MSCA - Mid Southern California Area 09 of Alcoholics Anonymous

Delegate's Bulletin Board

Pacific Region Trustee’s Report 17 February 2020

Personal Mission Statement: “I’m committed to being totally available and responsible to MSCA 09 members, to help provide a healthy infrastructure to communicate among individuals, Groups, Districts, Area, and the General Service Office, while using as few acronyms as possible!”

Kathi F’s Pacific Regional Trustee’s Report
January/February 2020 Board Weekend
Report dated February 5th, 2020

The “January” Board Weekend is definitely my favorite, as this is the weekend that we are joined by our Delegate Conference Committee Chairs. This year we had 2 from the Pacific Region: Teddy from Area 6 and Alan from Area 72. Each Conference Committee Chair is given a full voice in their corresponding Trustee Committee Meetings and this is a great asset to the Trustee Committee members. It helps us to come to decisions on which Agenda items to forward, it brings great insight from the fellowship, and many times the delegates suggest things that should be included in background.

The overwhelming feeling for this weekend was mutual respect and it was a definite “roll up your sleeves weekend” as we had much work to do. This weekend was the beginning of the reflection of our Conference Theme “2020, A Clear Vision for You”. Not only were we looking at potential agenda items and progress reports, but there were very in-depth conversations and information exchanges that needed to be had. The Finance Committee met for over 4 hours which is more than double the time allotted. Every delegate who attended this committee stayed the entire 4 hours.

For myself, I consciously tried to view our Trustee’s Committee meetings from the delegates eyes. What I observed and was confirmed by sharing from the delegates, was the Trustee Committees are working very hard with the fellowship in mind and working together very well for the good of A.A. which included some difficult conversations. Also, our delegates are fantastic and are so dedicated to the work at hand! I am blessed beyond measure to do this work with an amazing group of people and look forward to a productive, visionary conference.

AAWS report highlights

Accessibilities/Loners International Meeting

Stories are being collected to update the pamphlet “A.A. for the Older Alcoholic”
This desk is developing audio interviews with military in A.A. for use on the website, with outreach and possibly on YouTube

Corrections

Over this past quarter the Correction Desk has received more than 400 letters per month for correspondence or literature. This brings the total of letters answered in 2019 to approximately 6,000. 1790 inmates were linked to outside A.A. members through the Corrections Correspondence service in 2019. The AAGV/LV Carry the Message project helps get AAGV/LV subscriptions into the hands of these members. Please consider buying a gift certificate for these members.

International Convention

By the end of January, over 28,000 people had registered. This is tracking with past Convention numbers and we expect to reach our goal of approximately 48,000. Please register asap as the pre-registration price is good through April 15th. After that it will go up to $140. There are a lot of hotel rooms left and shuttles will be provided.

Public Information

The P.I. Desk will be sending out a Press Release to Media on the new “Young and Sober in A.A.: From Drinking to Recovery” video. This video will be posted on aa.org and the AAWS YouTube Channel. In addition, information will be included about the Meeting Guide App in this Press Release.

Publications

AAWS had budgeted for 100,000 copies of Our Great Responsibility and sales have been closer to 35,000.
The Publications Department is working diligently to create the new pieces asked for at previous General Service Conferences.

AA Grapevine/La Vina report highlights

The new Website is complete. It is much more compatible on your mobile devices. Check it out at aagrapevine.org
I had reported that we would be going back to AA Grapevine and AA La Viña both with the words “The International Journal of Alcoholics Anonymous” on our magazine covers. We have run into a snag. We have been told that if the magazine says that in the title, then so must the envelope that it is mailed in, which could create anonymity issues. We are continuing to explore our options.
AA Grapevine YouTube- The newest videos are explainer videos for GV and LV Reps and audio stories from Women in Sobriety. Soon will be a video on “Carry the Message” project.
Language of the Heart is now available in Spanish Audio and we have approved moving forward with French Audio as well
We are bundling the Best of Grapevine 1, 2 and 3 and you will see these available soon.
2020 Initiative is Carry the Message Project. This is a way to send a monthly magazine to someone who may not have access to meetings. Please think about purchasing a subscription Gift Certificate for an inmate, loner, or elderly for example. Through your group, committee or individually you can do a monthly 12 step call through a magazine subscription. Go online to learn more about this opportunity to Carry the Message to the still suffering alcoholic.
La Viña Archives is now up and running. Is there a separate La Vina Archives in California?

Trustees’ committees
Here are some highlights from some of the committee reports. Within a few weeks you will receive the full reports of AAWS, AAGV and the Trustees Committees. I will not be reporting on all the Agenda Items as these will be available with background in the next few days.

