05.08.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 4:16 am by
The fun began at 5:30 when Margaret Ann lead her trusty troop of players through rehearsal of the evening’s entertainment: What do you know? A quiz game about OA history and Trivia. My role was announcer. Margaret Ann, Bob F. (GST from Region 6) and Lee R. (WSO Office) were the judges. Len M. from L.A. was the MC and 5 lucky OAs were selected to be the contestants. Questions included: What year was OA founded (1960)? What 12 Step fellowship was Rosanne’s model (Gamblers Anonymous? What was the name of the fellowship for overeaters that started in Texas about the same time as OA (Glutton’s Anonymous)?
By 6pm, the fellowship was at the doors and anxious to get in and get started on dinner. There was a brief invocation before dinner and then dinner was on.
The buffet was lovely. Lots of choices and I had no problem finding what I needed. It was odd that the fruit was the first item on the buffet but I didn’t question it. I just stuck it on my scale. Some pictures, including my dinner, are here: Some Pictures..
I chose to weigh and measure at buffets all week. It felt safer. When going out to a normal sit down restaurant I didn’t weigh my food but all other meals hit the scale. A safe and sane choice for me.
I shared a table with Nanci from LAIG, Lucy from Southern CA, Pat, Nancy and Gerry from MBI(I think), Joyce from CA and Angela, our Region 2 trustee. It was an enjoyable table. Some good laughs.
After dinner there were ceremonies thanking outgoing trustees and welcoming new trustees to the board. It was nice. There were some tears and a lot of love.
By about 7:30 or so we were ready for What do you Know. It was great fun for the participants and the audience had a ball. It didn’t run smooth as a top though. The questions being projected on the screen were out of sync with the script. No big deal. Len read from the screen. Our contestants blew New Year’s noise makers to indicate they knew the answer.
At the end, everyone was a winner and walked away with a little metal lunch box (maybe 3″x5″).
After a break the DJ setup and it was dance time. All the classics including YMCA. Of course lots of the men, myself included got on stage for that one. In the past I would be among the last to leave the dance floor at the end of the evening but I was truly very tired by 10pm so I headed back to my room to pack, wind down and get at least a little sleep.
Gaston and I were up the next morning by 3:30. He had to catch a van to the airport at 4am while mine was at 4:30.
The trip home was completely uneventful. Albuquerque to Denver to Boston. All flights on or close to on time. No long waits for luggage or buses.
Re-entry to the real world of everyday life has been a bit of a challenge but I’m adjusting. God willing I’ll be back here next year reporting on the 2008 World Service Business Conference.
Thanks again for sending me.
Steve
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05.06.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 3:35 pm by
These will be the last business related meetings of the week. This is a long post.
Summary: The delegates approved funding of a national Public Information Campaign. The campaign will start-up with reserve funds( no more then 20k) which will be replaced by special contributions requested from the fellowship. Look for news on this coming to a meeting near you. We’ll spend as much as gets contributed on this campaign. It’s likely to start on the web. This got a pretty good majority. I voted against it ONLY because I felt it would be better to rely only on member contributions to the special fund and not seed the work with reserve funds. Just before the close of this business meeting, a suggestion was made to do the first collection for the special fund from the members at WSBC. The report later was that over $1000 was collected (average probably about $5.something per person). I felt a little cheap tossing in $5 bucks but it appears to have been pretty average. Once a COE, always a COE!
Back to the future and after much wrangling, we decided to send Proposals 2-6, to create a service structure (IGs, Regions, etc) for telephone and on-line meeting, back to the drawing board for a re-write. I think that was the right choice. These proposals were confusing as heck and the motions we were going to be asked to vote on were substantially different then the motions brought forward originally. The Chairman of the Board of Trustees (Dodie Hawkins) will form a subcommittee (probably of the board’s technology committee) to work on new proposal recommendations, I hope for next year. These groups need to be part of our service structure. We did, after all, fight a war in 1776 about taxation without representation.
