Committee Report
We started laying the foundations for the Literature Committee before the 2012 World Service Conference, extensively researching how other 12 Step programs approach literature, and prioritizing the work that needed to be done. We continued to build on this at the 2013 Conference, where the Principles for the Literature Committee were discussed at length and approved. We are hoping to round this out at this year’s conference, with the Procedures and Guidelines for Creating New Literature and the Style Guide. Once these things are in place, we believe the Conference can go forwards confidently and start giving out its seal of approval that appropriate pieces of literature conform to the program principles.
Since last year’s Conference, the committee has achieved the following:
- Revised the Style Guide and Service pamphlet to reflect feedback received from the GSB.
- Started work on the following pamphlets, exploring various approaches to creating literature; working drafts of some of these will be available for review at the Conference:
- Recovering in UA (UA version of 12 Steps & 12 Traditions)
- UA and Artists
- Starting a Business in UA
- Are You an Underearner?
- UA Promises
- Worked with the GSB Treasurer to reduce the bulk cost of the About UA pamphlets from $1.50 to 75¢ a piece.
- Worked with the NY Intergroup to format some of the material on the Internet site for printing. This was successfully used at share-a-days in New York and California, and is now being sold at New York area meetings; copies are available for review and purchase. (The materials are also available in A4 format for printing in the UK, etc.)
- Worked with the Phone/Technology Committee on drafting website guidelines.
- Finished the year with a Group Inventory to reflect on progress made, and goals for next year: (a link will be inserted here once the inventory has been held in August)
General Information on the Literature Committee:
Roles
For the Literature Committee, we are always looking for people with relevant skills and experience, in particular writing, editing, proof reading and desktop publishing. Access to a phone, computer with an Internet connection and an email account are essential to active participation.
Microsoft Word is not essential, but it is helpful to be able to create and edit documents in Word format. Likewise, the ability to create PDF files is helpful (this is built into Macintosh computers; free software such as CutePDF can be used for Windows PCs). More specialized software and hardware may be helpful or required for some roles.
Chair
The chair’s main tasks are chairing meetings, recruiting new members to the committee, and making sure that commitments to other committees and the WSC are met.
Secretary
The secretary’s main tasks are taking accurate, succinct notes at committee meetings and compiling and distributing the meeting minutes; creating and distributing the meeting agendas; and posting meeting minutes, agendas, and working documents to the 9th Tradition website, for transparency to the rest of the program.
GSB Representative
The GSB representative’s main role is to be available on the monthly GSB calls to provide information about the Literature Committee and its activities, assist GSRs in obtaining printed literature for their meetings, and answer questions that GSRs may have about literature and the Literature Committee.
Committee Members
The committee members are the people who do the hard work of actually creating, publishing and distributing new literature! Committee members’ responsibilities include:
- Attending committee meetings, checking minutes for accuracy
- Proofing literature drafts for content, typos and grammatical errors
- Volunteering for tasks and activities related to the committee’s work, especially around creating new literature
N.B. As the service structure of UA becomes more defined, we expect that the operational aspects of creating literature (printing, distribution, etc.) will migrate to the GSB. This is probably several years away, at least, and for the time being, we think it makes sense to include these functions within the WSC committee.
Requirements
In general, we ask that nominees for the officer positions on the Literature Committee have experience serving on the Literature Committee. Since that’s currently a very limited pool of possible candidates, we suggest that comparable experience with other committees in UA or other programs is also suitable (bearing in mind that our approach and procedures may differ in important ways).
To enable the voices of all committee members to be heard, we expect that elections will be held at the first committee meeting of the new term, i.e., September 4.
Other Issues & Concerns
Priorities
The goal of the Literature Committee is to create literature that will stand the test of time, and it is our view that any specific piece of new literature will be ready when it’s ready, in God’s time not ours.
Currently, all our literature is being created and edited by people giving service to the program, necessarily limiting how fast we can proceed by the number of volunteers and how much time they have available. However, the principles approved by the WSC also allow the Conference to direct the creation of specific pieces of literature, which enables the Literature Committee to use funds from the GSB to negotiate (modest) fees for writing and editing. This would likely also allow some of the many able writers in the program to spend time on creating the literature in question without underearning. (Note that the GSB would still need to approve the disbursement of specific fees.)
We have no suggestions along these lines at present, but GSRs who feel strongly that a specific piece of literature is needed sooner rather than later, should explore whether there is a group consensus around expending money for this purpose. We will be happy to work with these GSRs to develop cost projections so that they have clarity for their proposals.
