OIAA Assembly 17 June 2023 – Transcript

[Last names, phone numbers and personal emails have been removed from the transcript per Tradition 11]

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is Susan, and I am an alcoholic.
I am your acting OIAA Chair. I’m very grateful that I have a new computer so you can see me and hear me today. And I’d like to start the assembly by welcoming you all here and thanking all the support behind the scenes and asking us to join in the Serenity Prayer in the we form. God grant us the serenity to accept things we cannot change, the courage to change the things that we can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Okay, Susan, give us a minute. We’re gonna mute.
Everybody. If you unmute yourself, Susan, to continue.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
It’s a touchy mouse. I’m sorry.
What I have is that I turn it over to the Secretary, and we talk about eligibility to vote, or am I doing the Chairs report?

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
I think we are turning to Jeff for a second. I gotta pull my agenda now too.

[Tamara S (Security/IGR/TechStepper]
Yeah. My agenda says you’re introducing this secretary, Susan.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay. Thank you. So I’d like to turn this over to the Secretary of OIAA. Jeff B.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
You’re muted and one second Jeff, the Asl interpreters.
Are you spotlighting yourselves when when it’s time?
We’d like one of the Asl interpreters to specify themselves.

[ASL Interpreter – Suzanne]
Oh, hear that! Wait! You want us to spotlight ourselves as well.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Yes, please. Thank you.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Alright! Let’s try this again. Good afternoon. Good evening, everyone.
My name is Jeff, and I am an alcoholic. It is my honor and privilege to serve the online intergroup of OIAA as your Secretary.

Let me talk first about who votes. So on matters that come up before this assembly,
according to our bylaws, there are 2 groups of voting individuals. The officers of the organization which makes up the board and the intergroup reps.

Those are the people who get to vote. Everybody will see the voting form as it comes up. If you do not have the right to vote, please don’t vote.

The other thing that I wanted to mention before we get into the looking at the minutes from our last assembly is is quorum. So for us to be able to do business today, to take votes, we have to have a quorum, that quorum in OIAA is established by taking what has been an annual survey of the IGRs in the groups. We send out a form, of all those people who respond, 25% form a quorum. So we did that last June. We’ll probably have to do another survey shortly. When we did that last June there were a 182 people who responded to our survey. 25% of that is 45.5. We round up to 46. So 46 is our quorum. That’s why we’ve asked you who are available and part of that quorum to fill out the forms for us, so we could ascertain if we did have quorum.

So Mark tells me that we have over 46, 57 in his last count. So we are good to go to do business here today. Should our vote count, ever drop below 46, that vote would be considered invalid, because we would be under quorum. Okay, so stick around towards the end. We’ve got a lot of business to do today.

So the first thing that we’ll we’ll take a look at and vote on are the minutes from the March 18th Assembly.

I distributed these to everybody several weeks back, and they have been up on the the website for everyone to take a look at.

Hold on!
Oh, that’s because I pulled up the Pdf format. Okay.
So I’ll briefly scroll through the minutes.
If anybody has any correction that they would like to make.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Yeah, Jeff, we’re not visiting the minutes. Jeff.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Okay. You can’t see them.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
We see the Assembly agenda.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Sorry.

[Hugh H., Three Legacies Group]
I have them ready. Jeff.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
No, no! I got him. This screen sharing from I screen shared the wrong thing to begin with. And you know what happens with Zoom, you can’t switch to another document.

So here are the minutes. Alright us slowly scroll through them.
If anybody has any changes or corrections that they would like to make please raise your hand.

Okay. Alright! Are there any corrections or comments on the minutes? If not, I’ll need a voting member to make a motion to accept.

[Mike T (Maryland)]
Motion to accept Mike T. Dawn patrol.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Okay, and I’ll need a second for that motion.

[Tamara S (Security/IGR/TechStepper]
Tamara S Serenity Hour.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Okay, thank you. Tamra, okay. So we’re gonna put up a form to vote on the minutes.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Yes, we are.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Mark, if you guys would do your thing.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Yes, I think we have that in chat ready to go. Is that correct?

[OIAA TECH Melinda F]
Yes, it’s in the chat.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
There we go!

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
There’s not a link.

[Hugh H., Three Legacies Group]
It links to the minutes.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
I’ll put a link in right now for everyone.
Thank you, Kerri.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
We have 42 votes in.

52 votes.

With 55 votes. In what point do you want to call the vote? Jeff?

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
We can call the vote. Are they all yes, or were there any nos?

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
I’ll quickly share the results of the poll with everybody as unanimous. 55 votes approve the minutes.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Thank you.
Okay, thank you very much. Minutes stand as approved. Turn it back over to you, Susan.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Jeff. My name is Susan, and I’m an alcoholic.

This is my chair’s report. I’m gonna read it to you. Then when we conclude I’m going to give you about 30 min to ask questions, make comments. I want you to understand that some questions we may not be able to answer because of confidentiality and privacy. This is the acting Chairs report 13, June 2023.

On 8th of May, the Chair contacted me about grievances she had received against her.  She recused herself from the May board meeting and asked me to investigate per the Decorum section of the existing guidelines.  The Board agreed to form a Board Ad Hoc Committee for the exploration of those grievances.  The duration of the committee was a month. We met 18 times and investigated thoroughly.  We concluded that the chair should resign. When written resignation following the executive session of the board on 5 June 2023 at the conclusion of the process was not received, on 9 June 2023, we unanimously voted to remove her.

Concurrently with the Ad Hoc Grievance process, as Ad Hoc Guidelines Chair, I tasked a discrete subcommittee to develop a Grievance Process, called the Open Door Policy, for similar events in the future.  It was delivered to the Board by 1 June 2023 and, once it goes through the Guidelines Committee for approval it will be available for approval to the assembly, as will all the guidelines updated and developed by that committee since September 2022.

We notified Jane on the 10th of June 2023 of our decision to remove her, and the members of OIAA on 11th June 2023 with the following notification confirmed and signed by the full OIAA board:

It is with the deepest regret that the OIAA Board has found it necessary to unanimously request the resignation of the OIAA Chair, Jane G. We do not take this action lightly. After several grievances were made concerning the OIAA Chair, a Board grievance process was developed, and an ad hoc Grievance committee of the Board was formed.  This ad hoc Board committee interviewed those lodging the grievances and provided the Chair the ability to tell her side of the story on several occasions which she declined.

The Board ad hoc Grievance committee found several disturbing patterns of behavior that were not in line with our Steps, Traditions and Concepts. Specifically, through her behaviors and conduct, the OIAA Chair has:

1. Consistently participated in the creation of conflict and disunity;
2. Overstepped and/or misused a position of authority, fostering a spirit of governance rather than trusted leadership;
3. Unduly influenced and/or impacted the autonomy of OIAA committees

It was for these reasons that on June 5th in Executive session, the Board requested the resignation of the OIAA Chair, Jane G. Jane verbally agreed to resign and was asked to provide an email to the Secretary to officially resign. Several additional requests for her to provide a resignation email went unanswered. The Board met again in Executive session on June 9th and voted unanimously to remove Jane G. as the OIAA Chair in accordance with Section 4.04 of the approved Bylaws which states that an Officer may be removed for cause by a 2/3 vote of the Board.

