl: yeah
Hayward: I was the secretary last year we had a few items for the SR14 and I emailed all that information the first week or two so it could be submitted for the June mailing.
Bobbie: Patty will be out of town next week.
Trevor: Taffy will not.
Bobbie: We are not asking for Taffy’s experience.
Carl: Earl will take care of this. Can you tell me when that email went out?
Hayward: May 10th.
Carl: I will put down to update this weekend.
2008.05.05 Reprint policy
Carl: I have been getting emails from Cynthia and we have been talking about the reprint policy. If you look at the CALA newsletter, I posted a couple to the group. What you will see is them reprinting stuff from the Hope, Faith, and Courage 2. What Cynthia’s concern is, is the amount that they are re-printing. They are re-printing about 7 or 8 paragraphs. We have no re-print policy in place at the office. There was a policy that was supposedly sent around a while back. Do any of you have that? She is concerned about the amount that they are re-printing.
Bobbie: She is concerned about our members putting pieces of their book in their newsletter?
Bruce: Carl can you explain what is the precise concern here?
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Carl: The amount they are printing.
Bruce: Does that result in harm? What kind of harm?
Carl: Yes, violating the copy-write.
Hayward: Do you have the original email with her concerns?
Carl: Yes.
Bobbie: The past PNRT worked on a re-print policy and we didn’t get this?
Carl: She sent it in January 26, 2006. Then she sent an email to me in March and she sent it to Earl and Hayward. She sent it to CAWSO board in 2006.
Hayward: The intellectual properties subcommittee for the office was working on that and it kind a got lost in the shuffle. It is an action item for them. She is probably asking for an update on that.
Bobbie: The email says “….I was thinking I had seen a re-print policy while I was on the
WSBT s I went digging through my emails and this is what I found. I don’t know weather it was officially adopted, but it is a bit more restrictive than the copy write limitation you mentioned in your voicemail. Some of the HFC 2 quotes in the CALA newsletter have been longer than a brief paragraph. Well probably all that is needed is a bit more adherence to the crediting requirements. If in fact this ever made it to the point of being an official policy?” What this leads me to is, from Hayward to Cynthia and Earl. We were imputing on this from the last WSOB. Hayward from the CAWSO, reprint footer apparently from KJ.
Carl: Cynthia called me and said “what about the reprint policy”. I said what reprint policy are you talking about, ok let me get back to you. So now what you are reading is the message that I left to Cynthia is that the reprint policy stated by everyone else is that you can print up to six paragraphs. Cynthia says no that is not what the reprint policy that she was talking about should be. She says not more than a paragraph.
Bruce: Do you know what the legal is? It is 6 paragraphs. OK you can print up to 6 and not endanger a copy write.
Kim: Where do we get that information?
Carl: I went online and looked up copy write laws.
Bobbie: It is on the agenda, no one has read this. Let’s set it aside and take the time to read it so we can all understand what is in this email. We can’t intelligently talk about it. So can we set this aside also?
Carl: Earl, I spoke with John and you guys were supposed to working on something for this. That is why I put this on there. Did you talk to him about it?
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Hayward: The office intellectual properties subcommittee started working on this. KJ said let’s ask Cynthia, she was the chair at the time. We started drafted something and it got tabled for some reason and we just stopped working on it. She called Carl and asks him about the reprint policy. You can tell her that is an office project.
Carl: I called John at the office and they put it back on the agenda. I brought it to you guys to see if in fact he put it back on the agenda. That way we can say yes to her that it is on the agenda or check with Earl and Hayward.
Hayward: The office has not adopted any policy even though the legal may be 6 paragraphs.
2008.05.06 Questions for Steve A.
Bobbie: I think we decided on the internet what we were going to do with that. Everybody was on the same page with that, but yet at the same time they don’t seem to think that this guy, by donating his drinks doesn’t put us in a situation where we are not practicing the 7th tradition. We don’t give him a dollar for it. You were all on the same page with the gentleman giving $1000 if you buy a house from me, no you can’t do it. When it came to the drink and he is donating his drink and you all don’t see it to be a problem with the area excepting it. In spite of the fact that he is a member.
Earl: How much in drinks? $5000 worth or $500?
Bobbie: I don’t know. He pretty much finances whenever they. He donates enough of this drink to make it through a weekend convention. He is saying you are not practicing 7th tradition; you are not giving him at least $1 for this donation. This is a business; this isn’t a guy making soda in his garage. He sells this stuff. The answer will basically be that we agree with the long form of the 7th tradition, where the CA groups accepting gifts that have strings attached violate tradition 7. As far as the straight donation where there is no implication of something coming back anybody’s way it is ok.
2008.05.07 Nomination of Taffy W to Director of Operations
Earl: It gives me great pleasure to inform this board that she is working out really well. At the last WSOB meeting we went into executive session and we discussed her job performance to date and she has been doing a fantastic job under circumstances that have been less than ideal. Patty’s limited time in the office, John’s limited hands-on time. She has been able to, she is a self-starter. We have Susan and Rocko on the office staff who are able to give her information. We decided unanimously that we would like to bring her forward as the director of operations.