Remarkably, we made it to Proposal Item 9, to replace Him with God in Steps 3, 6 and 11. Right off a motion was introduced to extend debate to 6 pro and 6 con. This didn’t win. Shortly after, an amendment was introduced to change Step 3 to read: Made a decision to turn our will and life over to the care of the God of our understanding. I sort of liked it, but I stood Con, against it because I felt that big a change stood even less of a chance of passing. After a fair amount of debate, the Chair actually made a decision to rule that amendment in appropriate (there is a real parliamentary term but I don’t recall it). She ruled that it represented a change, outside the scope of a change permitted by the amendment process on a bylaws motion. With that we moved on to the question period, until…a motion to reconsider the Chair’s ruling was introduced. We then debated that motion. If the motion to reconsider passed, the delegates would have effectively overruled the Chair’s decision. The motion to reconsider failed and we continued with the question period on the motion. During the question period and before the vote, but awfully close to the time we needed to be out of the ball room, I remembered that for a sensitive vote, its good to get a paper ballot. I submitted a motion for that and because of the late hour the Chair asked the floor if there was no objection, we would vote on that paper ballot motion without debate and questions. I could have objected and I *think* that would have forced debate but I choose not to. Self will and all that. Also before the vote a member asked the Chair to instruct the delegates to show no display of emotion when the result was announced. That was a good reminder that this is about principals. Wining and losing isn’t part of it. Finding a group conscience is the point. We finally had a vote by show of hands. Proposal Item 9 didn’t pass( needing 2/3 vote) but it got more then I expected. Not a majority but progress. I have no doubt the result did reflect the collective group conscience of the fellowship.
WSBC closed with a number of requests to the chair from the floor including a warm thank-you to Marilyn A., outgoing Trustee from Region 5. I had the opportunity to work with her on the PI committee these past few months. I like her. ‘nough said.
We had a few hours off before rehearsal for the dinner entertainment: What do you know? An OA history and trivia quiz show written by our own Margaret Ann.
Higher Power Moment: I had been having Internet connection problems all week long and I wasn’t alone in that. Fed up with the problems, I decided to spend $6 to go across the street to Starbucks and connect via their wireless service. On my way out toward the door, I spied Ren (from somewhere…sorry Ren). She had her laptop and she was banging away. Asking her if she was connected to the Internet, she replied she was. So, I sat down next to her and asked if I she would hold my hand while I booted up my computer. This she did happily. When my system started up, Viola! The Internet connection worked like a dream.
With the connection going I was able to check mail and get an update posted to the blog (Friday’s I think). Then, I moved on to complete my workshop report for “We have ceased fighting” and the PI committee goals document. With these out of the way, I was free and clear. I had no “deliverables” in front of me from WSBC (ok, I have some webmaster and PI committee tasks in front of me but those are longer term commitments).
At 3:00 I met with Danielle S.( MBI and incoming PI committee delegate co-chair), Donna H.( ?? and incoming PI committee delegate vice co-chair), Marilyn A(outgoing PI committee trustee co-chair) and Cheryle T. (incoming PI Committee trustee co-chair). Sort of a changing of the guard except we hadn’t actually had the elections yet. I didn’t realize these needed to be done during our long meeting earlier in the week. Oh well, it all worked out. At 3:30 we reviewed our goals, actions and timetables. We created an e-mail loop for WSBC committee members.
I didn’t have a lot of time off between the end of committee meetings and the start of the dinner festivities. I bounced (yes bounced!) back to my room, ran a washcloth over my face and head, changed for dinner and the game show (Hawaiian shirt, black pants, white walking shoes). But this isn’t business, so more later.
Steve
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05.05.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 1:57 pm by
Heard in a meeting: Courage is fear that’s said it’s prayers.
We ended today’s business meeting at 3pm. I’m not sure if that’s because there was another function planned for the space or if they knew, well in advance, that it would turn into a challenging business meeting. Things started out pretty quietly.
