CLOSING REPORT
C.A. WORLD SERVICE CONFERENCE 2010
ARCHIVE REPORT
INTRODUCTION AND OPENING COMMENTS
Opening Comments:
This has been the best year yet. We had some cool referrals that have all been tabled except our group inventory. At first we were like “group inventory?” huh? But we sat through some readings references the traditions as they relate to our group purpose and we found it helpful in limiting our personalities from the principle work that we have accomplished. From that inventory came constructive discussion and I want thank the maker of the referral. The Archive Committee has grown to its largest ever, we now have 7 members and 1 trustee, and it’s only taken 5 years. Our inner committee work included the finalization of our Guide Archiving which was a two year project. This Guide to Archiving is now available and we encourage everyone to takes copies home to share with your areas. We have decided that a Dinner Gala Event may be too large of an undertaking for the moment, however our desire to fundraise for the fellowship has produced a Limited Edition Commemorative Reissue of C.A.’s first Sobriety Chip as our way to encourage members to remember our history as well as raise money for C.A. Additionally, we have began the process of compiling and storing
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an accurate account of earlier membership and how our fellowship development into what is now is the goal of the Archive committee’s oral history interview process. With guidance of our trustee our interviews will be administered with consideration and adherence to the 12 traditions of Cocaine Anonymous. Our hope is that this new project will produce several areas of reference, which can be applied and used in PSA’s, H&I, A Book on CA History, Active Archiving (Traveling), Audio Compilation and other emerging technologies. It has been our pleasure to serve this fellowship and thank you for letting us be of service.
Let me introduce the board.
Committee Introductions:
Patrick Potter Chair, good ole’ Santa Monica
Dot Thompson Vice-Chair, Austin, TX
Kathy Miller Secretary, Wichita, Kansas
Dwight Johnson, Las Vegas, NV
Ira Land, Glendale, CA
Shannon Seebeck, Oklahoma City, OK
Susan Bredau, San Fernando Valley, CA
Kim Sherwan, Trustee, from the Middle
COMMITTEE WORK THAT RESULTED IN MOTIONS
- MOTION: To approve the production of the first in a series of limited edition commemorative reissue sobriety chips. Second.
Patrick Potter: We are working on prices and hope to have ready by Convention 2011 and to bring back some of the retro of the chip.
Tony Drake: Any debate?
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Elizabeth Saldebar: Original commemorative chip don’t have Hope Faith and Courage around the seal, could you make it shadow?
Patrick Potter: we would be happy to make that adjustment if we own that logo.
Joy Hutcheson: I understand that the Archive committee, can we just make it CA World Services instead? Friendly Amendment.
Patrick Potter: We will accept the Friendly Amendment because we are trying to promote awareness of Archive, most committees who produce this type of item; it falls under the protection of CA World Services.
Scott Keaveny: In order to promote enthusiasm, is there a ballpark price?
Patrick Potter: Between $5-$7 estimate.
Rose Jones: Where are we getting funds to do this?
Patrick Potter: We have a $2000 budget and we are within the margin of our requirement and we will go ahead and apply those monies. As much as we are financing this with our budget, we will be making between $5000 – $7000.
MOTION: To approve the production of the first in a series of limited edition commemorative reissue sobriety chips. The text on chip will be changed to CA World Services. Second. Motion passes with minor opposition.
REFERRALS THAT RESULTED IN COMMITTEE WORK WITH REPSONSE
We did our inventory.
Referral # 6413 COMMITTEE INVENTORY
Referral 6413 is respectfully submitted to the Archive Committee. The referral itself is in italics. The remainder is simply supporting information / ideas / suggestions should you find them useful.
This referral is a request that the Archive Committee take a group inventory of itself in the spirit of assessing how well the committee helps the Conference to
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fulfill its purpose and to identify what action(s) the committee could take to improve the committee’s ability to better help the Conference fulfill its purpose.
Should the Archive Committee opt to take no action on this referral either at the 2010 Conference or as a post-Conference activity throughout the 2010 / 2011 year, please be kind enough to cite the Archive Committee’s reason(s) for not undertaking such action in the Archive Committee’s closing Conference report.
Rationale (aka debate):
As individuals we undertake a personal inventory to uncover and discover things about ourselves and begin the process of growing spiritually. We continue to take personal inventories to perfect and enlarge our fit spiritual conditions.
Many CA Groups find that taking a regular inventory is healthy for the Spiritual well being of the Group and to assess how well the Group is fulfilling its primary purpose. Inventory helps the Group:
- Have a clear sense of itself and its primary purpose
- Gauge its success in fulfilling its primary purpose
- Evaluate its ability to successfully carry its message
- Ponder whether it is it right sized in its perception of itself
- Appraise its role in contributing financially
- Consider how CA is improved by the group’s existence
Extending the self-examination practice of inventory to the District and Area has also proven to be a effective means to keep these bodies focused, efficient, effective, and on track Spiritually.