We know that Jane has a deep, abiding love and passion for AA and OIAA and that there was no malicious intent on her part. She has made numerous contributions to the organization and helped OIAA to transition into a real-time organization. Her contributions will be gratefully remembered.

On 9 June 2023, a motion was made seconded and passed to forward me to the position of Acting Chair until elections in December.  We are seeking service resumes for a Vice-Chair and will appoint a Vice-Chair at our July board meeting. This person will also also for go. To an election in December.

You can send your resumes to chair@aa-intergroup.org

Respectfully submitted Susan R.
Acting chair OIAA

This was a very difficult process for me and all of us, and I know you have feelings. Realize that we can’t talk so much about much more about the process, or actually the people involved. But if you would like to comment, I will call on you. Ww’ll do this for 30 min.

You have 2 min, if that’s not enough time, then after we conduct some business, we’ll stay as long as you need. So we’ll start with Jon.

Thank you.

[Jon H]
Thank you. I’m John. I’m an alcoholic.

I’m the Chair of the PIC Committee I would like to note that the Board did not contact any committee chairs or outsideers to involve its decision.

I believe the whistleblower protections, which are the basis of the Board, saying that there was confidential issues here has been misapplied. Whistleblowers are protected when there is a power relationship between people as between an employer and an employee, since the only requirement for membership is a desire to stop drinking there is no sanction that a board, member, or committee chair can apply to anyone who has a complaint of any nature. Therefore anyone accused has the right to face their accuser, and directly hear any accusations. The right to face one’s accuser is so fundamental that it is recognized in the US Bill of Rights and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by every Member State in the 1947, 1948 timeframe. Accordingly the whistleblower rules do not apply to deal with conflicts within the membership of OIAA as presently organized.

Secondly, there is no personal anonymity between members of OIAA. As Dr. Bob said, the AA who hides his identity from his AA members, violates the tradition just as much as the one who permits his name to appear in the press in connection with matters pertaining to AA. Accordingly, I will seek to find an amendment to the bylaws of OIAA that state all Board members and committee meetings will be announced in advance in any OIAA members will be free to observe any proceedings. There is no private business of the board or of the committees.

Thank you for this opportunity.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Jon.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Susan, before before you call on the next person.
I thought that we were gonna conduct business. And then you were gonna give people 30 min to respond.
Are we doing that 30 min now?

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
We’re following the agenda that we sent Jeff.
Yeah, we’re doing that now for 30 min, sir. Thanks.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Okay, very good. I don’t see. I didn’t see that in the agenda.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Susan.

[susan sch. ESH IGR]
Hello! I’m Susan IGR for the ESH email group.

Of course we’re all concerned about unity and following Aa traditions. And it seems like the best use of our time given this huge group in the next, however long it takes this meeting in, I’m sure months to come is to to think of the balance between the trusted servants job of making sure things run smoothly and transparency, and involving the members for major decisions.

So I appreciate what John pointed out that we aren’t ruled by nonprofit corporation rules or by corporate rules, but we do have a strong set of traditions, so that anonymity might, obviously it’d be different in the way we carry it out. And as he pointed out, Bill talks about anonymity, is not at the service level where we need to know each other, and we need to be transparent.

So I would like to see in the next month or so for the AA community, talking about the best practices.
What can be trusted servants? What can we trust our servants to do? That doesn’t have to include the entire membership which would become cumbersome for every single decision. And what needs to be more true, transparent needs to be shared, or, as John said, at least members invited to participate.
Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Susan. Matthew.

[Matthew H. Alt Group Rep, BOE meeting]
Hello, everyone. Matt. Alcoholic. I’m the alternate group member for the Beginning of End meeting which Clifford out of Belfast is. You may be familiar with him, that being said, I want to echo some of the comments that I’ve already heard from John and others, and just more widely say that you know this behavior of, you know, selectively revealing information, faxed details, and kind of controlling the narrative of a decision of this calibre is deeply concerning for me and members of our group.

I also want to speak to the concepts and the warranties and the traditions of AA that have incredible tolerance and love built into them. And I’m you, know, currently, there’s a this pervading behavior of concealing information from the group while decision makers are privy to it and that needs to stop. You know, whatever the details are around the exiting of this particular officer, they should be shared as much with a Group member as they would be with a Board member, and this constant behavior of only letting out so much information is deeply damaging to the morale of the Group. It’s certainly has questioned my group’s involvement with this structure.

Also that fact that you know that our own General Service Office in the US Recently had the chairman exited from their position. Not much information was given there, and there’s a big conflict between the Board, and you know the AA fellowship as a whole. We have to stop separating ourselves. We are one, and we should be transparent through and through, and allow each of us to see what’s going on around here.

Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Mathew. Linda.

[Linda KG, On Awakening]
Hi! I’m Linda! Grateful recovering alcoholic. I am the IGR, for On Awakening Women’s Group meets at 8 am Eastern time, 7 days a week.

I’m again echoing what a bunch of people have already said. When I received the email, and it said it was for transparency, it gave me a little chuckle, because transparency would imply that this is giving you a heads up of the process that’s about to happen for the next XYZ. And this was an after the fact email of events that had already happened.

So it wasn’t giving a heads up. That email was saying, this has already happened, and we’re letting you all know. But as it really sort of took away trust I would have in the people that are here to serve us, because they were governing us. And as someone said in an email response to the at large, that’s what it was. All the things that were being accused of of the former chair. It felt like the Board was doing that themselves. They made decisions without notifying it’s Assembly, and you know, did what they felt was in the best interests, and I understand that that’s part of the job of the board. But you know nobody could speak up in her behalf. You know we were unaware that there were grievances, and you know that the questions of who’s gonna run in her place. Who made the grievance, complaints. You know, she didn’t get to face her accuser. And I wonder whether the tradition, certain traditions and concepts were really followed here. You know we can get away from that sometimes in AA and it doesn’t seem like the process is properly followed here.

Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Linda. Gayle.

