The contents of this email are a collaboration between the Communications Committee, comm@coda.org & the CoDA Board of Trustees, board@coda.org

CoDA World Fellowship Service Conference Day 3: July 10, 2014

Day 3

Reading of the 12 Steps, traditions, etc., and the Serenity Prayer

Quorum 24

International Reports

South Africa-via Skype

• 11 official languages, 20-30 in all 
• 7 meetings (shown on the map) 5 in Cape town
• Attendance 5-8 per meeting in Johannesburg
• Spreading the awareness - meet in clinics, attend while at the clinic when they leave they often do not continue
• Problem is transport in S Africa, 30% is rural now, but folks getting to meetings at night can be difficult
• Dollar exchange is expensive to get the literature, some will go to local bookstore so they do not pay for postage to gain reading materials that are similar
• Service is offered and some do not follow through, can be an international issue, may be assuming here
• Love to have meetings there but without a core group it is difficult
• Cape town doesn’t communicate with each other, sent questionnaire out and now creation of awareness is beginning
• Now learning how to spread the message

 

US Reports

Las Vegas

• Revamped their website
• Intergroup meeting, 3 years now
• 12 weekly meetings, 1 monthly meeting (rotates as fellowship, speaker, topic)
• Added a men's stag meeting
• Started a Spanish-speaking group, working to spread the word about CoDA and gain additional groups
• Meetings hosted at a Recovery Club, word is getting out
• Closed Step Study Group, newbies are starting on the steps- as a group
• 1 year ago started program in Shade Tree (Homeless Center for Women w/w/o children), now requested to have a Teen meeting
• Outreach program is going well, talking to therapists in the community, patients being forwarded to CoDA
• Working with law enforcement offering materials and meeting information

 

International Reports Continued

Germany 

• Meetings supported in other countries, (show service structure)
• 13 folks doing service
• Established as a nonprofit org
• Translation of Daily Meditation, and other documents (work in progress)
• Website page-anonymity shown without real persons, shapes
• Slides showing on income and expenses and literature
• Challenges shows lack of volunteers, reliability of volunteers, low budget
• Conferences in hostels

Australia

• Started 1998, celebrated 22 years in service
• 34 meetings, most held in New South Wales and Queensland, in English
• Invited New Zealand and Singapore to participate in Intergroup meetings, plan to keep these going, renamed CoDA Austral-Asian Inter-Group
• Created Regional Groups
• Intergroup Meetings by Conference Calls
• Sponsorship program in place
• 1st CoDA Australian National Convention-Byron Bay 2014 "The Hope of Recovery"
• Challenges-lack of commitment at all levels, meetings start & stop, technology advancement and training needed
  •  access to technology is not a requirement and postal service is used as main method of communication to parties
  •  It’s a large country-need to use technology to reach all distance(s)
  • Funds needed-most go to ordering literature
  • Trying to reach young people and retain meeting attendees
  • Endorsement of literature from CoRe is slow or non-existent-stays on file a long time

US Reports

Pennsylvania

• 25th year coming here, use retreats to support this, 28 meetings -Intergroup leaders have 5 members with 2 new ones, rebuilding the intergroup, 2 step studies going, Hospital & Institutions (H&I) meetings  = 2
• Hosted holiday party, one-day workshop in Allentown-12th year, Oct, 2014
• 3 attendees from PA doing service, 1 running for Board member
• Also support NJ (they have no intergroup), retreat is held in NJ
• MA and New England attended retreat and 1 from Florida
• Outreach activities, reaching out to therapists
• Website updated, CODaphilaarea.org

 

International Report

Czech Republic via Skype

• Meetings in Prague
• No translations, no answers to requests, literature expensive
• Basic papers used in Czech - the others are in English
• Connected to Slovakian group, more active, more groups -some ex-pats
• No budgets for shared activities, try and work with other groups and institutions and not sure how to work with this
• Wanted to do online workshops - welcome this as an opportunity for outreach and growth

UK-Cara/Geraldine

• Running since 1998, researching entity start, hard to decipher as meetings are not registered with CoDA, Inc.
• 81 meetings in UK-London; have web site
• 23 meetings in London, 2 in Scotland, 4 in Wales, regions they have also, midlands and north (top of England-19 meetings, rest spread in SE, SW of England
• Attendance varies depending on each meeting, usually 8-12 per meeting
• Structure in UK-CoDA UK National Steering Committee, meet each Quarter face-to-face and monthly Skype, regular email contact, ad hoc issues meet on Skype - have 3 committees, literature-options for publishing being reviewed - trying to bring costs down, CoDA Shares Committee-publish members shares onto the website, and Website Committee
• Need more service, low on resources as in everywhere
• Have regions, 2 established, 1 potential, London and SE Region (longtime established, runs smoothly and fairly well resourced, meet every month face-to-face and on Skype)-key strengths run regular workshops and put them on in London throughout the year, desire to start doing more public information and work with prisons particular and hospitals and institutions in general and there is the Midlands Region: framework well established, set up 2 years ago, meet face-to-face for an annual general meeting, produce newsletter once per month and circulate to members and on website, run regular workshops, Regional strengths-run workshops and helps get the meetings attended
• Generally, use Fellowship Services Manual-support for them, helps to clarify things, excited to be involved in its update
• Utilize 7th Tradition as a focus, and they do utilize these funds to attend, occasionally reach out to US in emails, can do more in the future, more interaction for support 
• Retreats some are self-running, Mixed Retreat (Salisbury), Women's Retreats, Workshops, Daytime Workshops in London, Sponsorship focused workshop once per year, Ken/Mary came to run a workshop (founders)
• Have their own website-www.CODA-UK.org includes: meetings, documents, and hopefully soon some CoDA shares
• Highlights of UK: Ken & Mary visited and it was very successful, Non-Medical Health Care (CoDA was mentioned as a resource-Liverpool) meetings are growing, welcome free literature from US on the website, more pdfs, will print their own literature-signed an agreement for one year as a non-legal entity, looking forward to International Task Force and more help