Conference

There will be a workshop topic at the 70th General Service Conference on Plain Language, Modern Language, Workbook all in regard to the Big Book. I look forward to hearing the areas thoughts through the delegates

Communications

There are currently 225,000 users on the Meeting Guide App
The new ERP system- Net Suites- This has been a slow-moving project. It has had many challenges and has gone over budget. However, GSO is beginning to see some great benefits from the new system and over time this will help with time management and processes. It will allow the fellowship the ability to receive reports and information quickly and in different formats. This will also allow the office to communicate better and to retrieve each other’s documents instead of many creating basically the same information in different formats. This system will help our office to be more efficient.

Cooperation with the Professional Community/Treatment/ Accessibilities/Remote Communities

A report will be brought to the Conference Committee on the activities on the LinkedIn page showing what kind of results we are getting

Corrections

Discussion is continuing on language in our corrections material and a review of all material for corrections has begun.

Finance

Contributions for 2019 hit a new record of 8.8 million. Thank you to all the Groups for continuing to support Your services!
Gross Sales were $213,000 greater than 2018 but below budget mostly due to lower than expected sales on “Our Great Responsibility”
Online contributions continue to rise year over year and exceeded 1 million in 2019. These contributions take much less time to process and help or Finance Department to be more efficient.
Total revenue was almost 4% greater than 2018. Operating expenses were almost 8% greater than 2018. This was due to ERP costs being $585,000 over budget, Contract reviews being $278,000 over budget and travel more than $74,000 over budget. This amounted to a net loss of $313,000
AAGV gross profit for 2019 was approximately 1.9 million and expenses were a little over 1.9 million with a net loss of $44,000 vs. a net loss of $149,000 in 2018
AALV Service Total Cost was $373,000 for 2019 with a revenue of $89,000. Magazine sales were up over 520 subscriptions over 2018. After the revenue is accounted for the total cost of the La Vina service came to $289,000.

In 2019, it was recognized that the staff that work on GV and LV has not been allocated properly and was almost totally charged to the GV for all these years. Approximately $125,000 in salaries has now been allocated to the LV financials and removed from the GV financials. We felt it is important for the numbers to be reported accurately to the fellowship to reflect the total expenses for GV and the cost of the service of LV.

International

A few of the planned international trips for 2020 are Portugal’s Annual Service Meeting, Bolivia’s 24th National Convention and Australia’s 55th International Convention
The Class A Trustees Nancy McCarthy and Christine Carpenter continue to make connections with nonalcoholic trustees from other structures around the world to share experience and ideas.

International Conventions/Regional Forums

Local entities such as Intergroups/Central Offices will be able to sell A.A. Literature at Forums where venues allow. They will be chosen by the host committee for each Forum. More information to come.
A final version of the Regional Forum video will be shown at the 2020 General Service Conference. This video will let members get a taste of what happens at Regional Forums and help to create interest for first time attendees.
At the International Convention the 40 millionth copy of the Big Book will be presented to NIAAA-the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Literature

Many progress reports will come to the conference on all the current projects that are underway. There are many!
A new Publications Policy was forwarded to the Conference Literature Committee
Many 5th Editions to the Big Book agenda items were forwarded to the Conference Committee
A request for a 4th Edition to the Spanish Big Book was forwarded to the Conference Committee

Nominating

The results from the Board Survey have been compiled and assigned to different committees to do deeper dives on Board Structure and Effectiveness. One main objective is better utilization of our Class A Trustees
A recently added provision not allowing Trustees to stand for Board Chair until after there rotation was recommended to be removed and passed at the GSB. The thinking is this will allow for a larger pool of candidates.

Public Information

There is a sub-committee reviewing our comprehensive media plan and a progress report will be forwarded to the conference.

General Sharing Session

David N., General Service Trustee, Newton P., US Trustee at Large and Carolyn W., Non-Trustee Director presented on “The Group Conscience”. These were excellent presentations and the sharing that took place after the presentations was very valuable as well. I have attached the presentations to my report

Sharing from one of the Delegate Chairs “The Communication has tremendously improved and I appreciate seeing how the Board interacts, functions and comes to a group conscience. I feel very confident in the Board after this weekend experience”
Other sharing after the presentations included, “Doesn’t matter if you are in minority or majority, you are part of the group conscience”
“The Unity Statement Guides our Group Conscience”

I have also attached notes from Jeff W., GSO Staff on The Day of Sharing, which is a time when several different 12 step groups get together to share ideas, successes and challenges

Thank you for allowing me to be of service! I am filled with gratitude to do this work and I will never be able to repay A.A. although I will continue to try.
Kathi F.
Pacific Regional Trustee

In Love and Service, Ed. L,
MSCA 09, Panel 70 Delegate
msca09delegate70@yahoo.com
(760) 964-0012