[Gayle, Peacemakers – Individual member]
Hello! I’m Gayle, and I’m an alcoholic. A member of the Peacemakers group. I’m not an IGR, I’m an individual member of OIAA. I have been for 3 and a half years, and I’m very concerned about what happened. I personally have worked with the former Chair for long hours on AA related material. I found her to be extremely knowledgeable at the steps, the traditions, and the concepts, and all of her work was dedicated to carrying the message, and I have to believe that there was some dis-unifying or disruptive or not traditionally related activity that may be precipitated the behavior. I don’t know. If there is anyone that’s worried about their name coming out as being an accuser or bringing charges against her then there’s something wrong. That’s not right. This program is a program of rigorous honesty, and the IGRs and the members are the ones who voted her in, and they should be included in the process, and also weigh in on what’s actually happening with inside OIAA, the organization that they have elected to support and receive services from. So I’m very concerned about the process I’m also concerned about, I’ll pass on that. But thank you for letting me share, and I hope I hope that there’s some corrective measures taken because this does the same punitive and publicly controversial and damaging to the online community as a whole. We are wanting to be included in the service structure of AA as a whole. And this type of public controversy is not good for the promoting of that goal and objective which I know for sure Jane was extremely devoted to, and was one of the biggest supporters of online groups gaining parity and acceptance within a as a whole. So I’m very sad about this whole process.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair] 14:34:39
Thank you Gayle. Thank you.
I think it’s Dave is that Dave?

[Dave W]
Yeah. My name is Dave, and I’m an alcoholic, and I wanna thank you for the opportunity to say the 3rd step Prayer over and over again in the last 24 hours. The decision for me to speak has been very, very challenging. I was personally present at a number of the milestones of this process, and my first person narrative. I’m not gonna share my first person narrative because I don’t think it has a practical reason.

I don’t think that there’s an action to be taken at this time to recall if you will, but I do want to say is, there is still a number of decisions that have been made over the last 30 – 60 days that to what I have been taught about the 36 principles are still not in alignment, and what concerns me the most is that not the anonymity or privacy of the process, but rather than who’s driving the bus? A number of the things that have gone on in the last 60 days have been done by a smaller number of people from the committee, or the that is affected, and that’s the thing that for me needs to change. Folks meeting in smaller groups making decisions, a group. Conscience is not a group conscience unless it’s informed, and for group conscience to occur without that information is contrary to what I know about the 36 principles.

Thank you for letting me the share.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you, Dave. Stormy.

[Stormy H{CPC CHAIR}]
Hi! Yes, I hope you can hear me. My screen is all jumbled, so I keep coming in and out to try to get my zoom to work right. But I’ll start the video. I don’t know. My screen is completely frozen right now. So hopefully you can see me. And hopefully you can hear me.

I’m very new to this whole process, and this whole OIAA thing as a whole. I am the new CPC Chair because of current circumstances that have happened to lead me there. But what I want to speak about in regards to this whole situation is that you know they say a country that’s divided surely won’t stay and I think we’re seeing that in in this situation. I do know that we all know that Jane been removed, but I bet only half of us are maybe less can actually answer why she was removed. I don’t understand why we don’t know what those specific several occasions were that were mentioned, and I also, to my understanding, this did seem to be like after the fact, information.

Nobody got notice ahead of time saying that- hey something occurred, we need to have an emergency group conscience here because this is what’s going on. And we need to remove this person. It wasn’t until after the fact. After that person was already removed, that it was even brought to anybody’s attention as far as what my emails have reflected to me. And I only had the pleasure of dealing with Jane, in a handful of occasions because of my newness. But she was nothing but kind, sincere, encouraging, and very devoted. So I really was blown away by the fact that I got an email saying that Jane G. was removed, and made to be resign from service. Like some of the other shares before me, I do feel a little concerned, actually very concerned for the way it was went about.

The fact that we obviously need some other things in place to prevent this from happening again to somebody, and I pray that her sobriety is not at risk because of this whole situation. When it may be might have been able to like, be dealt with under more love and tolerance ways. You know love and tolerance is our code, and it’s in in this action that had been brought against her in the way that it was brought about. It really seems to me that love and tolerance were sort of thrown out the window. I mean no offense, but seriously. And I just I’m sort of scared. I hope to God that doesn’t happen to me. I don’t know what she did. I’d really like to know what she did, because I wanna not do those things myself.

But you know it’s a very, very overwhelming just coming into the position that I just came into. And then having this laid out on me, I also know cause right around the same time this was all going on she was supposed to be speaking somewhere on behalf of, I guess, like sort of the birthday event that was going on. And you know, just really heavy, because she obviously was a heavy hitter on AA and OIAA. And you know I just I’ve never seen this happen before ever, and I’ve been in and out of the program since 2016. And this is the first I’ve ever seen anything like this occur so it’s definitely a new experience for me that I hope I don’t have to experience anytime after this, for not only my place, but for others.

Thank you for letting me share.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair] 14:40:40
Thank you, Stormy. Tom.

[Thom R. 10 Feb 1992 – AA HISTORY LOVERS/ZOOM SECURITY GUIDE]
I’m really grateful. Hello! My name’s Tom I am alcoholic, but I don’t think that matters right now, cause this is an organizational thing. I am still in shock over what I’m learning. What little I’m learning, and the very fact that I am digging I’m a researcher. I’m a historian. I’m an archivist, and I can’t get to the bottom of what the heck is going on here.

All I know is that there seem to be parallels to what happened at the GSB January 29th, that are scaring the living bejesus out of me. I don’t understand how a decision was made by a committee or a Board when it is up to the body per tradition 2, to to make decisions. I don’t understand how a letter came out that has literally no information that’s specific as to what even happened. I don’t understand why anyone would even claim confidentiality when that’s not what we’re about. I don’t understand what is happening here, and it’s freaking me out. I know, as an original member of lamplighters. I watched OIAA be born. I’ve always tried to help OIAA, and the shadows cuz that’s kind of person I am. I have tried to help you guys with Zoom Security. I did an event for you guys. I have always been trying to be of service, but every time I try to help I get cut out of the loop, and I’m never informed. There’s always stuff going on behind the scenes, and I don’t know why you guys operate this way and why you feel you need to keep secrets. I’m not an IGR. But if I was, I’d be even more furious right now.

There’s a real problem here. We need to have transparency. As far as I’m concerned, the way you guys just did this is out of order. Jane is still the rightful Chair, unless you remove her through the proper channels. Not this garbage.

Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Tom. Laurie.

[Laurie C, IGR]
Hi! I’m Laurie! I’m an alcoholic.

So I too am a huge Jane supporter. I have been working with Jane for a while now, and she just has so much vision and integrity. She she’s always been helpful. Maybe some people think too helpful. I don’t know.

Whenever I work with Jane she was so good about giving us framework, you know, and keeping the ball rolling so that progress could actually be made instead of being stuck in the mud. Now, having said that, I believe in OIAA. I believe OIAA is going through some very tumultuous times, and I’m gonna practice love and tolerance when it comes to OIAA, I’m going to remain active in OIAA, and hopefully, we can make it stronger and do away with some of these issues and personality conflicts that seem to be rampant.

Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Laurie. Lonnie.