I forget the exact order of business but I believe we started with the votes for the Region Trustees. All trustee positions had a single candidate and therefore ran unopposed. Votes for trustees are taken on a secret paper. A majority vote is required for election. All candidates won though none got unanimous votes. When the results were read we were given the total number of ballots and the number of votes for each candidate. For example 201 total ballots and 193 votes for the candidate. There is no opportunity to vote NO for a candidate. Any mark other then an “X” in the space provided make that ballot a spoiled ballot and not vote on it counts. Our new or re-elected trustees are:
Region Trustees -
- Angela Jenkins - Region 2 Trustee (Trustee since 2005)
- Raymond Craig Ramsey (goes by Craig) - Region 5 Trustee (1st term)
- Charles Aloisio - Region 8 Trustee (Trustee since 2004)
- Di Cockburn - Region 10 Trustee (1st term)
General Service Trustees -
- Idolia (goes by Dodie) Hawkins - General Service Trustee (2nd term)
- Cheryle M. Touchton - General Service Trustee (1st term)
- Vicki Tew Wilcox - General Service Trustee (1st term)
I know some of the board and some of the new/re-elected trustees. I know we’ll be well served.
On to the new business motions for the day.
Proposal Item 1…You remember that one from the questionnaire, right? Well, it passed, I think unanimously. I think. We voted by raised hand and I didn’t see any No hands. This motion moved a couple of Intergroup service areas into Region 3 from their prior region because they are closer to region 3’s annual assembly and convention.
Proposal Item 7 and 8, also seemed to pass unanimously. This approved changes to the by-laws that will enshrine the defacto reality that the incorporation of Overeaters Anonymous is being moved from California to New Mexico.
Depending on your definition of fun, this is where it began. A brief review is needed. Some years ago, OA established a policy defining the sort of on-line and telephone meeting that could register as an official OA meeting. These meetings must be interactive and meet in “real time”. This has worked well I hear from members who participate in these meetings. What these OA groups cannot do is join existing or form their own Intergroups or Regions. Since these groups give money to World Service through the 7th tradition you could think of this as Taxation without Representation. We all know what happened the last time we ran across this!
Proposal Items 2-6 moved to amend the various section of our OA bylaws to both incorporate these “Virtual Groups” (today this is on-line and telephone meetings) and to change some language defining changing “National/Language Service Boards” to just “Service Boards.” The heart of the debate though is around these virtual groups.
The chairman of the meeting had the discression and made the decision to vote on items 2-6 in a single vote: adopt them all or reject them all. So the process looks like this (simplified!):
Proposal Item X:
- Introduce the main motion
- Debate the motion (3 pro, 3 con)
- If there is an amendment, stop the debate on the motion
- Debate the amendment (2 pro, 2 con)
- Answer questions for 20 minutes
- If the Amendment passes, continue debating the amended main motion. If it fails, continue debate on the original main motion.
- Answer questions for 20 minutes.
- Vote on the motion.
It’s tedious but it’s a process (Robert’s Rules of Order) and it works!
So far we’ve been through just the first two of these. The first, Proposal Item 2 defines “virtual media groups”.Through the amendment process, these became Virtual Groups and what little definition there was disappeared. In essence, anything that is not a face to face meeting becomes a virtual group. Today that means telephone meetings and on-line meetings. The intent of the maker is to have a definition for virtual groups that is broad enough so that any new means of meeting will automatically be included.
In the debate and discussion, it was pretty clear that the Pros felt we needed an open and flexible definition. The Cons were uncomfortable with an un-clear proposal. In fact, the Cons support bringing virtual groups into the service structure but they feel these proposals we are looking at today are not the right proposals to do so. I am a Con.
The next proposal item we discussed, Item 3, modifies the bylaws so that virtual groups can form their own Intergroups, but in the process of amending the original motion, virtual groups were given a choice: Form new Intergroups (great!) or join existing Intergroups in any physical location (not great). In short, this amended proposal gives virtual groups greater freedom to associate than face to face meetings. A meeting in Massachusetts must associate with an Intergroup in Region 6 (did you know that? It doesn’t have to associate with a local IG). I’m uncomfortable with this and spoke Con to the motion.
