[list_settings.list_name]: 2012 CSC July 13, 2012 Friday Day Four

 
From: "[list_settings.list_name]" <codalist@codependents.org>
Date: September 11th 2012

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Day 4 July 13, 2012

At 9:00 am the general session began with the reading of the Twelve Steps, Twelve Traditions and Twelve Service Concepts by members of delegation All VEs (Voting Entities) recited the Serenity Prayer

Old Business:

Outreach Motion: Move that a Proactive Outreach Task Force be formed through 2013 CSC to focus on outreach activities to carry the message to the codependent who still suffers, primarily outside of the Fellowship This group will be comprised of a chair, volunteers who desire to do service in proactive outreach activities, as well as at least one member, present or past, from at least each of the following committees, plus a board liaison (H & I, CoNNections, TMC, Communications, Events) In the event that no member from a committee is available, a volunteer Task Force member may act as liaison to that committee 37 Y 0 N 1 A

INTENT/REMARKS: The Outreach Committee is overwhelmed by its long-standing function of answering most emails coming into World Service that it does not have the time and focus for this most important function When brought up to conference on day 3, It was quickly clear that further discussion was needed which took place that evening, including other service workers More specific goals for the proactive outreach task force include finding specific ways to carry the message to codependents who still suffer, and look at those ways currently being done by CoDA and those not being done The task force is to then propose to Conference 2013 possible changes to the current service structure that would enable those tasks to be better achieved The vote in favor was nearly unanimous, well over the 2/3rds needed for a binding vote

Ad Hoc Committee: A similar group called the Ad-Hoc Committee had been formed at CSC 2011 to address certain structural issues, especially how to combine the inverted pyramid of the Fellowship with the legally required hierarchy of a corporation They provided some preliminary suggestions and asked for and were given another year to refine them further In particular they have been attempting to revise and shorten the Twelve Service Concepts so they would be more usable

AD HOC Motion #1: That the Ad Hoc Committee continue more 1 more year gathering information and developing the recommendations presented at 2012 CSC as mandated in Motion #11116 Also to bring recommendations and/or motions to 2013 CSC 35 Y 0N 0 A

Replacement members were elected for Ad Hoc Committee based on the original 2012 Motion David Mc - board Judi T - random or committee Dianne - random/ intl Michelle E - committee Jamie W - random Alternates: Dianne = 1st, Jamie = 2nd

Alternate Member to Ad Hoc: Motion 1: Mary presented Motion to accept the other two people on the candidates list for members be the alternates 34 Y 0 N 1 A

AD HOC Motion #2: To present the Short Form of the Service Concepts to the CoDA Board to review and then send to SSC for submission to the FSM Motion withdrawn

CoRe Report CoRe (CoDA Resources) is the publishing arm of CoDA and the largest source of income to the world fellowship Their big news is that there are now ebook versions of the blue book and In This Moment (the daily meditation book) for smart phones, tablets, and Kindle The ebooks have not yet been reformatted for the Nook, but that will happen eventually Meanwhile, the ebooks cost only $7, a considerable savings for people ordering single copies of the books

CoRe Motion #1: We move that CoDA forego the Royalties on Literature purchased by CoDA Committees that is not for resale, thereby reducing the price charged for the literature by the royalty percent 34 Y 2 N 2 A

Break Quorum reached Approval of CSC minutes 35 Y 0 N 1 A Motion to adjourn Lou IL Adjourned 12:04


Delegate Summaries: (from Leslie C of Northern California, John R from Pennsylvania & Dave S from New Jersey:

Introduction The CoDA Service Conference (CSC) is held once a year to conduct the business of CoDA Each CoDA Voting Entity (VE) is entitled to send two voting delegates and one alternate to the CSC In the US, each state is one VE except for California which has two VEs, one of which is NCC In addition, each country outside of the US is a single VE except for Canada which currently has three VEs

Between CSC's, CoDA business is handled by the Board of Trustees All eight of the Trustees attended the CSC with the same voting rights as delegates, and four of them came from two states and two countries (United Kingdom and Germany) that weren't able to send delegates

The 2012 CSC was also attended by approximately 34 delegates from 18 states, Canada, Mexico, and Israel, bringing the final tally to 20 states and five countries in attendance (It appeared that a couple of delegates arrived after the official quorum count was done 40 people were present for the initial quorum count so the quorum - 2/3 of the initial count - was set at 27 for the duration of the CSC

Evie S chair of the Board of Trustees began the Conference by emphasizing the focus on transparency adopted by this Board and spoke warmly of the support and unity she experienced during the previous two days of Board meetings Since the previous Board was unaware of many problematic behaviors taking place, this change is significant and welcome Indeed two members of that previous board acknowledged this and offered apologies for their lack of assertiveness During the evening of the first day of Conference, the Board of Trustees presented themselves to all who wished to attend in order to answer any questions about the suspension from World service activities of two former members of the Board and one other service worker