[Lonnie] 14:44:34
Hey, guys, Lonnie, real alcoholic. I’m a member of the Unity Committee. I’m not an IGR, and I wanna thank you for letting me share. You know I thoroughly agree that the 2 biggest things I’ve heard so far that I agree with is number 1, transparency for members of OIAA to know, be informed, and understand decisions that are being made. And I also agree with the suggestion that was made that not every member needs to make every decision. So how we determine that would be up to you guys. You know I don’t, I don’t tell my supply guy where to go, buy supplies for our coffee. Okay. I mean, it’s just oh, we don’t operate that way. We have trusted servants, but I do agree that there was a definite lack of transparency going on, and as far as unity man, I think we all need to remember that my grand sponsor, Clarence Snyder, I never got to meet the man, but whenever he broke away from Oxford and started the first AA meeting, his group had such unity that when they split they split into 3 different groups, not just 2. They split into 3. Okay, so so controversy has surrounded Alcoholics Anonymous, since it’s very inception, and we get through these things, we learn these things. We have love and tolerance, and hopefully, some amends. And some restitutions will be made if needed. But yes, I would like to see more transparency, and, if possible, define what decisions will be brought up for votes for all the members, or some kind of decision making process where everybody’s informed.

Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Lonnie.
Marks told me there’s 5 min left in this 30 mins, and so we have time for 2 more now. But everybody will get a chance to say something. We just have to do a little business first, Beth.

[Beth D IGR Into Action Group]
Thank you. My name is Beth. I’m in the IGR for the Into Action Group, and an alcoholic.

I, too, am disturbed about the situation that has come about, and one of the things that I believe is that in Alcoholics Anonymous, because we follow the traditions and the concepts, and because we are an attempt in every area not to be punitive, that I think the Board, while I know that they met many times to discuss this may have acted a little bit hastily. And one of the things that processes that we have in Alcoholics Anonymous that work so beautifully, is the the process of rotation, so that nobody remains in any position for more than at the most in Alcoholics Anonymous, and that’s a class A Trustee the non-alcoholics can sometimes serve in 8 or 10 years, but alcoholics don’t serve more than 4 years at a time. Maximum. That’s a trustee. So I think that a mistake was made.

It’s also my understanding that the chair Jane G. was, never submitted a formal letter of resignation, and I understand she was asked to submit it, and she may have verbally agreed to resign, but it’s my understanding. If she never submitted a formal letter of resignation, and I’d like to know how that impacts this entire process.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Thank you. Amelia.

[Amelia IGR Journey of the Heart]
Hi! I’m Amelia! I’m an alcoholic.

I’m the IGR of Journey of the Heart. I would like to thank the Board for their incredible process that they went through. And I went through the bylaws looking for what my right, as my voting rights and responsibilities were as an IGR and I don’t have the right to review considerations related to resignations and removals.

In article 3 of the Board of Trustees in the Bylaws. It says, resignation or removal. A trustee will be subject to the provisions regarding the resignation and removal of officers in article 4 of these bylaws, and then in article 4 in the officer section under resignation, and removal of an officer, and vacancies. It says, an officer, may be suspended or removed from office with cause by a two-thirds vote of the board, and I understand that this was unanimous. I’ve worked on several committees within this organization the last couple of years, and I have to say that the thing that really caught my attention was that this was unanimous, and I trust this Board. I worked with this board, and I wanna thank the Board for their work on this. Now, if we as IGR’s, want to change the bylaws, that’s where we have to focus.

But right now, according to the way a membership nonprofit is structured. We don’t have the authority or the right to ask for this kind of transparency that is being discussed. I’m going to. I’m going to send this to the Secretary. So it can be included in the minutes, because I think it’s important that this be in the minutes, and I can’t share it because of the chat. I’m not allowed to share in the chat, so I don’t know. Maybe this could be shared as a screen share at some point in this meeting. I don’t know.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Amelia. And again I mean, you still would like to comment, We’ve got to do a little business, Jeanine, you’ll be first, and you know this. This is kind of the tough part of the meeting, but we have things to celebrate today. The celebration that we have is what the Tech Committee has done to launch their new website. So at this time I’d like to turn this over to our tech chair, Mark. Thank you.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Thank you, Susan. Thank you everyone who’s commented so far, and we’ll continue that discussion and welcome.

I’m here to share with you a preview of our new website which is available for you all to see right now. It was launched. It was available yesterday morning, very early in the morning, and so what I’m going to do is just give you a quick tour of the site and point out a couple of the new features that we are very hopeful will help us all to build more unity and to build more togetherness and singleness of purpose. So let me share my screen.
I’m gonna show you the website.

This is what it looks like. It’s we tried to be straightforward and simple, and to the point, with all the information we want to put on here and have you collaborate with. I’m gonna walk you through this homepage. Very quickly, anytime you’re anywhere on the site if you click the symbol it will return you to the homepage. And you see front and center the 2 most critical functions and the 2 most important services, I believe we offer here at OIAA, and that is our 12 steppers committee where people can click and get help immediately through our steppers, which has sent out some. What’s the number? Mary? 5,000 emails last year, or 5,000 individuals that they helped? They get communicated with at least 3 times. So click on, that takes you to a quick form if they can fill out to get some email, help and support and get directed towards help.

The Online Meeting Directory is our other critical service. We have over 6,000 meetings a week listed in that directory. I’m going to show you some new features there in a second. Above that is our new menu. Here’s where you can get help immediately again. This is the same link to the steppers as well as general questions that go to our PIC committee that do an incredible job of answering a wide gamut of questions that we received through that inbox. All the information about the meetings is under online meetings you can get to the Directory again. You can submit your new meetings, which get added to the Directory very regularly. Thanks meeting Directory team that keep up with that very regularly as well as meeting updates. Your changes to your meeting times, your zoom codes, your meeting descriptions. There’s a form there when you go to meeting updates that you guys have been using very regularly that we have a team that keeps up with those as well.

The meeting guidelines and the online meeting help. Let me point out online meeting help is our new Tech Steppers Committee and the Tech Steppers are available to help any Zoom Meeting with their safety and security features and now they’ll do that personally, they’ll set up and schedule times to go to your meeting and meet with you, etc. So that’s the online meeting help.

Groups.
This is a big new area. This is where the forum exists. I’m hesitant to click here, but we’ll we’ll have some time to show you the Forum . I encourage everybody to go check out the form and start using it if you like. This is where we can start sharing all these ideas. We can start building these communications, asking the questions, looking for answers, and we can do that all together as an online community.

The IGR Hotlist is a page for IGR’s to go to get relevant information for yourselves and your groups. Group reports is a new feature. Several of you submit your group reports monthly via email. You’ll be able to go right in here now and simply load a group report. It’ll be immediately published to the website. [**Note it will be published as soon as possible after being checked for SPAM]

Members stories, you’ll see throughout the website. Member stories are provided. These are personal stories similar to a grapevine story. Your own personal experience, strength and hope, we’re collecting those stories. If you go to more member stories you’ll see quite a library built already.

