05.08.06
Posted in Not WSBC 2006 at 1:56 pm by Steve M.
This month’s traditions column for The Trusted Servant talks why non-OA announcements are not permitted during meetings. This is well known and generally well accepted. What does tend to vary around OA is the practice of non-OA announcements after the meeting’s final prayer. My personal opinion, which is very much influenced by experienced OAs I respect and love, is that as long as people are gathered for the purpose of an OA meeting, it is best not to have non-OA announcements, even if they are clearly (to us experienced OAs) not OA. The problem, from my perspective, is the risk of confusing the newcomer about what is and isn’t our program of recovery.
We’ve been racking our brains over what to say about this in our newsletter (The Trusted Servant) which is set to print PDS(Pretty Darn Soon). As long as I was at WSBC I figured why not ask around so, at a morning OA meeting, after the closing prayer, I asked the assembled members (about 50 or so) for a show of hands on two question:
1) How many of you attend meetings where non-OA announcements are permitted after the closing prayer?
About 40-50% of the hands went up.
2) How many of you with your hands up are comfortable with this?
Someone else thought about 66% of the hands stayed up. I thought it was closer to 80-90%.
There should have been a third questions but I didn’t think of it at the time:
3) How many in the room right now are comfortable with non-OA announcements after the closing prayer?
This third question would have helped understand a bit more what the larger sense of the group would look like.
Clearly there is no worldwide OA group conscience on this. What I would like to do is get a group conscience from our IG and make suggestions to our member groups based on this. Maybe something for a future agenda.
Steve
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05.07.06
Posted in Not WSBC 2006 at 9:59 pm by Steve M.
Except for this post(and the one under this), all the blog entry date/time stamps are 6 hours later then they should be as they are marked as being UTC (the time in England). So, I got a little more sleep then some of these times might suggest.
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Posted in WSBC 2006, Not WSBC 2006 at 3:25 pm by Steve M.
Back in the business saddle again and we went into the Committee reports and Workshop reports. To be honest I didn’t take detailed notes and the notes I took are in my baggage. At the moment I’m in the Dallas airport waiting for my flight. For the record, my first order of business was finding a protein for lunch. I have a pound bag of carrots which will have to do for my veggies (cooked and raw). I have an apple and I purchased a bag of raw, unsalted almonds for my protein. Usually I eat about 44 for a protein but as I have no fat for the veggies, I’ll eat 50. Hey, its a number. A boundary and that’s the important thing.
The committee and workshop reports went pretty quickly as there is only 2 minutes allocated to each report. Sweet. The final official part of business was the “Green Dot Ceremony” where first time WSBC delegates get to remove their green dots from their badges. It’s a really cool experience to be part of, both as the newcomer and the returning delegate.
With lots time left, the floor was opened to people who just wanted to share. Most (maybe all) shares were about conference. There were some really emotional shares. Real testimony to the recovery OA has enabled people to achieve.
I have bad news for my sponsees and it comes from talking to people here at conference. OAs with lots of years experience in OA service, OA recovery and OA sponsorship. Many *require* their sponsees to do service above the group level. A huge part of my recovery is based on my exposure to people doing service above the group level and if my sponsees want what I have, then this sort of service will be strongly suggested.
After a nice lunch with Mark G, Margaret Ann, Judy and Don (you know who you, and they are), I got in some final shopping and I did a large part of my packing for the trip home.
Did I mention Gaston, my roommate? I don’t recall, but while I’m thinking about him let me just say, he’s a gem. His support while I rehearsed for my “performance” in the Idol Gong show was enormous.
Anyway, I dressed for the dinner dance. Dress pants, white shirt, nice tie (ask Judy about the tie) and a sport coat. While I think of it, Neil R. dressed as a Gloucester fisherman. A great outfit. We were encouraged to dress “regionally” and “culturally” so I dressed as an upper scale middle manager type. Except for the upper scale part and the reality of this middle managers work uniform, it was spot on.
Dinner was just perfect. Last year we had tiny portions and those of us who could, went to our rooms for more food. This year we had a buffet and FOUR lines being fed at one time. No fights ensued. The food was good too. The salmon very nice. I’ve had a lot of carrots this trip so if I’m a bit orange at the IG meeting you’ll know why, but I digress, again.
