CoDA June 8th - 10th, 2018 Board Face To Face Meeting Minutes

 
From: "CoDA Announcements" <codalist@codependents.org>
Date: July 18th 2018

              

Board Minutes for CoDA World Board Conference Call
June 8-10, 2018
Board Face to Face Meeting

The Board of Trustees met on Friday, June 8th through Sunday, June 10th face to face in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Members in attendance included: Mary I., Jen L., Salle H., Matt T., and Linda A. as voting members, Don B. as alternate and Conni I., from SOS.

The Board apologizes for the delay in publishing these minutes, occasioned by unforeseen circumstances.

Friday June 8th, 4 – 6pm

Consent agenda for June

Motions

  • Motion to approve the final, corrected version of the Minutes of the Board's May meeting.
  • Motion to reimburse web developers.
  • Move that the Board arrange for paid secretarial hours to order books and respond to inmates’ letters for the H&I Committee, per the request of the H&I Chair.

Secretary’s Report –

Treasurer’s report

JP Morgan Chase Checking: $ 157,328.04

JP Morgan Chase Savings: $ 120,119.62

National Bank of Arizona: $ 100,523.10

Total Assets: $ 377,970.76

Chairs’ reports from May Chairs Forum

Mary made a motion to accept the Consent Agenda as presented. Linda seconded. Approved.

Treasurer Update – Salle
 

  • The Events committee reports that the amount of funds, $6K, suggested for live streaming and translation at the CoDA Service Conference is insufficient. In fact, the cost will approach $1K per day, too high a cost to include long distance voting as well. CoDA will hold off on the voting/interactive participation aspect of live streaming for the present. This remains a long-term goal. The Events Committee is working on how best to manage the audio portion of the live streaming for the 2018 CSC.
  • The Board updated its Policy on use of the corporate credit card and shared that with Finance, with expressed concern that Finance’s reimbursement policies reveal mistrust of CoDA members and so discourages people from volunteering to do CoDA world service. Finance will be discussing further.

Board Chair’s reportJen

  • Website Update
    • Meeting Search function design has begun - it will be searchable by zip code, and SORTABLE by location, day, time
      • Zip code focus is U.S. oriented
      • International search (including foreign zip codes)
      • In phase 2, a GPS-type search to find a nearby meeting is contemplated
      • Sorting by language will be possible; for example, all Spanish meetings in Miami could be sorted as such
    • The new website’s search box will include the Outreach pages; all the website will be searchable
    • The Board erred in saying that with the new website a committee chair will be able to edit ONLY his/her committee’s page. Rather, access can’t be limited to just one page in WordPress. Up to 10 people will be able to edit pages.
      • However, since WordPress has a function to timestamp and label any changes made as well as show the identity of each user making changes, mistakes can be walked back to a previously saved page. Nothing will be ruined forever.
      • Discussed having a pool of people that can edit pages and would have access. There is more to discuss on this matter.
  • Trusted Servants Area Shutdown
    • Trusted Servants Area – Because this storage area will not be available on the new website, committees will have 30 days to decide where to store sensitive material and to move items out of the TSA. If they need to store something, they can use Google Drive, Dropbox or Office 365. Each chair has the option of choosing the tool the committee will use, making sure that there will be continuity for the committee.
    • TMC/Legal – The Trusted Servants Area presently contains Translation agreements, Publication and Distribution agreements as well as actual, translated documents. These will be held at SOS in a Google Drive Folder with shared access with TMC and the Board.
  • World Structure Group – Jen reported that at its last meeting this group changed its focus to creating healthy rotation and term limits for committees as well as limits to the reconsideration of motions.

Legal work group Update – Mary
 

  • Reply received from DAA, with agreement to CoDA’s requests.
  • Translators - Linda and Mary reported about applicants for translators who can both translate and proof in Spanish.

Mary made a motion to contract with two bilingual Spanish/English applicants to work on translating our current CODA literature into Spanish and proof our existing Spanish CODA literature. Linda seconded. The motion was approved unanimously.