Procedural Motions Most of the 2012 CSC business consisted of motions to a) change the Fellowship Service Manual (http://www coda org/pdfs/Fellowship_Service_Manual_of_CoDA_2011 pdf), the document that contains CoDA's processes and procedures; b) approve some bylaw changes to bring the bylaws into compliance with Arizona law (CoDA is incorporated in Arizona); c) ratify Board motions from the previous 12 months; or d) elect new members of the two elected committees (as opposed to the nine other committees that are staffed by volunteers) the CoDA Board and the board of CoRe (More about CoRe follows )

The treasurer of the Board reported on CoDA World finances In the 12 months of 2011 (the calendar year is our fiscal year), we had income of $128,000 and expenses of $141,000 for a deficit for the year of $13,000 (Numbers have been rounded off for this report ) Major expenses included $10,000 to have the www coda org website redesigned, a project that failed because of poor advance planning A committee is now working on developing precise specifications for the new website

The CoDA Board had to get involved in a problem with CoDA in Mexico that arose when one member took ownership of the CoDA literature and organization there The Board had to sever relationships with this man and create a new relationship with a service structure that was created to replace him On the positive side, there are now 56 "groups" in Mexico, and since each group has from 5-7 meetings a week, the Board estimates that there are close to 400 meetings in Mexico Large portions of the country remain without meetings, but the places that have meetings have a strong CoDA presence

12 Service Concepts The Board submitted as a separate motion adding the 12 Service Concepts in the section that states that the Board shall be guided by the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions The motion passed

Board Report The members of the board reported on various actions they had taken in the past year They told about their experience using the Group Inventory in the 12 Steps and 12 Traditions Workbook for themselves and recommended that other business groups as well as meetings consider taking their own inventories

In a separate motion, an Ad Hoc committee that was created in 2011 to "bridge the gap" between the Board and the world service committees proposed a short version of the 12 Service Concepts to encourage their reading at business meetings other than the CSC The motion was withdrawn since the committee submitted it after the deadline and the Board had not had a chance to review the proposal We expect it to be resubmitted in 2013

    A small but significant motion on the first day was to change wording

in the pamphlet "Making Choices" to make clear CoDA's position is that it is not sexual orientation itself that is an individual choice but the expression of sexual orientation The significance is the avoidance of any suggestion that sexual orientation is a choice reversible at will

Proactive Outreach On the third day of Conference, the Outreach Committee presented a motion to establish another committee dedicated to Public Information The Outreach Committee is so occupied by its long-standing function of answering most emails coming into World Service that it does not have the time and focus for this most important function

It was quickly clear that further discussion was needed which took place that evening, including other service workers The next day, Conference approved the formation of the Proactive Task Force to identify, first, specific ways to carry the message to codependents who still suffer, both those ways currently being done by CoDA and those not being done The task force is to then propose to Conference 2013 changes to the current service structure that would enable those tasks to be better achieved The vote in favor was nearly unanimous, well over the 2/3rds needed for a binding vote

A similar group called the Ad-Hoc Committee had been formed at CSC 2011 to address certain structural issues, especially how to combine the inverted pyramid of the Fellowship with the legally required hierarchy of a corporation They provided some preliminary suggestions and asked for and were given another year to refine them further In particular they have been attempting to revise and shorten the Twelve Service Concepts so they would be more usable

Translation Management Committee There are now Spanish versions available of the Workbook, the Newcomer's Handbook, and several other items, though the CoDA blue book has yet to be translated The TMC has also been contacted by people interested in translating literature into Dutch, Arabic, Slovenian, French, Chinese, Russian, Greek, Japanese, Farsi, Portuguese, Hebrew, and Italian!!

CoRe Report CoRe (CoDA Resources) is the publishing arm of CoDA and the largest source of income to the world fellowship Their big news is that there are now ebook versions of the blue book and In This Moment (the daily meditation book) for smart phones, tablets, and Kindle The ebooks have not yet been reformatted for the Nook, but that will happen eventually Meanwhile, the ebooks cost only $7, a considerable savings for people ordering single copies of the books

Final Observation Whenever anyone attending the CSC (whether voting or not) feels that the discussion has become too heated, that person can call for "thirty seconds" and everyone in the room is required to be silent for 30 seconds After that, we say the Serenity Prayer and resume work The 2011 CSC was very contentious and we lost track of the number of calls for 30 seconds This year there were only 4 such calls, a very respectable number for 3 days of meetings among people with control issues We look forward to much more serenity at next year's CSC


Again, we'd like to thank all who worked on this year's many CSC reports: Washington State: Lorraine O & Loretta D Northern California: Leslie C Pennsylvania: John R New Jersey: Dave S CoDA Board: Evie S & Florence F CoDA Communications Committee: Geff R


Here are links to all previous 2012 CSC Reports: http://codependents org/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/archive/main/20120711182957/ http://codependents org/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/archive/main/20120712164329/ http://codependents org/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/archive/main/20120802152258/ http://codependents org/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/archive/main/20120813185250/ http://codependents org/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/archive/main/20120815134253/ http://codependents org/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/archive/main/20120819213921/ http://codependents org/cgi-bin/dada/mail cgi/archive/main/20120910202814/

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