When it came time for the Idol Gong show we had 6 acts. The three before me were just, well, wow. Real talent! Carol from Region 3 (local OA talent) played guitar and sang an original song of recovery. I mean what a way to start out. Alan B from region 5 was very funny (like gomer pyle) but when it came to his act he let go of the “hick” and belted out a tune with great range and feeling. Alan can sing!
Len from West LA (I think) was next and he is one sharp tack! Very funny banter. I believe he’s been around the rooms a long time. He recited some poetry composed for this occasion. I hope it gets distributed cause it was “to die for”!
I was up next….
I was told to expect to have to chat it up with Bob F. (General Services Trustee) before going into my act but based on what I from the first 3 acts, I had to come up with something fast. I decided to call myself “Lean Martin” and that my Friend called my “Leano”. Bob, ever quick, pick up on the singular “friend”. I meant to say in reply, but I’m not sure I did ( I was nervous) that I had lost all my other friends while rehearsing for this evening. After a bit of back and forth song came on and I pulled out an OA 12 and 12 with the lyrics clipped in the pages. I had sort of memorized the words but I knew I might forget…and I did so, I’m glad I had them handy. The Audience, I thought, responded great. As the song moved along, people started to sing along, arms in the air, waving back and forth to the music. I have to say it was a great moment. I have to believe they could feel my nerves and gave me the support I needed. Only in OA…
Next up was a woman who’s name I’m sorry I don’t recall. She did a wonderful pantomine of a someone coming to an OA Meeting and then progressing through recovery, relapse and real recovery again. You should have heard the people around me as they recognized what phase she was in.
Finally, our Margaret Ann took the stage and for the first time in I think she said 20 years, she sang, in the classical style, in front of an audience. As usual, I don’t remember the name of the song but not only was it beautiful, it was in French! The crowd really responded with great enthusiasm. It really was a beautiful example of the promises in action.
After the Idol Gong show was the dance, which was fun. Young and old alike hit the dance floor. The men had to get on stage and do “YMCA”, a tradition.
At 10pm we had an OA meeting. I have to write more about these but consider this: Imagine sitting in a room where the average abstinence is probably around 8-10 years. Consider these 3000 day meetings. In these meetings you hear the solution from every speaker.
See you all soon.
Steve
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Posted in Not WSBC 2006 at 9:37 am by Steve M.
I think perhaps the first Higher Power Moment (HPM) #1 of the day of the day was the experience of both my flights leaving and arriving on time. A nice contrast to my trip west.
But wait, there’s more!
I’m waiting at luggage claim and this baggage handler is pointing at a bag that is coming toward where I’m standing as it rides the conveyor. I don’t know exactly why but I grab it and pull it off the belt. There, next to me is a young lady waiting for her bag: the one I grabbed. She said thanks for the “good deed of the day” and she smiled and walked to the exit. It wasn’t my first good deed of the day but never mind that.
When my bag finally comes around, I grab it and turn toward the exit. The bus I take was just closing the door. Did I swear? I did not. I laughed and ran out the exit yelling “FRAMINGHAM!!!”. The driver stopped the bus and let me on, saving me at least 30 minutes of wait time. This is HPM #2.
But wait, there’s more!
I’m sitting on the bus reading a book I purchased in Dallas airport. A man of color (Hispanic) walks on the bus. I only catch a glimpse from the side but he looks very familiar: like a man from OA I haven’t seen in months. A few miles down the road I get a better look at his profile and I call his name. Yup. That’s him. This is HPM #3. We have a good talk. I mentioned I was on the way home from WSBC and mentioned how wonderful the week was. He was returning from LA where his 82 year old dad had suffered a stroke some months ago. I listened. Eventually he brought up his weight and getting back into program. I gave him my card and I apologized for not calling as I had his number but more then one man with the same name and I wasn’t sure which was him (like
it mattered? They were both OA men. I should have called both!). Turns out it wouldn’t have mattered as the number had changed. I mentioned we talked a great deal at WSBC about diversity and it sure would be great to be able to reach out to diverse communities. He used to do a lot of OA service and still does some for his former IG(s).
I thought this trilogy of HPMs really was quite a wrap-up to a week which cannot really be explained. It must be experienced.