That was all the business we could get to on Friday. The discussion on virtual groups took a long time and it will resume on Saturday morning. There is a lot of business remaining and my bet is we don’t get to all of it before we close the business session tomorrow.
After the business meeting we had a strategic planning session where we broke into 5 session to brainstorm ideas in 5 areas:
- Abstinent members
- Strong meetings
- Committed service bodies
- Public/professional awareness
- Financial health
I served on the Public/Professional awareness group and the results of that discussion are posted on another page. Click for brainstorming results.
After crappy food with lovely people, I attended the Reference Subcommittee of the Bylaws Committee. If a main motion receives 3 amendments, the motion is pulled from the floor and sent to the Reference Subcommittee to This dedicated group of trusted servants has the responsibility to review all the amendments and bring back amended motions which derive from the member proposed amendments. This committee considered change to Proposal Item A(public awareness campaign), Proposal Item 6 (part of the virtual group set of motions) and Proposal Item 9 (Change Him to God in Steps 3, 6 and 11). Hard to summarize but they made changes to A and 6 but left 9 alone.
Enough for today. More tomorrow.
Thanks for sending me.
Steve
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05.03.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 10:40 pm by
On Tuesday I was co-leader of a work shop entitled: “We Have Ceased Fighting”. Ella H. and I shared on our experience giving up the battles that filled our compulsive lives. Members were asked to help us answer these two questions:
- How do we get better even when life’s circumstances don’t?
- Where is the balance between resigning the debating society (surrender and acceptance), and resignation—giving up and going along just to avoid conflict?
Here is what I took away from the session:
- Before program, I was “Spring loaded in a pissed off position.”
- Fit spiritual condition means accepting life on life’s terms.
- Because of OA I can focus on the positive even in a situation that’s not perfect.
- Fear is under everything and the Steps help remove the cause of the fear.
- Step 10 tells us we won’t be perfect and it gives us the tool to handle it.
- Use Humor!
- Always look for the 3 Star restaurant: It’s there, There’s food, It’s abstinent food.
- Pay attention to character defects when they come up. Don’t put these off.
- When under stress, work your program harder.
- Seek help - Accept help.
- Learned to live and let live.
- Abstinence came when I stopped fighting the idea of being a Compulsive overeater.
- Seek, don’t fight the truth.
- There can be no change without acceptance.
- A little bit of faith goes a long way.
- Be open.
It was a nice hour of recovery.
Steve
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Posted in Uncategorized at 10:22 pm by
Heard today from a 100 pounder: I didn’t lose my weight. I know exactly where it went and how to get it back.
We essentially finished all required business in the morning so we we moved on to the New Business motions. The first motion (Proposal A-A), to adopt a new piece of OA Literature did pass with a very large margin. I think I saw 5-8 people vote no. This new Literature, titled “BLACK OA MEMBERS SHARE THEIR EXPERIENCE, STRENGTH AND HOPE” had 3 people speak PRO (in support of adopting the literature) and no one spoke against it. Just so you know, to limit debate, a maximum of 3 people may speak pro and a maximum of 3 people may speak con to any motion (amendments are 2 pro, 2 con). This literature should be available in the fall. A price has not been set yet.
Motion A-B, was to adopt an updated “A GUIDE FOR SPONSORS”. The main change to this was the addition of 30 questions to help newcomers work the first three steps. These are different from the H.O.W. questions or the Westminster questions and were created specifically for OA newcomers.
There was more discussion on this literature then the previous piece. There was concern that the questions were called “Questions for Newcomers” and not “Suggested Questions for Newcomers”. Frankly, I agreed that suggested was better BUT I also thought it was better to have it the way it was then wait another year to publish this. Progress you know.
At this point we came to proposal A which would authorize the board to do a special fund raising campaign to to make money available for a professionally produced Public Awareness Campaign. As delegate co-chair of the PI committee, I spoke Pro to this motion which represented the group conscience of the PI committee. This proposal had 3 Pro speakers and 3 Con speakers. I believe the essence of the Pro argument was that we need the professional help to get our message out in a coordinated and concerted effort. The Board of Trustees would be responsible for making sure that the message is in keeping with our traditions.