OIAA into action, where we’ll list ongoing service opportunities, bored reports, chair reports the registrar will have a place here to start registering your groups and updating your IGR information. Workshops and events coming up as well as the Forums and Assemblies. You see all the information from every forum and every assemblies posted to the website, minutes, agendas. Somebody asked for a transcript of this meeting. That’s where that will be placed in the assembly page.

Every OIAA committee has its own page from that page you can get current committee reports, committee meeting agendas, committee meeting times and zoom codes and links to the meeting, so you can join and go check out any committee meeting you like.

Join OIAA is all about OIAA and becoming a member group and the calendar is very brand new. We have 2 calendars. One is the OIAA calendar, and this is where you’ll be able to find all OIAA related events by clicking on that calendar. I broke my own rule. I clicked on something, but you can go to the OIAA calendar and you’ll see all the committees will be publishing their meetings in events on this calendar, so you’ll have opportunity to come in here and see what’s going on as well as group events. If you guys are having events that you want to gain some attraction for and let us know about, you can come here and you’ll see you can submit an event that’ll take you to a form where you can upload a pdf, you can upload an image of the event and all the information and we’ll post that on the site.

And lastly, the contact us that’ll give you the ability to just general inquiries as well as direct communications or questions to every committee is listed there.

We’ll keep the news and updates going on the front page, and then at the bottom there’s also a much expanded footer which will take you to a lot of very common areas. Okay, we anticipate. The other thing we’ll be doing is what we have a much stronger analytic tool. So we’ll be able to understand what people are looking for, where they’re going, what pages are working which are not so again, we encourage you to really funnel through this site and take a look at as much as you can.

So let me show you some of these areas.

Let me focus first on the meeting directory and address maybe a couple of things that have come up since we just launched this. The meeting directory itself has been completely refreshed. It doesn’t look dramatically different on the front end. But there are some important changes. Let’s hope it comes up, Matt. There it is. So the first thing you’ll see, and we got many comments, and I’ll tell you right out of the gate. This was not a design. This was missed in testing somehow we missed, and testing. The meeting still will come up by time of day. Here it is in Central time. I’m in Chicago. It’s 1:58. So I’m gonna see those 2:00 meetings come in as they’re listed. This had been shown excuse me alphabetically, and in the refresh they are all getting listed, excuse me, I believe, by their OIMN number their id number in the database. So we’re gonna meet with the Code for Recovery tomorrow we’re going to try and get that straightened out, most likely, then put that back to alphabetical order there’s a lot of feedback today that it was very difficult to find their meeting without that alphabetical listing.

But I’ll also, let me take a quick drink here, use this as an opportunity to remind everybody of Tradition 4. The practice of, you know, promoting rather than attracting. We have a lot of groups for a while who’re trying to get, change their names or add numbers to their names. Or put the AA in front of their name, not really because it was a group conscience, or because it’s really reflective of the group name, but it was really in attempt to try to get that meeting up closer to the top of the list. So we ask you to be mindful of how that affects other groups by trying to get your directory listing place somewhere other than where it might naturally land. A couple other key features here in this new meeting front end.

There’s a calendar entry here. So now, if you have a favorite meeting or meetings that you’d like to add to your calendar. It’s a simple click. Right? You can download that meeting to your calendar. Here are your options. ICal, Google Calendar, Microsoft, and Microsoft Live the other feature you’ll see is that you can also click on the bottom of that meeting. You’ll see every meeting for that group, at least for that meeting. I think it’s future phase we’re gonna look to see if we can’t combine, one group may have several meetings right? This is that meeting for this week particular group, Living Sober Today, had meetings on those 7 days. So you’ll be able to see all their meetings down there as well.

The filters still work pretty much the same. There may have been some changes in the filters, particularly the meeting types. We have a lot of different forms taking place. Right? It’s not just Zoom Meetings. We have Google Meet. We have free conference calls, Blue Jeans, Skype. So that’ll continue to go.

The other key feature here, a lot of people, early questions were, how do I find those 20 four-hour meeting listings? There’s a button called ongoing. If you click that filter you’ll see every 24 h meeting that’s running. You’ll be able to go through those me directories, so we hope you enjoyed some of those features. Very nice, I think, and I think they’ll be useful remembering helpful meeting tips is a useful feature to understand how this works.

Another feature. Let’s see Online Meetings.

Let me show you the Tech Steppers form real quick, Online Meeting Help. If you’re interested to join your Tech Steppers, you can tell them you want to join. But the Tech Steppers are here to help your meeting, really set up a little stronger if you’re having trouble with disruptions, thanks again to Tom, his Zoom Security guide is a tremendous tool and a tremendous aid to so many meetings and so many groups and that’s a key basis of what these guys are doing.

They’re using that guide to help people walk, you know walk through that guide, understand how to better protect their meetings. So the online meeting help is a channel to reach out to our Tech Steppers and they’ll see what they can do to help you if you need help.

Alright under Groups.
I talked about the Forum. So this is going to be pretty empty, because I don’t think anybody’s been in here yet. But here is the OIAA International Community Forum. You can simply come in and register a very simple email process to register. And when you come back you can log in, and you can create topics and you can create posts and you can create questions. And this is pretty wide open for you folks right now all right, to create the channels of communication you wish to.

If you’re looking for speakers, if you’re learning for some best practices on meetings, if you want to understand what happened here that we’re all talking about today, this may have been a great channel for us to be transparent or may be an opportunity for us to be more transparent, more communicative, and to share our experience, strength, and hope with each other.

So we really hope to build a community here to increase unity and create, and increase our collaboration with each other. That’s the International Forum under Groups, I’m gonna show you the Group Reports, how much time I got. 3 min. So under Group Reports, we’re going to start welcoming, I think this will be on a monthly basis. Mary thank you again for being such an amazing list keeper and registrar. She’ll continue to receive your information. We’ll post all new groups joining OIAA, and if you scroll well, that’s a long list. I didn’t realize it got updated so much.

Is this the entire list? What did you guys do? Here we go. So that’s because it’s the first ad, so you won’t see. I don’t think quite as many. Maybe you will. Maybe we’ll keep growing at that pace, but you’ll see new groups for the month, but also as well as here. You can add your group reports. So you see, we’ve got some reports posted already.

Thank you, and if you want to add a report I don’t know if it’s going to ask me to log in or not. I don’t think so. It’s a very simple form, Matt, Matt and Melinda. When I pause here, and I’ll just applaud them. Tremendous amount of work that went into creating this website in all its functionality.

But it’s a simple process of completing the report entering your group, name, etc. And throughout the website, when you see report forms, we’re not asking you to attach pdf files. We’re not asking you to attach a Word Doc, or a Google Doc, take whatever you have, copy and paste it right into the report and simply hit add report, and it’ll pop up. It’ll be here, and it’ll look like this.