  • TMC update - Next meeting will be June 20. Mary reported that the Netherlands has asked for permission to publish 50 Workbooks without a contract. Discussed doing a short-term contract with them, until we work through issues with our current contract process.

Mary made a motion that the Netherlands sign a Translation Agreement and Copyright Assignment that will give them the rights to 100 copies of the Workbook for sale, without royalty. Linda seconded. The motion was approved unanimously.

Comment –Negotiation for a Publication and Distribution agreement will follow this. This is a short-term solution to get the Workbook in their hands.

  • Compliance with new European rules on websites – Mary is working with the lawyer on this.

CoRe update – Matt

 

Two new members, Yvonne and Addie, have joined the CoRe Board as alternates. CoRe discussed ongoing issues with shipping. The Toolkit is now in print, not quite ready for distribution. CoRe will have a face to face meeting in July.

 

Fellowship Forum update

The next Forum is scheduled for the last week of June. Since we now publish the Forum’s call-in information, invitations serve primarily as reminders. The bimonthly Spanish Forum is going well.

 

SOS report – Conni

Conni reported that since the April meeting we have mostly worked on the Strategic Plan, minutes and the Board’s Policies and Procedures manual. Everything else has been going normally – bookkeeper, answering phones, website maintenance.

 

Conni reported that, while Zach is leaving SOS, he will continue maintaining the CODA website until the new website is up and running and a decision has been made on website maintenance. SOS can continue to perform maintenance for the new WordPress site with its current staff, who are taking over management of all the other websites under SOS.

 

Saturday, June 9th – 8:30am until 5:00pm

Board Policies and Procedures Review

The Board went through the current manual for any updates made over the past 2 months. At this meeting we assessed and approved revisions to the Board Policies and Procedures Manual. We discussed asking the committees to review their manuals annually, as well.

 

Mary made a motion to accept the changes that were made by the Board in its review of the Policies and Procedures manual. Salle seconded. The motion was approved unanimously.

 

Strategic Plan Overview

The Board went over the Strategic Plan and updated some of the timelines. Conni will separate the plan from the timeline.

 

LUNCH

The Board met with the local Fellowship and held 2 separate Forums during lunch, one in English with members of the Las Vegas Intergroup and the other in Spanish, with members of the meeting Rompamos Cadenas y Seamos Libres.

  • Agreed to have a meeting like this with the San Diego Fellowship on Saturday, October 6th, before the 2018 CSC.
  • After lunch, local CoDA member Jennie joined us for part of the Saturday afternoon Board session.

 

New Business

  • Mura Contractor - Board declined to ask the Mura Contractor to add links on the Email sign up page for the Meeting Contact list and EspCoDA, the Spanish list, as unnecessary and financially unreasonable at this time.
  • Future Document Storage – This was discussed earlier with the chairs. The Board will store CoDA’s legal/financial documents with SOS, given the scheduled disappearance of the TSA.
  • Status of Spanish Literature – We are moving forward by hiring translators/proofers for CoDA’s Spanish literature. Mary will compare the items that CoRe has for sale in Spanish to ascertain what remains to be translated.
  • Domain Names – The Board is holding 2 additional domain names. Unclear why CoDA.org is paying for additional, unused websites.
    • Need to investigate CoDA’s GoDaddy domain names as to cost and the reasons for holding on to them, if any.
    • Discuss whether it would be possible to transfer Spanish.coda.org’s content to one of the domains held by coda.org.
  • Committee Requirements – Discussed what the requirements of a committee should be. Proposed that when the requirements not met, a committee would revert to workgroup status.