Is It Literature?
The action cards printed for the NY Intergroup were taken from the website, with the understanding that they are Service Literature—meeting formats and worksheets. (As such, their content was approved for printing by a group conscience vote of the Intergroup, after being circulated widely to the GSB and UA mailing lists for feedback.)
However, we feel this distinction is not necessarily clear cut: these particular pieces might also be regarded as literature directly relating to recovery. We feel it would be good governance for the WSC to review these cards, and confirm or correct this understanding. We have proposed a motion about this, to allow time for discussion and decision.
Literature Creation
The committee’s top priority remains the creation of a UA version of the 12&12—how to work the steps and traditions from the perspective of recovering from underearning, in pamphlet form. This is a young program—not a person amongst us has more than eight years recovery—but it is our belief that while no one person can know what long-term recovery from underearning looks like, our Higher Power can tell us that through our collective group conscience. To this end, we are asking every member of UA to spend half an hour per step, writing out what the step means to them and what they have gotten out of it. We would be grateful if you would both participate yourself and encourage others to participate by publicizing this effort with your home groups.
If there is time at the WSC, we will include a writing workshop around this as part of the agenda, see below.
Selling Literature
Finally, we would like to remind GSRs of the invaluable service they can do for us and the program, by making sure their home groups know about the UA literature available for free on the website, and available for purchase in printed form. (Our current approach to selling literature is to provide a discount for bulk purchases, enabling groups to use the proceeds of reselling it to cover the cost of giving away some literature to newcomers. Note that each group needs to determine for itself its policies towards pricing and selling literature.)
Literature Workshop
If time permits, we ask that the World Service Conference participate in the Steps & Traditions Literature Writing Workshop. More details can be found here.
Motions
The Literature Committee is presenting the following motions for review, discussion and approval by the World Service Conference. Last year’s review of the Principles resulted in some small but very valuable changes to the wording, and it is our expectation that there will be useful debate around these motions as well. Note that the motions 1, 3, 4 & 5 were previously presented at the 2013 Conference, but there was not enough time to address them. The comments in italics are for guidance and are not part of the motions themselves.
1. Procedures & Guidelines For New Literature
Issue: It is expected that the WSC will wish to start designating suitable pieces of literature as “conference approved,” in line with the Literature Principles approved at the 2013 conference. These procedures and guidelines are proposed as the means of obtaining that designation, and have been reviewed and approved by the Literature Committee and the GSB (note that the term “conference approved” has been changed to “conference created,” in line with the changes made by the WSC in approving the Principles). It is anticipated that when the Service Structure Committee creates the UA Service Manual, the Literature Principles and these Procedures & Guidelines will together form the Literature section of that manual.
Motion: The World Service Conference approves and adopts the following document as the procedures and guidelines to be followed for creating and approving new literature for the Underearners Anonymous program: http://9thtradition.org/new-literature/
2. Style Guide
Issue: It is important that literature created for the UA program follow certain guidelines in terms of how it is written and formatted, so that it adheres to the principles of the program, and that it is accessible to all members of the program. Indeed, the Literature Principles approved by the WSC call for the creation of style guides for this purpose. This effort is not yet complete: we expect to include guides to formatting, formulas for copyright and other statements, etc., for approval at future conferences. This style guide has been reviewed and approved by the Literature Committee; it has been reviewed by the GSB and their feedback has been incorporated; we anticipate it will be approved by the GSB by the time of the conference.
Motion: The World Service Conference approves and adopts the following document as the style guide to be followed in creating new literature for the Underearners Anonymous program: http://9thtradition.org/style-guide/
3. Symptoms of Underearners
Issue: We believe it is important that the Symptoms be reviewed and approved by the WSC. This serves two purposes. Firstly, this is part of the bedrock of our literature, and will likely be incorporated in many of our publications without further review. Secondly, it is a test of how well the Procedures and Guidelines we have developed work in practice. The Symptoms have been reviewed and approved by the Literature Committee and the GSB, with no changes from the Symptoms list currently on the website.
Motion: The World Service Conference approves and adopts the following list of the 12 Symptoms of Underearners as conference-created literature of the Underearners Anonymous program: http://9thtradition.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/1.-Symptoms-of-Underearners-v1.02.pdf
4. Tools of Underearners Anonymous
Issue: Likewise, we believe it is important that the wording of the Tools be reviewed and approved by the WSC. The text from the website has been changed as follows: the text now reflects the recommendation that sponsors have worked the 12 Steps in UA, and minor typos have been corrected. The amended Tools have been reviewed and approved by the Literature Committee and the GSB.