Thanks for letting me do this service.
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05.06.06
Posted in Not WSBC 2006 at 6:26 pm by Steve M.
OK so I have to admit Friday is a bit of a blur to me at this point. I have some notes but the reason I try to do these entries quickly is that I don’t have a great memory for some details.
After the credentials update (16 Trustees and 165 Delegates for 181 voters), Betsy, our paid parliamentarian outline some different types of “incidental motions”. After Mark G. woke me up, it was time to elect our new Trustees. The full slate was elected and so our new Trustees are:
- Region 3 - Debbie W.(2nd term)
- Region 6 - Margaret Ann B.(1st term)
- Region 9 - Dominique B.(1st term)
- General Service Trustee - Michael B.(2nd term)
On to Proposal D, making exercise the ninth tool.
Before it ever came to the floor there were 3 amendments submitted against this proposal. This means that it was referred to the Reference Subcommittee of the Bylaws committee. In that subcommittee, they attempt to find a compromise amended proposal to bring to the WSBC floor for considerations. In this case, the amended motion that made it to the floor was to add “a Plan of Physical Activity” to the tools. This language was much more widely accepted as exercise was seen as too, umm….something. Pushy and provocative, perhaps.
If I can summarize the pro and con argument, I’ll do it like this.
Cons: Yes, physical activity is important and it aids in health but it does not address our primary purpose of refraining from compulsive overeating and working the 12 Steps.
Pros: Yes it does.
At the request of a delegate, the introduction portion of our Tools pamphlet was read to the assembly and it did focus on abstinence rather then the 12 Steps, which I found interesting. As you can imagine, we kicked it around, had a Serenity Prayer or two and then voted by paper ballot after a motion from the floor requested this. 179 votes were cast: 63 Pro, 115 No and one abstainer (no pun intended).
Next at bat was Proposal 1, the first of the Bylaws amendments. The change proposed by Proposal 1 seemed minor at the start but guess again.
Our bylaws today require that all Intergroups have by-laws which are in keeping with OA bylaws. For example, an Intergroup cannot have a required food plan in their bylaws because this is directly opposed to what the OA bylaws say and the OA bylaws are the group conscience of OA as a whole.
Proposal 1 simply (yeah. right. simply) said that IGs had to file compliant bylaws within one year of being recognized as an intergroup. Well, the people opposed to this quite rightly pointed out how hard it is to do this for IGs in regions where the language is not English. One year is no where near enough time to do this. I found the argument very persuasive and so, even with amendments to try to take the sting out of this, I voted against it.
Proposals 2 and 3 were withdrawn as they dealt with exactly the same issues as 1 but for different service bodies (new Regions and National Language Service Boards). I have to admit that I would like to have see at least Proposal 2 discussed as, it seems to me, that a new Region, which is not some small thing, should be able to come up with bylaws that are compliant in this time frame. After the defect of “1″, the maker withdraw the others for “re-tooling”, which is fine.
That ended the morning session. When we reconvened in the afternoon, there was no new business (for which we were all grateful) and so there was time for each Trustee to answer a few ask-it basket questions. I didn’t take notes of these so I hope they are covered in the summary published in a few months.
With plenty of time to spare a motion to adjourn was made and it passed BUT it happened so fast that some people really complained. They felt we were not doing what we should for the people who sent us and that we should find something to do. We didn’t. So I went shopping for tee shirts and practice for my performance Saturday evening as part of the OA Gong show (or whatever we’re calling it). I think 5 or 6 of us are performing. For you who are interested in the lyrics, here is a link…enjoy!
In the evening us men types (or some of us men types) had a meeting. Strong stuff.
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05.05.06
Posted in WSBC 2006 at 12:17 pm by Steve M.
I thought I might break this up into two posts so here we go.
Proposal C was to bring our celebration of OA’s birthday (January 19th, 1960) and Unity day together into a single celebration.
- Lesson one: Be willing to ask for what you want not just what you need!
This did not pass.
- Lesson two: Sometimes the answer is no.
It was also a lesson in lining up your ducks, I’ll tell you that! The original motion submitted by Region 6’s Suffolk County Intergroup seemed fine on the face but it really needed a good amount of re-work before it could be presented to the floor. Grateful, GST Bob F helped created a substitute motion which was presented.