“A business which takes no regular inventory usually goes broke. Taking a commercial inventory is a fact-finding and a fact-facing process. It is an effort to
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discover the truth about the stock-in-trade. One object is to disclose damaged or unsalable goods, to get rid of them promptly and without regret. If the owner of the business is to be successful, he cannot fool himself about values.” [Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 64.
The Big Book uses the metaphor of a business inventory as a means to underscore its suggestion that there is value in the inventory process. Then it applies the concept of taking an inventory to the personal level as a means to recover spiritually. Most CA members would agree the process of taking inventory has personal value. The Conference and its committees are the ‘business’ of CA and applying inventory at the ‘business level’ of CA becomes more than a simple metaphor; group inventory will help keep CA from going ‘broke’ spiritually, financially or in other ways. Don’t we owe the Fellowship that effort?
There are those who would argue that taking inventory at the level of Conference committees or the Conference itself is not necessary. They might argue that AA or NA don’t do this. When faced with such flawed reasoning, it might be fair to consider the size of CA’s membership relative to these other Fellowships and ask, if we are not in some need of improving ourselves, our methods, our effectiveness then why is CA’s membership comparatively so much smaller? If the answer is that there are simply fewer cocaine addicts than alcoholics or addicts in general then an inventory might cause us to ask, is it really efficient, effective, and in the best interests of CA as a whole to support and maintain the very large infrastructure that CA presently has in order to sustain our much smaller Fellowship? Undeniably, these are difficult questions. No one is suggesting that the inventory process will necessarily be easy though it may be.
Some would argue the inventory process is too cumbersome to perform at the Conference committee level. Is it too burdensome if the process helps us
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improve such that we reach out and save ten more lives this year than we did last year? Can this committee be a small part of that improvement or is it perfect as it is? Tradition Two in Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions offers for consideration that sometimes the good is the enemy of the best; is this committee functioning at it best? Consider Tradition Two again – “For our group purpose, there is but one ultimate authority – a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience.” Does this committee specifically consider how well it functions by taking a group conscience (i.e. a group inventory)? If God expresses Him/Her Self in the group conscience then where is God in all this if there is no group conscience?
Others will point out that a referral similar to this was submitted at the 2008 Conference. They are right. The referral was submitted to a single committee for action. Effectively, no action was taken. That submission unwisely placed a very vital point of consideration in the hands of just a few people to be decided on everyone else’s behalf. That is not stated to say those individuals did anything wrong but rather to say that you most likely did not have any voice in making that decision. Now you have a voice. It is important to note that the Conference membership changes yearly and the deliberation of any individual referral may have different outcomes in any given year as different members with different ranges of experience consider a referral’s subject matter. Given this fact, and to account for the reality that sometimes it takes a long time to effect change, it is entirely proper to submit referrals as frequently as every year.
REFERRALS OR ITEMS TABLED UNTIL NEXT YEAR; AND ITEMS THE COMMITTEE WILL CONTINUE WORKING ON THROUGH THE YEAR
Referral # 6643 INSTRUCTIONAL POWER POINT
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That the Archive Committee consider developing a power point to instruct Areas
- Districts in creating and maintaining archives and propose an Archives Workshop at upcoming C.A. World Conventions.
Referral # 6676 STATEMENT OF PURPOSE Modify Statement of purpose to be 4-5 lines.
NEW COMMITTEE STRUCTURE AS OF THIS CONFERENCE
Patrick Potter – Chair
Dot Thompson – Vice-Chair
Kathy Miller – Secretary
Our Guide to Archiving has been passed out and we ask you to take that back to your Area’s and gives the explanation of what our process is, our introduction, a flow chart, what is an archive, preservation of archives, how to ID and keep track of archives and how we keep track of running inventory in place using a bar coding system. Proper handling while shipping and more about our committee. Also discussing the Active Archive, the traveling archive. Details of oral archives and committee organization. We are going to try to put into production so they will be available to you.
Kevin Murphy: Patrick, this was approved at last year’s conference.
Patrick Potter: Yes
Sally Shamberger: Do you have any extra pamphlets?
Patrick Potter: Yes
CLOSING COMMENTS
In closing if you want to be apart of C.A.’s History and be overworked and under paid then Archive Committee for you! See you all next year! Thank you.
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Respectfully Submitted:
Patrick Potter
Kevin Murphy: any other questions? Seeing none, thank you for all your hard work. Next up is IT.
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