Minutes of the GSR Committee 1/21/2018Pending a more permanent location for this information, the UA GSR Committee has voted to temporarily to post its minutes on this unofficial UA related service website.
Minutes for UA GSR Committee May 20, 2018, Started at 1:30pm Eastern
Mark B chair, Open with Serenity Prayer.
Arden Time-Keeper, Arden Secretary, Debora read 12 Traditions.
Roll call:
F2F meetings:
Mark B: NYC Realization;
Alexander: LA Artists/Prosperity;
Steven: LA Farmer’s Market;
Marcia: Sherman Oaks Work in Actions;
Greg: Alta Dena Prosperity
Phone meetings:
Shari Lynn: Sat-Sun Prosperous Possession Consciousness;
Randy: 11 am Hiding/Biting;
Janet: 8:30am Daily Step Tools;
George: 1:30pm Hiding/Biting;
Arden: Tuesday 7:15pm Writers in Recovery;
Jason: NYC Sunday 8:30pm Prosperity and our Relationships;
Debora: Ts-Wed-Fri eves Step Speaker;
Linda: Mon + Sat Prosperous Travel.
Members At Large:
Mair, Washington State.
Debora read the April minutes, corrections made:
The minutes for the GSR Committee 2018 Meeting were approved by vote of acclamation with the following changes included:
“Motion Suggesting Topics for 2018 World Service Conference Agenda” needs to be deleted and replaced with “Motion Regarding Important Topics for 2018 World Service Conference Agenda.”
For the World Service Conference Prep Committee Report, the underlined changes need to be made: “All expenses included package for single occupancy per person: $557.00; all expenses included for shared-occupancy per person: $437.00”
Shari Lynn will send a report from the April Meeting Support Subcommittee to be added to the April minutes, not included herein.
Old Business:
Jason presented Motion, Mark announced a few typos, and he will post it in “plain English” to the 9th Tradition website. All 9 motion items read by Jason. Explanations read by Arden and Jason.
Motion had been made and seconded in April, discussion followed.
2
Motion and Explanation of GSR Committee Motion Regarding 2018 WSC Topics
Background Information: The GSRs are requested to take a survey to their groups and ask their members to vote on what they believe to be their top one to ten fellowship-wide topics of concern. The voting results of the groups will then be transmitted by their GSRs to the WSC Prep Committee. The below Motion Regarding Important Topics for 2018 World Service Conference Agenda is only to be brought to the groups for informational purposes; the groups are free to decide what are their top one to ten topics of concern. The due date for returning the survey to the World Service Conference Prep Committee is June 30, 2018.
GSR Committee Motion Regarding Important Topics for 2018 World Service Conference Agenda
(Passed: Ayes 11, Nays 0, Abstentions 1)
The following are important fellowship-wide topics that the GSR Committee would like to see on the agenda of the 2018 World Service Conference:
- Clarification of the guidelines and roles of the GSR Committee, the General Service Board (GSB) and the World Service Conference, and their relationships with each other and the UA groups.
- Establishment of the duties and guidelines for all world service level committees, including their relationships with the GSR Committee, the GSB and the World Service Conference. (These Committees need to have established duties and guidelines so that they will operate democratically and in accordance with the UA Traditions and so that their relationships with the Board, GSR Committee and the World Service Conference are clarified.)
- Revision of the UA Concepts for World Service and Bylaws that were approved by the GSB in 2016, and subsequent voting on these items at the World Service Conference. (For example, the UA Bylaws need to be revised so Board Trustees are nominated and elected by the World Service Conference and not by the Board. The Twelve Concepts of World Service are general guidelines for Twelve Step work on the world service level. The GSR Committee needs to be included in the UA Concepts for World Service as one of UA’s two primary leadership bodies at the world service level. Currently, only the Board is listed as a primary leadership body at the world service level.)
- Establishment of voting and procedural guidelines for the World Service Conference.
- Creation of UA meeting group registration guidelines; these guidelines will determine which meetings can be included on the UA Calendar.
(In the summer of 2017, the UA Board began to discuss possible new criteria for registering UA meeting groups. On August 20, 2017, the GSR Committee passed a motion that recommended that the General Service Board continue to allow “special focus groups” to be registered in UA and listed on the UA Website, as long as these meetings are open to all UA members to attend. (Examples of special focus groups are Spiritual Marketing for Coaches and Consultants Meeting, Writers in Recovery Meeting, Abundance and Prosperity in the Arts Meeting, and 50 + Meeting).
The motion also recommended that the GSB wait to implement any changes in registration policy until the new policy guidelines are approved at the World Service Conference. The GSB then agreed that it wanted to wait on registration until new registration policy guidelines are approved at the World Service Conference.)
- UA Treasury reallocation to increase the percentage of donations that are allocated for scholarships for GSR attendance at the World Service Conference; currently, 10% of the total donations to UA are allocated for the World Service Conference Scholarship Fund.
- Establishment of guidelines on listing documents on the UA Website so that the documents indicate whenever possible if they are Conference-Approved, Board-Approved, Committee- Approved or Meeting Group-Approved and the approval dates.
- Ratification of Suggested Requirements for the GSR Position, which were passed by the GSR Committee at its December 17, 2017 meeting.
- Creation of phone meeting security policy regarding disruptive callers.
Next:
Motion regarding GSR Committee Meeting Time Change: Mark sent a recap of the poll. He said that there seemed to be a window of time people preferred between 1:30 and 3 pm.
HenaSusa said that she thought that 12:00 -1:30 pm EDT had a little more voting, but not sure that she had interpreted it correctly.
Debora said that she added up the votes for each time slot. These are the top three choices: 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm EDT received 9 votes total – 6 were green votes, which means great and 3 were yellow votes, which means they are OK.
