Wsbc notes

View from conference hotel

4/20/26 

9:30 am Attending board meeting

Reviewing consent agenda

On agenda: a, b, g

Pulled c, d, e, f — first and last for amendment, others withdrawn entirely

Second half of meeting closed

Videos of the atrium

Since there was nothing else scheduled, I took a field trip to Los Alamos.  I have blog about that under my real name.

Tuesday, 4/21/26

I'm really enjoying running into people who I previously only met online.  A lot of the people I knew from the Virtual Region are here.  

I registered this morning & got my information packet.  I'm having trouble motivating myself to read stuff.

I went grocery shopping this morning and then found that all the groceries I already had in the fridge in the room were frozen solid -- resulting in experiments in microwaving stuff I normally would not microwave.

There are 3 OA meetings per day at this event.

There's an orientation tonight.

This afternoon I attended part of the trustees meeting.  I got distracted by hunting for my hat, which I need in the sun around here, which I thought was lost, tho it later turned up in my room under one of my shopping bags.

I learned that the consent agenda that they were discussing were actually not in our delegates binder, because the trustees agenda is different from the business conference agenda.  I've been struggling to understand an agenda that apparently wasn't even available to be examined.

There were some reports.  

The treasurer was the one who I most understood, so I have more extensive notes. These were from this month.

• contributions are ahead of budget
• sales of literature are behind budget
• pamphlets & digital literature are ahead of budget
• $147k monthly income -- head of last year and on budget
• expenses better than forecast
• net income $12k
• but the stock market is down -- creating an overall net deficit of $92k
• can't depend on the portfolio to keep us above water, but the stock market is up again -- a budget is not dependent on investments
• there's a YTD surplus of $20k
• the budget does involve going into reserves.  If we don't get an additional $178k, we're going into reserves (which are $2 million)
• I don't understand this part, but apparently some members save money by placing multiple pamphlet orders rather than one large order

The managing director made 3 points.  I missed the first one, but the second one was protecting our intellectual assets; and the third one was the annual appear.

Then the region trustee spoke and I had difficulty understanding her, but part of it was trying to increase attractive events and making service more 

Wednesday, April 22

The day started with a workshop called the power of we. We did some playful exercises. I was a bit late, so I missed some of them.

The first exercise invited involved, writing things on pieces of a puzzle that you could then put together. I don’t know what they started with, but the second thing they put on were slogans – slogan for each puzzle piece.

The second exercise involved first writing a service that someone did for you that helped you connect with OA. The second involved with writing an affirmation that helps you in OA. 

Then we met with our committee for about two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. We formed subcommittees. I was on the unity with diversity committee. We had three sub committees that we formed had to do with 

1) Communications, with diverse populations; 

2) accommodations for people with disabilities,

3) Working towards having future world service business conferences in other countries.

Then we had subcommittee meetings. I signed up for both two and three, but was only able to go to one, so I chose accommodations for people with disabilities. I volunteered to be secretary of that subcommittee. I was the one who originally suggested that subcommittee last year. The subcommittee is going to be working on a workshop relating to accommodating people with disabilities in OA.

For dinner, they have shuttles going into old town, Albuquerque, where there are restaurants and interesting old buildings. Unfortunately, most of the shops there tend to close around five. The shuttle buses only start at 4:30.

In the evening, we had a workshop relating to the financial problems that world service is having. They are running a deficit budget. Their ideal budget would’ve had a $400,000 deficit. They did manage to whittle that down to 178,000 deficit. They have $2 million in reserves, but they don’t like running a deficit budget. They encouraged us to make monthly contributions to world service.

My intergroup used to make additional direct donations to World Service. Now we just send in what meetings direct. I think we should resume additional direct donations. 

They own their own building with no mortgage. They have 14 employees.