Hayward: Second
Bobbie: How long has she been with us?
Earl: Since March 1st.
Carl: Motion passed unanimously.
2008.05.08 Request of lists of all mind altering substances.
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Nick: This mans runs an H&I meeting and he wants to judge. What do you want sir; he said I want a list. I told him we couldn’t list them.
Hayward: Couldn’t that be a Google search for drugs?
Bruce: It would be my recommendation for Nicholas to respond to this man and say it would be impossible to characterize with absolute specificity all things that might be mind altering. There are genuine disputes about weather tobacco should be mind altering in the 12 step fellowships. There are people who are being treated with Methadone in treatment facilities who are never the less considered clean and sober. We leave it up to the individual with the guidance from that individual’s sponsor and higher power.
Carl: Ok Bruce work on that and just let us know you sent it or post it for us.
2008.05.09 Clarification of policy for young people’s meeting.
Bruce: I got an email from a John Y. who said he is a member of CA and he and some other members started a CA youth group at a center for youth in that location. They had some concerns –How many adults need to be present, do adults need to be present at all? Are we allowed to have a professional social worker present or on call, is it mandatory? I have been lead to believe that other young people formats remove God and Higher Power, is this true? Is there a copy write on the 12th steps and 12 traditions? I would like to draft a short response to this man and send it out in a day or two with your approval. I believe no adults need to be present; no social worker needs to be present or should be present. This is a young people’s meeting run by young people for young people. There is no removal of God an HP and copy write issue is an easy answer on how we use it with permission from AA.
Carl: One last thing if it is possible to send him some type of literature or refer him to CA.ORG so he can see we have literature.
Bruce: I will send him some no problem.
`2008.05.10 Website called NoRockonBrock
Bruce: It contains some unusual and I would say unwise things. I received a request from the lead delegate in Ontario months ago. I looked at the website and I gave some advice, suggesting the website guidelines and the manual and there are things that belong on there and things that don’t. Also weather one should be using other fellowship’s symbols or not. The Southern Ontario area should look at this material and then approach this man and ask him in the sprit of the fellowship to make corrections. I believe they have now done so. The area chair would like some additional guidance from the board. I had some additional correspondence from her and I forward that to you all. There is a motion that was passed at the area giving the man a limited amount of time to make these changes. They have instructed this man correctly in the changes he needs to make. I am not sure what the board should do here. They seem to be going in the right direction from here.
Carl: Is this one group or one individual?
Bruce: It is one group dominated by one individual.
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Carl: Who authorized them to do the website?
Bruce: I don’t think anyone did.
Carl: IT?
Trevor: Two days before we got here, I got a phone call from this gentleman from this group. He never said it out and out; not very sure he is the one who designed the site. We had a good conversation and I was aware of this issue and had been involved in the email links when it was going through the webmaster. I talked to him, he has very long term sobriety and he thinks they are not doing anything wrong. My official stance was we will not link to you if you do not get our requirements. We can’t say you can’t link to us, but we would prefer you not. There are a lot of websites out there that link to us, recovery centers or whatever. He then raised the question to me, the area said that if we don’t do this or that then the area is going to discredit us and take us off their list. He said they can’t do that. I said they most certainly can as an autonomous group of CA they are free to do anything that is in their best interest as long as it is not harming CA as a whole. I showed him where the manual was on Ca.org and he downloaded it and said he would read. He also downloaded the IT workbook. I believe that you sent him that Bruce?
Bruce: I talked to the delegate and emailed someone else, maybe the former chair?
Trevor: some of this other stuff about getting booked and finding a sponsor, where they are saying about it being required. He wasn’t very happy with me or Bruce. He said he doesn’t do service other than one-on-one. I told him that perhaps he should. We would really appreciate if you would bring your website along with us.
Bruce: I just want approval in saying that the board supports the area’s motion which Southern Ontario adopted to try to deal with this situation.
Carl: Well Trevor just gave you the references.
Bruce; Yes, they talk about following CA Conference and CA world IT guidelines.
Car: Everyone agrees.
2008.05.11 Vote for the second TAL
Bobbie: We did that already.
Carl: Did we?
Earl: I was looking in the minutes for February, during the TEC report.
Carl: We have some pending business, Earl’s stuff. It is 11:07pm and we will meet here tomorrow morning at 9am and kick this off and work on Earl’s stuff. And get done what ever else need to be done.
***Break for night***
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Carl: Good morning everyone we are back on the record and we are only going to be on the record for a little bit. We have some agenda item we are going to work on. 2008.02.07, we are going to work on the spending transfer guidelines with Earl. We are going to work on two letters. The first one is 2008.02.14 the charitable status and 2008.05.08. We will reconvene as we finish items to make sure they go back on the record. Thank you.
Carl: We are back on the record after the personal sharing.
Bobbie: Motion to adjourn
Kim: Second.
Meeting Adjourned.
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For all attached documents and reports see pdf: 2008-05-19-21-WSBT-Quarterly-Minutes.pdf