Finance Committee - The Board discussed the Finance committee’s requirement of 4 reports for reimbursement of a Committee’s Face to Face (F2F) meeting expenditures, noting that all F2F meetings must be provided for in the Committee’s annual budget. The desire to prevent misuse of funds is reasonable and we appreciate Finance providing the additional review of money spent to insure financial responsibility. However, after review and discussion by the Board there is a need to reduce the amount of work on volunteers and committee members and to quickly reimburse trusted servants. We, as a fellowship, try to extend the hand of the fellowship to continue to carry the message, which includes providing service at the World Service level. This process does not align with welcoming new members to participate. If budgets are approved, there should be less to process once the F2F happens. The Board will send specific requests to Finance for consideration and possible action

Sunday, June 10th – 8:00am – 12:00pm

 

New Business

 

  • Comm proposal for texting – Awaiting Comm report on how this can be accomplished.
  • Webmaster for new website – Options for managing the new website include using the developer, continuing to have SOS do the task, or reaching out to the Fellowship for bids. Discussed combination of a volunteer and SOS. SOS has someone well-versed with WordPress. There may also be someone in the Fellowship with this skill.
  • Board to seek help in updating meeting contact data.
  • Board preparation for the 2018 CSC
    • Presentation to arriving Delegates and Chairs on Crosstalk and 13th Stepping
    • Explain that to produce a comprehensible live streamed recording of the CSC, participants need to limit their movements on the floor and refrain from commenting from the floor.

WCC, Literature and CoRe update – Matt

    • ACTION ITEM: WCC to create its P&P Manual.
      • Lack of documentation of WCC’s history and goals reveals the importance of committees having a shared location for file storage and minutes, to insure continuity
  • Spanish Outreach – Board liaison to contact SPO chair concerning the requirement that it hold a committee meeting and add members within 30 days.
  • Events Committee – Everything seems to be going well, there is good communication. Salle signed the contract for the 2019 Atlanta hotel, which she will send to the Board.
  • Website Checker – Jen to send what she has to Zach regarding broken website links.
  • Sharing of Meeting Script project – Jen to clarify, for the Chairs Forum, what aspect of meeting formats the Board wants to collect. Discussed where to post the project and how to get additional submittals.
  • Fellowship Service Worker / Contractor itemConcerned about a possible gap between current meeting database and what the developer is creating. Jen to ask the developers about the timing of the database and what the contract worker will need to avoid busy work. Jen will ask whether the Meeting Locator could go live sooner than the rest of the website.
  • Blog – Discussed creating a blog on www.coda.org, to discuss CSC motions.
    • Do this to put the motions out there: offer 3 pro statements and allow comments and questions to follow each motion to create healthy discussion before the CSC.
  • Fellowship Forum - Last Saturday of the month at noon, California time, through December of 2018.
    • June 30 – How to Write a Voting Entity Issue – How to Get my Individual Voice Heard at the World Service Level
    • July 28 – Delegate / CSC Kickoff with our Voting Entity Liaison – Includes How to Handle Conflict and Disagreements
  • August 25 – What is Service at all Levels?
  • September 29 – 13 Stepping, Crosstalk – Healthy Boundaries in Tense Situations
  • Oct 27 – How to Carry the Message – What’s Next?! What is Promotion vs. Attraction? Confidentiality vs Anonymity
  • Nov 24 – Gratitude Month – Exploring the Seventh Tradition in More Detail; Giving Back with my Experience, Strength and Hope
  • Dec 29 – Step 10 – Individual and Group Inventories in Review
  • Discussed announcing the Fellowship Forums more widely, via the CoDA Announcements and Meeting Contact email lists, the Calendar and a different website announcement; putting Forum and call-in information on a business card and adding this information to the flyer that CoRe sends out with literature shipments (English and Spanish).
  • Discussed template of General Announcements, especially relegating the unsubscribe announcement to the bottom of the page
  • SSC-FSM procedure – The SSC Chair sent out a policy about updating the FSM, specifically about altering a committee’s description in the FSM. It was agreed at CSC that committees can change their own descriptions. Liaison to convey that this procedure is not necessary and does not need to be in the committee’s P&P manual.
  • Chairs Forum – The Board to review delineation of each committee’s tasks and offer assistance.
  • CoRe Board – Discussed how we could clarify the corporate relationship role.

The preceding message was from The CoDA Board Of Trustees, board@coda.org

 

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