- Lesson three: Look to experienced OAs to help review and suggest improvements that still meet the spirit of your proposal.
There was a fair amount of debate on the fundamental idea of reducing from two celebrations to one. Way up North delegates reported that in January, when the combined event would occur if the change was made, people stay home! Their IG doesn’t even meet in January. Other IG’s have large events, planned years in advance around the February Unity Day discussion.
Interestingly, I learned that Unity Day was orginally scheduled for Valentines day because…well, just because the originator of the idea thought it was a good idea.
Amendments were made to eliminated the part of Unity Day where we all join hands at 11:30am Pacific Standard Time. That actually won, but the motion itself finally failed so that failed too.
Anyway, this lasted quite a while. We had many calls for the Serenity Prayer and ultimately we all left smiling.
Oh, and just in case you worry about doing this WSBC service, consider that this proposal was presented by a FIRST time (Green Dot) attendee to conference. In fact, she was my green dot! I’m so proud. Go Laura!!!
That was the end of the business session. In the evening we had a diversity workshop. I’ll post on that shortly.
later gators…
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Posted in WSBC 2006 at 1:22 am by Steve M.
Hello interested OAers. Here is a quick run down on the day’s activities. Just keep reading there is more fun stuff later on…if you define fun as being more then just boilerplate.
This was the first Business meeting of WSBC 2006. Here are the bullet points:
- Opened with the Serenity Prayer in Hebrew and English
- 12 Traditions
- 12 Steps
- 12 Concepts of Service
- Introduction of the Dais including Trustees, Parliamentarian and Secretary
- Intro of WSO Staff
- Intro of Central Services Committee(CSC) Staff
- Roll call of Regions by State, Country, Province or Continent.
- Reading of the standing rules. An amendment was introduced, debated and approved. So, as amended, the Standing Rules were approved.
- Agenda Adopted, as-is
- A Quick introduction to all the motions and bylaws amendments coming up
- Questions for our Managing Director (WSO Salaried position: Naomi Lippel)
- Questions about sales of Lifeline which are fundamentally way below what they need to be to break even. Some questions about what we could do to improve the situation. Naomi suggested that she thought the low subscription rate was due to sharing of issues. Not sure if that’s the case but if it is, its great that people are willing to share but if each of us as an individual can afford a subscription, we should get one. Starting today I will suggest to all my sponsees that they get this if they do not today.
- Question about the lawsuit against OA which has been lingering for some years. Recently OA won this suit but the filer is appealing. At this point we are fighting the appeal as frivolous and we have a good sense that this will end up going away as the grounds are pretty baseless. The suit was filed by a man who says he was threatened at a meeting because of an Ask-it Basket response that suggested that if a meeting had a male “trouble maker”, that meeting could reach out to an AA group for help. Unfortunately for this complaint, that article appeared after the incident he was involved in.
- There might have been another one or two but I missed them in my notes. I was probably being compulsive over something else.
- Next up was more Committee Reports by Trustee Chairs (or maybe it was Region reports by Trustees….one or the other). I have no notes from the Committee reports except something mentioned by Region 8: They have a Young Person’s meeting that is finding real success with attendees as young as 6 years old. Wow. I gave my OA card to the delegate that reported this. She’ll be handing this off to someone directly involved in that meeting. She mentioned it is a “side by side” meeting which I believe is something Alanon has some success with too.
Much more to come…ran out of time before the next workshop. I’ll try to post more this evening.
Ok, here comes more…
- The Board Approved Literature Committee reports they will discontinue print of the “Introducing OA to the Military” pamphlet due to lack of sales. Region 6’s own Lucy, from RI had the great idea to allow discontinued but still “appropriate” literature to be distributed for free as PDF files.
This ended the morning session. You won’t be surprised to learn that we all rushed to the exits for lunch. I had an excellent buffet lunch in the hotel for a very modest 9.95 plus tip. Breakfast and dinner were “homemade” in my room and very yummy. But I digress…
The after noon started with our own Region 6 Gaston Giving us the Serenity Prayer in French and English.. Credentials were reconfirmed, more CSC intros and some clarification (yeah right) from the parliamentarian. I think I need a parliamentarian sponsor cause Lord knows I am powerless over that stuff.