Okay, we do that and we’re doing that throughout the site. Because if I pull up this report I don’t speak English.
I can’t read this very well, but we do have a translation built into the website up in this upper right hand corner.
If you select a language it will automatically translate that page for you, and you can share that information.

Okay. So I’m gonna go back to the homepage. I don’t know what’s next. That’s Group Reports.

Let me show you Member Stories. This is a list of all the Member Stories. We’d love to get your story. You can come here and read anyone’s story that submits it. The same process to submit a story that’ll look just like the group reports. You’ll give some basic information and copy and paste or type away.

But take a look at the Groups, at the Member Stories. Seventh Tradition Contributions are here.

There’ll be a lot of financial information as well, I think, from our treasurer will get posted here if you’re looking for our monthlies. Here’s our contributions and expenses on a quarterly basis as well as PayPal. There’s also a link to the IRS. If you want to find our information that we’re processing and posting and running through the IRS, all our tax returns, all our forms.

Into Action, I think I’ll skip. What else? I showed you? The calendar.

I’ve got 32 s. Let me show you a service committee page. Again you can come to any committee page, and if the committee chairs and all chairs are here, I encourage you to take a look at your pages and get active with them, because, as current as you make it the more valuable, it’ll be to all of us but you’ll find a way to contact the committee. You’ll find information about their next meeting. Who’s chairing and alt chairing the committee, and also committee updates, will be posted, and I’ll get one up there very soon. I promise. So every committee has a page just like that calendar I showed you.

So I’m 7 seconds over. I’m gonna stop there. I wanna thank you. Encourage you to go look at the website.

Last thing I’ll tell you. There is email address for any comments, any questions, any input, any feedback – website at AA intergroup org.

Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Mark. Thank the tech team. Thank you so much. I had no idea what I was doing Thursday, and I met half an hour, and they made my life clear and shining. So thank you. Jennifer, turn it over to Jennifer who’s gonna talk to you about our money.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
My name is Jennifer. I’m an alcoholic, and recovery in the house is my home group, and I serve as your alcoholic OIAA treasurer. Let’s just get straight to it. This is our Budget Variance for May of 2023. In May we received the highest contributions that we have to date of 9,800 for a month. The postage of $75 we were receiving more mail, I went to the board to ask for an un-budgeted Variance Request of a $150, and I spent $75. PayPal fees are related to how the money that we receive via PayPal. The professional fees that is, for the software that we use to file 2020 2021 and 2022 tax returns. Our convention costs that is we are accruing and expenses for our 2025 International Conference.

Accounting and bookkeeping. This is the last month that you will see this for the time being, she quit because I asked too many questions, and our translation services of $850. They were higher this month because of the Town Hall that we had. If you have any, the only thing that is budgeted is translation for assemblies, committees, and the Board. If you have any forums or any other upcoming events that require translation, please submit un-budgeted requests.

Video conferencing. That is our zoom. Website hosting for right now is very low. You will see an uptick in that. We were able to make our contribution, that we voted upon in December to TIAA of $4,700. So our contributions that we made have all have all been made for, except for NAATW. We discovered we couldn’t do that one, but we contributed to GSO, Grapevine Carry the Message. International Fund and TIAA.

Our next financial report is this, this is my favorite. This is the contribution set. Each and every group makes. This is on the website. And Mark asked me the other day how many, how many people we have on here? And so, of course, I had to go back and count, and we had 80 different groups and individuals who contributed in May. If you go to this report, and you and you don’t see your group listed but you see your treasurer listed. Please send me an email at treasurer at AA Dash inner group.org, and I can change that for subsequent reports.

The last financial report of our Balance Sheet. We cleaned up the balance sheet. We took out the contrary accounts that were earmarking funds in an erroneous manner. They had them in negative amounts. So we cleared those accounts on the asset side and on the equity side of the balance sheet. At the end of May we had a balance of 89,000 and change in our bank accounts. Our accrued expenses – that total is for the 2025 International Convention. So that we don’t take a big hit when that comes on our financial statement. We’ve already earmarked that. And our current earnings for the year to date are low because we made those contributions to GSO, International literature Fund, Grapevine Carry the Message and TIAA. And that concludes my reports.

Does anybody have any questions that I may answer?

Lola!

[Lola]
What does TIAA stands for?

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Technology in Alcoholics Anonymous.

[Lola]
Thank you.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Matthew.

[Matthew H. Alt IGR, BOE meeting]
Hi, yeah, can you, there are a couple of acronyms that you alluded to. Could you please tell us with those stand for? And then how much money was given to TIAA again? Please.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
4,700 in change. I don’t know what a GSO?.
Maybe General Service Organization. Maybe?

[Matthew H. Alt IGR, BOE meeting]
We’re not not regularly familiar to myself and probably others. There’s TIAA, and there’s maybe one or 2 others.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
I don’t remember what those are. Maybe if you can refresh my memory.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
NAATW

[Matthew H. Alt IGR, BOE meeting]
Yeah, exactly.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
National AA Technology Workshop.

[Matthew H. Alt IGR, BOE meeting]
I just had a question. The contribution was that given there for an expense that we that we put on.
Or is that something, I don’t understand that.
Can you elaborate? Just a tiny bit more on that, please?

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Sure. At the end of 2022 we had excess funds, and we distributed those excess funds.
We voted on it at the Assembly to contribute to those various AA organizations with our excess funds.

[Matthew H. Alt IGR, BOE meeting]
Okay. Thanks.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Timothy.

[OIAA TECH Melinda F]
Timothy, I’m asking you to unmute.

[Timothy L.]
I’m sorry. Yes, Hi, I’m Timothy. I’m an alcoholic. I just wanted to know where the 2025 International Conference was gonna be, and where information on that might be found.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
It’s in Vancouver, and I think it’s a work in progress right now.

[Timothy L.]
Okay, so sounds good. Thank you.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Jeff B

[Jeff B Marietta, GA]
Hi, Jeff, from awesome Sandy, Marietta, Georgia. This may be stated somewhere else, but do we have a stated?Just lost my mind. Can’t think of the word. I’m afraid.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Prudent Reserve.

[Jeff B Marietta, GA]
Thank you, Jeff. Stated Prudent Reserve.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Yes, we do for this year our prudent reserve was one year worth of expected expenses. We had a 20,000 possible tax liability, although that is very remote at this time. Now that we have filed all our tax returns and are in compliance. And we had a 10,000 and change for tech committee that had been sitting out there that actually were, we’re in the process of utilizing right now with the with the launch of our new website. So it was a total of $60,000, and at the end of this year we’ll reestablish prudent reserve and then distribute anything beyond that at the end of 2023.