The Con side made a strong argument that this 12th Step work is ours to do and not the job of a professional organization.
There were a lot of questions from the floor about this. Most of the questions would have been answered by actually reading the motion. Example: How will this be funded. Answer: It’s part of the motion itself: Expenses connected with this campaign will be supported by member contributions to a special public awareness campaign fund established by the Board of Trustees. There were questions about how the Traditions would be protected. Again, it was in black and white in the Implementation portion of the proposal.
Questions came to a screeching halt when an amendment to the Standing Rules was proposed to cut the question time down from 20 to 10 minutes. The way it works now is all proposals, after the Pros and Cons, can have questions asked, from the delegate, for up to 20 minutes. After 20 minutes the delegates voted to close the questions or continue for another 10 minutes and then vote again. The amendment to the Standing rules would have cut that down to 10 minutes before calling for closure. It was an attempt to speed things along but we wasted a lot of time voting down this amendment. I spoke Con to the amendment. My experience at conference is that some questions are critical to really understanding the issues. I have changed my view on a proposal based on what I hear in the Q&A.
Questions resumed until an amendment to the proposal hit the floor. The amendment would cap the expenditure annually at 20 Grand. This also lost. In short, it was made clear that a cap wasn’t needed. Funds come ONLY from the special donations and that will be the cap. If we get 20K in donations we spend that. 100K we spend that. Pretty simple. It doesn’t touch our normal funds from literature sales and 7th tradition.
After another 10 minutes of questions, the closure vote passed. We’ll either vote on this first thing tomorrow or deal with another amendment I head is stirring in the wings. After the Serenity Prayer was said, away we went to dinner. Yippee.
After dinner with Theresa (Region 5 chair I think) and Karin (Region 6 chair), we took a stroll around Old Town. The weather just could not be beat and we came back to a workshop on living Step 12. I listened to a couple of qualifiers and then retired to my room to write this and get ready for bed.
Don’t eat no matter what. No matter what don’t eat.
Steve
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Posted in Uncategorized at 9:04 pm by
Heard at the morning OA meeting:
- Put
- Aside
- Upsetting
- Situations.
- Exhale.
Good morning OA meeting. In truth, I was only paying half attention as I had to do a fair amount of conference work/updated for this blog. Being a workshop leader and committee delegate co-chair adds to the work load but it also adds to the rewards of service. I ain’t complaining.
Today was our first business meeting. We have 198 voting delegates and trustees from around the world. Each session begins with the Serenity Prayer, lead first in a language that isn’t English and then repeated in English. This morning started our with the Serenity Prayer sung in Flemish.
We then got into the mechanics of the meeting with introductions, adoption of credentials (who can vote) and the standing rules. We adopted the agenda and then we had a briefing on the procedures for motions and floor debate. Finally we adopted the officer reports. All of this was supposed to take until lunch but we were done by 10am. I think this was due to darn good organization AND a very well prepared Chair of the Board (Dodie H.).
After a break there was an opportunity to ask questions about the region and trustee reports. All of this was pretty mechanical. There was nothing much in the way of questions but I did learn some good stuff. Did you know:
- There is now a suggested OA Meeting format for a Step Study meeting (http://www.oa.org/pdf/StepStudy_Format.pdf).
- OA’s 50th birthday party will be in 2010 at the Los Angeles Airport Hilton (LAX Hilton)
- There are funds available from WSO to reach out to professionals. The details of the program are important and these are documented on oa.org, somewhere.
- A Professional Outreach kit is available from WSO for use at professional exhibits (not one to one stuff like the packet we did at MWI)
We moved on to Trustee nominees. We had Region and General Service nominees. Each gave a brief pitch for the job and we all had their applications in our packets of information(and well ahead of WSBC via mail and the web). All open positions had only one applicant so there were no contests. After speaking there was a question and answer period and all the candidates did very nicely. We’ll actually vote on these nominations tomorrow.