They’re having 3 meetings a day here – and I’m not getting to them, except for part of one

-————

4/23/26

 NB: Things to bring (for future conventions)

• Paper. You have to communicate with others by note and they only give you one sheet of paper
• Binoculars. I can’t see the facial expressions of people speaking and sitting in front
• Auxiliary battery: you’re not supposed to plug in in the room

Made motion to eliminate “or chewing gum” from standing rules 

Rotation of seating. Don’t leave stuff on table at lunch. 

Should bring binoculars to see across the room. Should bring paper, because they only give you one piece and all communication is by notes. 

Roll call, by state or province or county

Announcements to Rebbe, Secretary, via page 

Need to bring auxiliary battery for charging as plugging in is not allowed

Amendment to strike “or chewing gum” fails

Standing rules approved

Amendments

Strike, insert , strike and insert 

To put words back in — Strike from amendment. Might strike Strike to put stuff back in

Germane: should not change topic 

Secondary amendment must amend the amendment

Reference committee 

Two from each region

Working out issues with motions. Combining items of same subject matter

Consent agenda

H removed from consent agenda

A, C, F

Approved without discussion 

——-

Missed chair’s report

————

Treasurers report

Working on breaking out reserves as to what they are for

——————

Managing director

——————

Region reports

9 is pulled for questions

Committee reports

Convention

Willing to consider convention outside the USA

Need better communication—previously just sent messages to regions and asked them to pass on. Not working.  Need more direct communication

Delegate support

Mexico not here

Most applications for assistance were international

International publications

Royalties down, don’t know why

Materials

Conference v board approval of literature

Conference approved got widespread distribution and are approved by this conference

Board approved literature examples:

Specific purposes

Lifeline articles 

E.g. meeting format

Website review

Problem accessing bookstore from phone and tablet

oa.org has faces on it — marketing decision — no members faces — believe it will attract newcomers

Parliamentary inquiry

Conference approved literature

Possible duplication of effort wrt accommodating disabilities

Quarterly board meetings are supposed to eliminate duplication of efforts

Proposed literature motion A-a

Literature re mental health adopted

Literature motion A-b

Unity with diversity checklist

Will be a free download

Previous book should be on it

Trustee candidate speeches

Apparently there are 6 candidates for 7 slots

There were five Americans and one not

There was only one man

*****

Proposal g

Amended to be opt in rather than opt out to conform to GDPR (European law)

List of attendees before

Carries 

Motion d

 to reference

Motion E

Change overeating to eating

Quite a bit of dissent in pros and cons. Maybe this is against our brand and history

Carries 

Proposal H

Pro: not just at the beginning

Con: the purpose of this was to prevent closing with a Christian Prayer ( The Lord’s Prayer) which is commonly done in other fellowships

Con: shouldn’t prescribe meeting content

This is for the policy manual and suggested meeting formats

Question: What about the serenity statement (secular)?

That would be an additional amendment (see proposal I)

Question: would this prevent a non-approved prayer?

No it’s a suggestion

Question: would this impact the suggested meeting format? 

Yes

Standing count 93-60 adopted

They conduct people to count off and sit after being counted

Motion K

Not considered by reference committee

Virtual retreat

Motion to refer to convention planning committee to be bright back next year. This committee is to be established, if I understand correctly. 

Our staff doesn’t have the bandwidth to do this currently. It’s premature to make this decision. 

If the committee can report back on it, then we can go forward from there. 

Pro: we all trust our service complicated figured out before the board 

Con: I feel that referral to Committee is a way of telling something and I really don’t think doing a virtual retreat is all hard 

Last convention lost $50k. If we had cancelled we would have lost $90k

What is the difference between convention and retreat? Typically retreats in the past have been smaller service bodies, while conventions have been larger. But this uses the language retreat, in original motion

Motion to refer is adopted

We have 18 minutes and still need to do announcements. Stop for now 

Reference subcommittee at 7:30, not at 5:15 

Motions B, M, D

Motion and amendment makers should be there

Avoid scents 

Closing 7 min early

Evening program about the PIPO service manual