[Jeff B Marietta, GA]
And Jennifer, I just wanna thank you for your service as well as the other officers.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Thank you.

[Jeff B Marietta, GA]
Our trusted servants rather.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Flor.

[Flor]
Gracias. Sí. Buenas tardes. Soy alcohólica y pues soy ahorita.
Representante interina del grupo. Ah, para el mundo. Mi pregunta es la siguiente: no sé si quepa aquí en finanzas es este: hemos querido dar nuestras contribuciones a la interculpar en línea, y no se ha podido no sabemos por es sentido digital y tal vez puede enviarnos el enlace para poderlo hacer.
Esto?
Gracias.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
We have a page on our website that has a link to Paypal and an address for a hard check. Maybe the Tech Committee could put that page up.

[Flor]
Muchas gracias.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Jeanine.

[Jeanine F -Virtual Sober Start]
Thank you for your service, Jennifer. Yeah, I was just gonna into that respect. I was going to ask about if I wanted to, how would I reach out to find out about a summary of my groups, contributions? Is that available?

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Well, the monthly right is on the website. And so that’s a great place to make sure that your contribution was made for the month. If you want to know specifically through the history, you can send me an email at treasurer@aa-intergroup.org. I can go into the accounting system and print off your groups page, and send that to you directly.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Beth, please.

[Beth D IGR Into Action Group]
Thank you. Jennifer. Thank you for your report. My question is about the prudent reserve. I’m not terribly familiar with financial practices. It’s one of the things that kind of goes over my head a bit. But I was always under the impression that a prudent reserve was money that was set aside in case there are emergency unanticipated expenses. And it sounds to me the way you were describing our prudent reserve, that we are putting money aside for anticipating expenses that we have coming up. Can you just clarify that?

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Hmm, no, actually a prudent reserve is usually determined off of what is anticipated. So I mean, we very conservatively hold back a full year’s worth of what we anticipate the expenses to be, which was a little over 30,000 this last year, and then we were a little precarious with the IRS as to whether we would be reinstated. So we reserve 20,000, and then the Tech Committee has anticipated this step up of expenses to create the site that just got launched. That’s been held in reserve for a couple of years now, I believe, and so, and we’re about to spend that money.

[Beth D IGR Into Action Group]
Okay. But most of them the prudent reserve will be actually just simply held for us in case we need it. But we probably will be using new contributions to fund those expenses. Is that right?

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
That’s correct. That’s correct. Yeah. And that’s the way we’ve been working and everything, our financial reserves are very conservative.

[Beth D IGR Into Action Group]
Thank you.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
One thing that I wanted to say before I wrap it up is – there are service opportunities in the Finance Committee. I’m looking for an alternate Treasurer and a Secretary to take the minutes in the Finance Committee, and you can send service and professional resume to me at treasurer@aa-ingroup.org and I appreciate any service that anybody is willing to provide, and I believe that wraps up the Finance. Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
So is my Parliamentarian out there? I have to make a motion.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
I’m I’m here.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Jeff, do we make a motion at this time to accept the Treasures Report?

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
From the assembly? It’s new, it’s new territory, but I think that. It’s a good question. At the officers meetings it wasn’t accepted. Typically when they’ve been presented at the Assembly it’s been for review and informational purpose. It could go either way.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay, so Jennifer, I thank you for your report. Thank you. Jeff.

Now we have a decision to make. We sent out the agenda, and we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 items of new business. However, it’s 3:23 at this time. It’s been a heavy meeting. I would like to give you the opportunity to postpone the new business until the 29th of July. And look, if that’s what you would like to do, I’d like a motion to postpone. However, I’d also like to give anybody that still wants to discuss, to give us their feelings about what’s happened to stay after, and we’ll stay for as long as you need, but if you would like to postpone the new business that’s on the agenda today, I need a motion to postpone.

Mike.

[Mike T (Maryland)]
Good afternoon, Mike. T. IGR for Dawn Patrol. I’d like to make the motion to postpone.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you could I have a second?

[Beth D IGR Into Action Group]
I didn’t want to second the motion. I wanted to ask a question about, discuss the motion, so I’ll lower my hands.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay, let’s get a second and then discuss if that’s okay with you.
Bruce.

[Bruce T – KW 12 Noon Group]
Bruce T with the Key West 12 Noon group, I second the motion.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay, discussion.
Beth

[Beth D IGR Into Action Group]
Thank you. Yes. My question is, it looks like July 29th is a Forum rather than an Assembly, so will we be able to conduct business at a forum.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Yes, we decided that we would give the Assembly today the opportunity to postpone that and have a an Assembly rather instead of a Forum.

[Beth D IGR Into Action Group]
Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Any other discussion? So do we have a voting poll for this motion. Tech people?

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
We do. This is Call the Question form. It’s a simple yes, no vote, I believe.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
You should have it. I’ll put one in now, but there’ll be one to follow, I’m sure.
There’s a link in the chat that you can vote on the motion to table the new business.

[OIAA TECH Melinda F]
We can’t hear you, Mark.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
The next. I’m sorry. Too many buttons. We are voting to postpone the new business. That’s the question that we’re voting on. We will reschedule that if the vote passes. I have 47 votes in so far. We’ll reschedule to July 29th, Saturday, July 29th. We’ll replace the IGR form with another Assembly.

We have 47 votes.

Secretary. You want the vote to continue?

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Oh, yeah, for another minute or so.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Thank you.

We have 48 votes.

Standing at 48 votes.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Alright. That should do it, Mark.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Rising, 52 votes. I’ll share the results. So 92% vote in favor of tabling the new business to future assembly.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you all oh, would you like a 5 min break, or do you just wanna continue? No 5 min break? I don’t see everybody, but I see Beth.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Yeah, Susan, that really wasn’t a call the question motion. It was a true motion. It just said, call the question. As such a motion if there are, if it’s not unanimous, it requires Minority Opinion.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay, so thank you that’s why I you hired you today. Anybody, would any of the minority, the 7% minority, like to speak against, to speak, to give your Minority Opinion?

Jon.

[Jon H PIC Chair]
Thank you. Susan, for the very selfish reason that I would be flying on July 29th, and won’t be able to attend, I hoped we could agree to stay and work on it. Now, that was the reason for my no vote. So no need to change it as far as I’m concerned. Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you, Jon. Any other? Okay, seeing no other hands. Would anybody like to change their vote?

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Make a motion for reconsideration. Susan.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay. So I make the Motion to Reconsider? Is that what you’re telling?

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian] 15:31:45
No. So after Minority Opinion, anybody on the prevailing side can make a motion to for reconsideration.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Robert

[Robert M [IGR Hair of the Dog]]
Yeah. Robert, M. I’m the IGR for Hair of the Dog. I understand that, Jeff, you did make the motion.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
No, I’m just here as the Parliamentarian.