 

Quorum count after break = 24

Literature Committee

• Introduction of Members
• Responsible for creation and vetting of literature, CoRe publishes what the Committee approves, except the Spanish translations, just worked on
• Develop Literature, needs approval from Conference before to CoRe, always proofread what CoRe prints (all reprints)
• Now are a functional committee since one year ago, 3 major project inventory, modifications to Peeling the Onion, develop piece on  how to get a group together to work the steps (without sponsor)
• Goals, not specific this year, working on the major projects, need to update their policy and procedures section of the Manual, face-to-face in November & will set goals then

Motion #1 - deals with Inventory as a Service Piece for Website

Craft the Motion-revise to text suggested

• 3 changes made, one at the beginning disclaimer about group and meeting to be used interchangeably, Q2 to add to be an officially recognized CoDA meeting, deleted reference to states as we are international and now it reads voting entity

Vote:  37 for, 0 opposed, 0 abstentions

Motion #2 - withdrawn

Motion #3 – Peeling the Onion edits to make it more gender neutral

Vote:  33 for, 3 opposed, 2 abstentions

 

Service Structure Committee (SSC) Presentation

• Introductions and Board Liaison

Motion #5 - withdrawn

 

Motion #1 – Change Meeting Starter Packet to “CoDA Meeting Handbook”

Vote:   for 36 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstention

 

Motion #2 – remove bylaws and articles of incorporation from the committee job descriptions as it is a Board function

• Refer to SC #11, so we should remove it and Board can handle that 

Vote:  29 for, 3 opposed, 2 abstentions

 

Motion #8 – changes in suggested donations

Vote:  36 for, 0 opposed, 0 abstentions

 

Motion #10 - Regarding the inverted pyramid is revised and the chart so you can review the 2 different versions (Withdrawn)

 

• Page 12 from Fellowship Service Manual look at for an illustration of a model to illustrate the CoDA Service Structure from the local home group to intergroup, etc.

Withdraw motion and work further on this in the current year

 

Service Structure Committee (SSC) Motion #4  - To Change Fellowship Service Manual (FSM) Section 6 language, simplify 

Vote: for 36 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstention

 

Service Structure Committee (SSC) Motion #9 - Amend phone list description in the Meeting Starter Packet, intent to shorten text and less condescending in tone

Vote:  26 for, 5 opposed, 5 abstentions

 

Break for Lunch

Call to Order - Quorum 24

 

SSC Withdrew Motion #3

 

Voting for the Board

• Events Committee acts as our Election Committee, introduce members
• Read the voting process, pass out ballots
• Counting afterward will be done in a secure location, tallied and reported
• Alt Trustees label their ballots as either 1 or 2
• Candidates announced and asked to appear and identify themselves
• Read ballot rules about dealing with tie votes and how to approach the vote for CoRe Board

IMC Committee

• Introduce the candidates as this is a one-year position 
• Nominations are given for each of the current candidates as they would like to stay in position, Issues and Mediation Committee=7 included on the slate to consider (John R, PA, Addie, SoCal, Chuck, IN, James D, CT, Natasha, AZ-not present - currently on the committee, Daniel, France,  Gail, NV, Kevin, NY, not present - currently on the committee, Cara, UK

Motion to vote in this slate by acclamation - Lisa and seconded

Vote:   30 for, 4 opposed, 2 abstentions

Break

Quorum  24

 

H&I Presentation

• Member Introductions
• Description of services and positions
• Help wanted, sponsors needed

Motion #1 -  In the spirit of transparency, we move to direct the CoDA

Treasurer to provide quarterly reports on the status of the budget of each committee.

Vote:  for  41 for, 0 opposed, 0 abstentions

 

International Task Force Report

• Internationals need a voice (decided last year)
• Facilitate and support the growth of CoDA Worldwide
• Increase collaboration between voting entities
• Review the report questionnaire, present the completed report
• Need a standing committee, right now is just a task force

 

International Committee Motion #1 to become a standing committee to Support the worldwide fellowship

Vote:  29 for, 8 opposed, 4 abstentions

 

Election Results

CoDA Board and Alternates:

• The Board= Lorraine O and Gerald B
• Alternates:  John R (2)and Werner S(1)

CoRe Board and Alternates:

• Loretta (Alt), Barbara (B), Dagmar (B), Salle (Alt)

 

Board Motion #6 - Bylaw motion to get up to date with practices and technology

• 4 main changes requested: add alternate title and description, replace the board meetings information with current practice, replace new officer descriptions, update board communications with updated technology

Vote:  33 for, 0 opposed, 3 abstentions

 

Board Motion #2 - Change to remove Board of Trustees description in Fellowship Manual, replace with new description and updated application, and add alternate trustee description

Vote:  36 for, 0 opposed, 0 abstentions

 

Board Motion #11 – Voting Entities, Intergroups to use their own websites with disclaimers

Vote:  37 for, 0 opposed, 3 abstentions 

 

Board Motion #12 - Changes in the Fellowship Service Manual to the registered trademark per legal information

Vote:  39 for, 0 opposed, 0 abstentions

 

 Board Motion #9 - Clarify the distribution of committee goals and budget for the coming year

Vote: 35 for, 0 opposed, 1 abstention

 

Finance Committee Report

 

Motion to Adopt the Budget of $243,758 for 2015

Vote:  30 for, 0 opposed, 4 abstentions

Meeting Adjourned

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