It got interesting with the Trustee Candidate speeches and the questions from the floor. Regions 3, 6 and 9 had openings and each had only one candidate. There is also an opening for a General Service Trustee. The candidates are:
- Region 3 - Debbie W.(2nd term)
- Region 6 - Margaret Ann B.(1st term)
- Region 9 - Dominique B.(1st term)
- General Service Trustee - Michael B.(2nd term)
I thought all the candidates did a very nice job of presenting their qualifications and they handled the questions from the fellowship very well.
On to the Proposals.
Item A asked us to considered changing the name of the HIPM committee to “Professional Outreach”. This won approval without much delay. As I recall, there was not a single con speaker.
Item B would have formalized the idea that Regions could submit proposals to the BOT and “pitch” co-hosting World Service Conventions(WSC) in that region AND the region would share in any profits that result. There was a lot of debate. The motion was amended to separate the idea of region co-hosting from revenue sharing. The amendment to split this motion into 2 motions passed by a slim margin. The newmotion which focused just on soliciting requests from regions to co-host, after substantial debate, lost. The debate basically was between the cons who said: It ain’t broke, and the pro’s who said: Yes it is because the region isn’t involved from start to finish.
One might think that the part dealing with the financial bits would have died automatically but no. Even though the maker of the proposal spoke to width draw the remaining part, one objection forced us into about 20 minutes of debate and questions. I can’t say I understand what happened exactly (see prior comments about powerlessness over parliamentary procedure)but this went away too.
On to Item C…but I’m tired and I have to be perky tomorrow SO, I hope to write more in the morning. Be well my OA friends. Envy me this service opportunity and believe me, you DO wish you were here!
ttyl…..
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05.03.06
Posted in WSBC 2006 at 10:38 pm by Steve M.
I signed up for the PI committee because I wanted to focus on getting the message out and that’s what our sub-committee is definitely focused on. I signed up to help pioneer PI via the Internet (what I surprise huh?).
I chaired the PI-Internet subcommittee. The goal for our work is to provide suggestions to Intergroups (and regions) to use the Internet to get the message out. We outlined a strategy for our suggestions:
1) Define the audience
3) Drive traffic - Get the audience
2) Suggested guidelines for content to reach that target audiences
There is a fair amount of detail under each of these broad points, but our audience is Newcomers!. Under that we talked about the general population, young people, diverse cultures (language and culture),Anorexics, Bulimics and Men .
We talked about search engine placement, PSA and paid advertisement. All of these need some guidelines.
..and of course we discussed what we would do with the people once they arrived. That is my action to outline and define. I have a ton of idea and I’ll bounce them off folks as I go…and not just this committee.
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Posted in WSBC 2006 at 7:13 pm by Steve M.
Committee meetings for an hour and then lunch. Mine was a weighed and measured lunch of 16 ounces of raw veggies, 2 ounces cheese and 3 ounces turkey and a beautiful Pink Lady apple. I had the additional ounce of cheese in place of a cooked vegetable with 1 T of fat. Anyway….
I volunteered to sit on the PI committee this year. Looks like lots of people had the same idea. I suggested we address PI via the Internet and mentioned a few things like Newcomer pages and using Google (or other) ads just like we do for newpaper ads. These will become topics for discussion this afternoon and, with a little luck, the rest of the year.
That’s all for now folks…
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Posted in WSBC 2006 at 4:54 pm by Steve M.
I’m behind on my reporting…but I’ll try to catch up today.
This morning started with a HOME (room) made breakfast just like I was in my own kitchen. Thank God. I try to eat two room prepared meals a day and eat out one. Not always easy to do but its working so far today.
After breakfast an OA meeting. Just wonderful shares on Step 3 and 11. If for no other reason, consider doing this service for the OA meetings. Amazing
This mornings workshop broke all delegates into 20 groups where we discussed different topics from using the Internet to fundraising and financial issues to group unity. I was the note taker and reporter to the assembly for our group so I’m afraid I missed some of the other group reports while I was writing our summary. I’ll crib notes from someone else to report here.
I’m off to the PI committee meeting now.
That’s all for now.
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