During this period, one thing that caught my ear was the continued interest in reaching out to young people. In particular, discussion of how to make it safe for members under 18.
I think this is were we broke for lunch, but no rest for the energized. OA Webmasters met over lunch in the hotel discussing OUR experience. I came away with some tasks, of course, and we’re meeting again tomorrow to encourage people from IGs that don’t have websites to consider asking for help and joining us.
Lunch was the buffet in the hotel. Excellent salmon. Overcooked broccoli. Nice fresh salad and lovely fruit. All weighed and measured because buffets and I have this deal about that.
Steve
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Posted in Uncategorized at 5:29 pm by
After my most pleasant lunch (16 ounce salad, 2.5 ounces aged Gouda and an apple) we reconvened for our committee work. We decided to break into 3 groups:
- Grassroots PI and PI Coordination (coordinating PI at the IG level)
- Media Kit Update
- PI through the Internet
Working in these subcommittees we developed goal, actions, assigned resources and set schedules for the coming year.
There was a lot of positive energy in these groups and we set the following goals:
- To promote the updated Public Information Manual:
- Send a flyer out with a pitch for the new manual.
- Update the document “Website Development Guidelines” to include suggested content for newcomers
- Obtain source document for Website Development Guideline.
- Submit update to the board for their August meeting.
- Use the oawebmasters group on yahoogroups.com to offer mentoring relationships for IGs that want to create websites.
- Bring this proposal to the oawebmasters group at lunch here at WSBC
- Post a message to the group requesting this service
- Write an article about this for Lifeline and Step Ahead
- Create a flyer pitching this, to be distributed with the quarterly WSO IG mailing.
- To work together better to get the message out via Public Information groups at the IG and Region level.
- Create a PI kit that will help member IGs and groups better utilize existing OA PI materials to get the message out.
- Create a flyer to make the membership aware of this new kit.
On a personal note, the afternoon felt much better then the morning. I took some time to compose my mind and prepare for the afternoon. Was it meditation? Perhaps. It was a least a moment when I was willing to listen for the next right thing to do (3rd Step).
After a brief break, we had our Region 6 meeting. This was an hour together, as a region, to do introductions, announcements, some region boasterism and just generally have a good time feeling great about doing this service. Region 6 sends more representatives to WSBC then any other region. Most regions have a region dinner at a local restaurant but we have so many people no restaurant can accomodate us. Instead, we broke into pods to fend for ourselves. We tried to go to dinner a the Church Street Cafe but the place was full so we selected another place I’d been the year before. No line, no wait and good food. I went to dinner with 4 region reps from various NY IGs. I had a lovely abstinent dinner and good conversation. We had to dodge the rain drops but that all worked out.
After dinner, I went back to the room and worked on the blog and e-mail and just relaxed. I didn’t attend the evening Parlimentary workshop or literature review. I needed to wind down and do these updates. Unfortunately, the Internet connection was unreliable and this morning it’s down completely so this update is being written in my text editor and waiting to be posted once the problems are fixed.
Have a great abstinent day!
Steve
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05.02.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 9:16 pm by
I like to get to one OA meeting (you know, a normal OA meeting, not a business meeting) each day during WSBC and I usually go to the morning meeting. Unfortunately, I didn’t make it to this morning’s and this evening’s is at 10:15, and that’ll probably be too late for me.
This morning we had a forum titled “Embracing Diversity in OA”, lead by our very own Margaret Ann. We were organized into about 25 working groups. To start, Margaret led us through an exercise where members of various “groups” would stand up and everyone would applaud:
- “All compulsive overeaters, please stand up”. CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP.
- “All Anorexics and bulimics, please stand up”. CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP.
- “All people married to men, please stand up”. CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP.
- “All people married to women, please stand up”. CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP.
- “All parents, please stand up”. CLAP CLAP CLAP CLAP.
You get the idea. There were a lot more then these and it was good to stretch and clap. I guess the point is that there is a lot of different forms of diversity in our rooms.