1:30 pm – 3:00 pm EDT received 9 votes total – 4 were green and five were yellow. 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm EDT received 8 votes total – 7 were green and 1 was yellow.
4 Based on these results HenaSusha proposed the following motion:
That our GSR Committee meeting time be changed to 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm EDT. There was no second, so the motion did not have a vote.
NEW BUSINESS
Motion to Create Service Structure Development Subcommittee of the GSR Committee Motion presented by Jason and seconded by Shari Lynn.
Motion made to table this motion was made by Arden, seconded by George, passed 7-2-0.
This will be addressed in June.
This motion creates a Service Structure Development Subcommittee of the GSR Committee.
Its duties will be to research other successful 12 Step Fellowships’ Service Structures and use this knowledge to develop and propose new democratic service structure guidelines for UA and to write proposed revisions to the draft UA Concepts of Service and Bylaws.
The motions drafted by this Subcommittee will be brought to the full GSR Committee for discussion and vote. This Subcommittee will have a liaison to the GSB Service Structure Committee.
NEXT:
REPORTS:
Report of UA WSC Prep Committee for May 20, 2018 GSR Committee Meeting Debora, Vice-Chair of World Service Prep. Committee: “I have great news. The Board approved the Retreat Center agreement terms recommended by the World Service Conference Prep Committee, and they signed the agreement with the Mary & Joseph Retreat Center, which is located in the Los Angeles area and put down the deposit. The conference will be from Thursday afternoon to Sunday afternoon October 25 to October 28, 2018.
The World Service Conference survey will soon be posted on the UA Website in the World Service Conference Section. I will also be sending it to all GSRs this week, so you don’t have to spend any time looking for it. There is one very important aspect about the survey that I need to clarify: Our Committee has decided to have the survey only go out to groups who have elected GSRs. It’s important that your meeting elect a treasurer and set up a GSR fund. If you need help with setting up a PayPal fund or writing language for your meeting format, please contact one of the members of the meeting support subcommittee such as Neil or Robin or contact me. If you have any questions or would like to be a member of our committee, please email me or phone me.
Our email address is uawscservice@nullgmail.com and my phone number is (323) 371- 1039”
Report of Meeting Support Subcommittee of the GSR Committee for May 20, 2018
GSR Committee Meeting Shari Lynn, Acting Chair: “We are getting favorable support, and meetings are appreciating our support. We had our second meeting the first Wednesday of this month (May 2nd) at 6 pm Eastern Time, and I believe that the next meeting will be the first Wednesday of June. We helped one group get a treasury for their meeting and we have been primarily addressing the disruptive callers on our phone lines. I am blown away by Robin and Debora’s preparation of a list of meetings which have safe lines.” Shari Lynn asked Debora, Member of the
Meeting Support Subcommittee to give a summary of the problem and solutions regarding disruptive callers on UA phone meetings. Below is Debora’s summary: “Disruptive callers have been creating a lot of noise and other offensive disruptions in many of our phone meetings. They are also making invasive and offensive calls to UA members and are sometimes recording portions of our meetings. The disrupters are sometimes copying members’ phone number IDs.
The main solutions our Subcommittee has come up with so far are:
(1) Each meeting group gets its own new phone number that is supported with a dashboard through free conference call companies which have been tested out by our groups and are doing fine. These are Totally Free Conference Calls or Free Conference Call.com. Computer dashboards enable us to individually mute or drop a disruptive caller. Once meetings have established a new number with a dashboard, the meeting disruptions have been greatly reduced. There are some meeting groups which are not being impacted by disruptive callers, so they would not need to get a new phone number with a dashboard.
(2) Each meeting group is very careful to whom it gives the moderator code and confidential account information, and is careful in who it elects or appoints to be dashboard monitors.
(3) The Calendar Keeper expedites the change of meeting phone numbers, and they have started to do this already.
(4) We suggest that UA members create an email address specifically for UA communications in order to protect their privacy. We feel that the security risk is too great to use dashboard technology on the UA Main Line. Dashboard monitors require the user I.D. and password of the phone account in order to operate the computer dashboard. As of May 1, 2018, there were 83 meetings per week on the UA Main Line, which would require at least 21 dashboard monitors. If this password and I.D. was learned by a heckler, or inadvertently announced, the phone account would be compromised, and all 83 meetings would be without phone service.
If you would like help with dashboard training tips, please contact Neil, Robin from Maryland or me (Debora) for training. If you would like more information about the Meeting Support Subcommittee generally, then contact Shari Lynn.” Shari Lynn’s Additional Remarks: “I sent an email to the GSB asking them to let me know what is their role in supporting us in defending against the disruptive callers who are destructive on a large scale in UA. I did not hear back from the GSB.”
Mark B’s spoken remarks: “We are in communication with the GSB regarding the World Service Conference. They have been helping us with securing the Mary & Joseph Retreat Center, which is the location of our conference in October 2018. So during that process, conversations regarding how to deal with caller disruptors have been taking place. The GSB has been asked to join us in responding to this issue. The GSB expressed interest and asked for our help in solving this problem. None of this is formalized yet. This is an opportunity for us to come together with the GSB to deal with an issue threatening UA. Let’s hope that the months ahead will bring more concrete results. It’s fantastic that Shari Lynn formed this subcommittee and then soon after its formation the disruptive caller problem erupted, so the subcommittee was able to immediately address this problem.”
Reports continued: _GSB Committees:
_Service Structure Committee Liaison: none
_Literature Committee Liaison: none
_Finance Committee Liaison (Lela): none
_Public Information (PI) Committee Liaison: none
_Phone/Tech Committee Liaison: none
Closing with Serenity Prayer. Meeting adjourned on time.