Motion: The World Service Conference approves and adopts the following list of the 12 Tools of Underearners Anonymous as conference-created literature of the Underearners Anonymous program: http://9thtradition.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/2.-Tools-of-UA-v1.02.pdf
5. About UA Pamphlet
Issue: Again, we believe it is important that the content of this document be reviewed and approved by the WSC, even though has been in use for many years. The text from the website has been changed as follows: the text now reflects the recommendation that sponsors have worked the 12 Steps in UA, and miscellaneous typos and grammatical errors have been corrected. The amended text of About UA has been reviewed and approved by the Literature Committee and the GSB.
Motion: The World Service Conference approves and adopts the following document entitled About Underearners Anonymous as conference-created literature of the Underearners Anonymous program: http://9thtradition.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/3.-About-Underearners-Anonymous-v1.02.pdf
6. Service Pamphlet
Issue: Newcomers to UA need guidance on how to use the 12 Tools of the program in their recovery. This pamphlet represents what we expect to be the first in a series of pamphlets, one on each of the tools. This Service guide has been reviewed and approved by the Literature Committee; it has been reviewed by the GSB and their feedback has been incorporated; we anticipate it will be approved by the GSB by the time of the conference.
Motion: The World Service Conference approves and adopts the following document describing the Tool of Service as conference-created literature of the Underearners Anonymous program: http://9thtradition.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/6.-Service-Tool-5-v0.5.pdf
7. UA & Artsists
Issue: Artists face some special challenges in recovering from underearning. This pamphlet is designed to address these issues. We anticipate it will be reviewed and approved by the Literature Committee and the GSB by the time of the conference.
Motion: The World Service Conference approves and adopts the following document describing UA & Artists as conference-created literature of the Underearners Anonymous program:
8. Service Literature
Issue: The Literature Committee has formatted for printing some of the website material around formats for action groups, and the worksheet for visions, goals and actions. In the process, the text of these documents was amended somewhat, to have a consistent “voice,” to comply with the Style Guide (Motion 2), and to fit within the printed formats; these changes were approved by group conscience vote of the publishing entity, the New York Intergroup. It is the view of the committee that these documents fall under Service Literature and Worksheets and Templates, as defined in the Literature Principles approved by the WSC, and thus no further review is necessary. However, we also believe that it is important that the WSC to confirm (or repudiate) this interpretation, to ensure we have good governance of our activities on behalf of the program. (Note that if the WSC determines this literature to be recovery-oriented, and thus be appropriate for WSC approval, then we will bring it back to a future conference for approval. Indeed, in this case, the conference is welcome to amend this motion to be one of approval of this literature as “conference created.”)
Motion: The World Service Conference agrees that literature such as the following Action Cards constitute Service Literature and Worksheets, and as such, are not appropriate for conference approval as conference-created literature: http://9thtradition.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Action-Cards.pdf
9. Website Guidelines
Issue: Several websites have been established by well-meaning individuals and groups on behalf of UA, and it is likely that more will be set up as the fellowship continues to grow. Principles and guidelines needs to be set up for these sites, so that they reflect the needs of the fellowship in a responsible and accountable fashion. In the past, many people have been frustrated by the lack of responsiveness and accountability around the main UA website.
For example, the Literature page of the website represents a random jumble of well crafted documents, unfinished drafts, meeting formats, worksheets taken from other programs, etc., with no regard to conference approval status, and no guidelines on usage; most documents reveal the author’s names and/or businesses, destroying anonymity; however, the Literature Committee has been unable to get a response on fixing this in over two years.The GSB has voted to replace the current webmaster, and to install a web manager, but without clear guidance on how this is to proceed.
Over the past few months, the Literature Committee has worked with the Phone & Technology Committee to draft Website Principles and Guidelines. The Literature Committee is submitting these to the GSB and the WSC, following the turmoil on the Phone & Technology Committee. The “Service Websites” portion of these guidelines has been reviewed and approved by the Literature Committee and the New York Intergroup, which follow these guidelines for 9thtradition.org.
Motion: The World Service Conference approves and adopts the following document as the principles and guidelines to be followed for websites wishing to operate using the Underearners Anonymous name and/or logo: http://9thtradition.org/2014/07/ua-website-principles-guidelines-draft-proposal/