There were three speakers. Speaking first a native French speaker shared on what it’s like to be a non-native English speaker in OA. He shared on the uselessness of English language OA literature, so his IG translates and sells French language OA literature world wide.
Our next exercise had us pair off and share a personal story of where we felt different. My own share was of a visit I made to Cleveland when I was 18 years old and visiting universities. I spent an evening on campus and took a walk to McDonald’s for dinner. Walking into the restaurant, I instantly felt out of place. I was the only white person in the place. I felt like every eye was on me the entire time I was there. A fat white kid in McDonald’s. I walked up to the counter which seemed like it was a mile away, ordered my food, sat down, inhaled the meal and left. To this day I remember what it felt like and what the place looked like.
Our next share had a member speak to being a part of a sexual preference minority. In her case, she didn’t feel she was treated differently and as long as the program focused on recovering from compulsive overeating, her preference wasn’t an issue.
The next exercise was “The Label Game”. We brainstormed and listed various sex based stereotypes such as “Men can fix things and women can’t” or “Women are emotional and men aren’t”. We then shared in our group on how we personally had been affected by stereotypes. Finally, we talked about how stereotypes affect recovery in the rooms. In short, anything which focuses on our differences works against our recovery. When we’re in the rooms, we’re focused on the disease we all share. The rooms are no place for making someone feel different.
The final sharer spoke to program diversity, specifically how we work our program. She share about coming into program in the 90 day community, experimented and then came back to her roots and found long term recovery.
We ended with an exercise where we were given a scenario and we were asked for suggest how we might handle it. Our story had an OA qualifying at an out of town meeting. She shared on her physical, emotional and spiritual recovery. Some heavy members of the meeting, in there sharing, spoke to how, in OA they found they could accept their weight, as is. In doing so, the qualifier from out of town became uncomfortable and we were asked how we would suggest she handle this situation.
We suggested she take this up with her sponsor. We really didn’t think it was such a good idea to raise the issue during the meeting but, if she felt ok doing it, she could speak with the members after the meeting. If it were a meeting in her IG we suggested she bring this matter to them and perhaps suggest their member meetings would benefit from group inventories.
We closed with the serenity prayer and left for a 30 minute break.
We re-adjourned at 11am in our Committee assignments. I am serving as the acting delegate co-chair of the PI committee. Frankly, I didn’t really prepare for this as it wasn’t a service I expected to do. None the less, we got through this brief meeting where we got organized for the afternoon meeting (3 hours). From here, all that was left was lunch.
Lunch: weighed and measure in my room. Eaten out on the veranda with OA friends from region 7.
Steve
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05.01.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:56 pm by
- Control is not one of the promises
- “Blame-thrower”
The evening workshop asked the question “What message are we carrying?”. I interpreted the discussion as saying that recovery has to happen on three planes: Physical, Emotional and Spiritual. Having one or two, no matter which one or two, doesn’t carry the whole OA message. I wish I could tell you more but I was falling asleep. Not because of the sharing but because I’m just tired. Long day yesterday and an early day today added up to bedtime.
But first, two other things.
#1: My bag was delivered between 4 and 5pm. You’ll be pleased to hear my cheese, rice cakes and apples are fine, thank you. Breakfast and lunch tomorrow are all set. I might make my dinner in the room too because I’m running over on the budget because of this baggage business.
#2: I co-lead a workshop titled “We Have Ceased Fighting”. Feedback suggests it went well. I Have to write up a summary report and I’ll post it here first.
Good night,
Steve
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Posted in Uncategorized at 12:15 pm by
I mentioned that With my luggage (hopefully still just) in transit, I decided to hit the store and get some replacement clothing. I forgot to mention that I’ve been wanting to get new underwear and socks for a few months now. I just never had the time. Today I found the time. so, at this precise moment a few pairs of items are hanging to dry. Hang-on phone call.
………….
………….
………….
Albuquerque, Delta Airlines here. Your luggage has landed.
What’s that I read? Do the next right thing and let go of the results? Pretty cool. I hope my cheese is okay.
Steve
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