[Robert M [IGR Hair of the Dog]]
Okay, then I will make the motion to to reconsider.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Okay, that needs a second. It can come from anyone.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Stormy.

[Stormy H CPC Chair]
I second. This is Stormy.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Okay. So we’re now gonna take a vote on whether to reconsider and put aside the last vote. If we do, then we’ll be back on discussion on the motion to postpone going through a new business. Just to clarify. We’re voting on whether or not to reconsider and put aside the vote.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair] 15:33:18
So we got a motion and a second. Any other discussion?

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair] 15:33:26
So Mark alcoholic, just to be clear. We’re voting on whether or not we wanna vote again on postponing the new business.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Yeah, putting aside their first vote we took. Yes.

[Robert M [IGR Hair of the Dog]]
Yeah, I, misunderstood, I didn’t, yeah, I thought that my motion was simply to to re-vote, to confirm the previous motion.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Not quite the way it works. Robert. The the body has to agree. To reconsider. If they do, then we will revoke. If they don’t, then the vote stands.

[Robert M [IGR Hair of the Dog]]
Okay.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Jon.
Discussion on the vote.

[Jon H PIC Chair]
Sorry, sorry for being slow. I don’t understand which way to vote. If I want us to move the date to July 29th, should I vote No?

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Then you would vote yes, to reconsider.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Say that again.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
This is very confusing.

[Jon H PIC Chair]
Yes, I don’t know what yes or no means. Could you help me understand?

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
So somebody made a motion that we put aside the vote we just took and reconsider and vote again. That’s what we’re gonna vote on now, whether we reconsider the the vote and put it aside, or let the vote stand. So if you want to put aside the vote and re-vote on the motion to postpone business, then vote yes, if you want to let the vote stand and do business on July 29th vote No.

[Jon H PIC Chair]
Thank you. Got it now.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Okay.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Kristin.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
No. Actually, actually, once we once we vote, once we take the motion to reconsider and we have a second, we go right to vote on that. There’s no discussion.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay. Okay. Thank you.

[Robert M [IGR Hair of the Dog]]
Jeff, with that understanding I’d like to withdraw the motion.

[Kirstin, IGR]
Alright! But we need it though, so I’d be glad to then to submit the motion to reconsider. But again one be crystal clear on what? A yes or no means! I’ve heard if I want to reconsider the vote, reconsider the motion, or move it to July 29th, I should vote if I wanna move it to July 29th, I should vote no to reconsider the motion.
If I want to have it today, I should vote. Yes, let’s reconsider that motion because there’s a chance. It’ll be everyone will vote to do it today.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Yes.

[Kirstin, IGR]
Okay, so that’s the motion I will submit.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Did did you? Were you on the? Did you vote? No, initially.

[Kirstin, IGR ]
No, I voted yes, on the prevailing I thought it was the prevailing.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
No. Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you’re right. You’re right. Motion for reconsider comes from prevailing.

[Kirstin, IGR]
Okay.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Yes. Do we have a second to that motion?

[Hugh H., Three Legacies Group]
I second.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Okay. Alright. So now we need to vote on that. On the reconsideration.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Okay, so you’ll need to give me 1 second while I clear this form.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Sure!

[OIAA TECH Melinda F]
Are you taking questions? Someone has their hand up?

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
No, we’re going right to a vote. Once again, once again, as I believe it was, Kirstin just said, if you want to reconsider the vote and put it aside, you vote yes, if you wanna keep the the vote, do business on July 29th vote no. A simple majority will determine this.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
This is why I have a Parlimentarian. Thank you, Jeff.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Bear with me, folks. I have to see how to clear this form.
Okay. The votes not open yet. If you’re voting now hold off because I have to clear the form and resend it to you. Okay.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Yeah.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Okay.
Who is sending them. Kerri? I think we’re good to go.
Vote is open. Thank you. Everybody.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you team.

[Keri R (Orlando FL)]
Mark I have a different link. I did the previous link.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Mine’s coming up. Call the Question.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
The form says Call the Question. I haven’t changed the form. It just says Call the Question.

[Hugh H., Three Legacies Group]
2 different links in the chat.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
They still may be going to the same form.

[OIAA TECH Melinda F]
I believe it’s the same form, just 2 different links.

[Hugh H., Three Legacies Group]
Okay.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
We have 40 votes, 41.
44.
51 votes.
Standing at 51 votes.
Holding at 52 votes.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Alright that should do it Mark.

[Mark M, OIAA Tech Chair]
Results.
82%. No.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
17 Yes? So we will not put aside the vote, and we’ll go to July 29th to do the new business.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. So now my question is, do you need a 5 min break, or do you just want to continue responding? Keep going. Is that what I’m seeing? Hugh? Les? I only see 2 of you. Okay, okay.

[Hugh H., Three Legacies Group]
That’s what I’m saying.

[Les]
Susan, I’d like to thank you for your leadership. I understand that Jane deserves her privacy, and we shouldn’t be trying to find out the reasons and the why this happened. And then we elected the board to do their job, and they’ve done their job and I’d like to thank you for your efforts.
That’s it.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you.
Matthew.

[Matthew H. Alt IGR, BOE meeting]
You know, I just wanna echo one important thing is like, I know, I’m served on several boards. It is not easy, and I and again I say what I said earlier, with quite a bit of consideration, that I have never in all my time serving, had any fear of the informed group conscience, and it’s protected any board that I’ve been on from repercussions because the group has been able to speak. And I just wanted to say to the Board members, don’t be afraid to let people know what the hell’s going on, because it’ll only make your job more secure. You know you’re resting on your decisions more secure and thorough. And the last thing I’ll say is that just like you know, Bill Wilson wrote about a very important aspect of the power of the purse, and if and if groups increasingly become dissatisfied with their AA leadership, that is the last resort where they just don’t give money, and that it sends a very clear message around what can happen to if you know, if trusted servants are not really doing their jobs effectively, that’s all I wanted to say. Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Matthew. Steph.

[Steph NJ – Pathway to Power]
Thank you, Susan, for calling on me. My name’s Steph, and I’m an alcoholic, and I apologize for not turning on my video. I recently just had a little medical procedure, but I’m fine, and my question is, please, how does a member go about filing a motion?

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Jeff, help me out here!

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Hi! My name is Jeff, and I’m an alcoholic. We are, we’ve just finalized some of that for our new way of operating. But essentially to file a motion you go through the following steps, you draft your motion, you send that motion to to the Chair. The Chair will review that motion with the Board. If there’s any clarifications that the Board feels it needs, it will reach out to the submitter. They will then, that item will then be placed on the next agenda, in accordance with the the Chair who sets the agenda for the assemblies. This is all outlined in our new section 2 of the Guidelines that we’re doing, which has been approved by our Guidelines Committee, but has yet to be submitted to you for for consideration.

[Steph NJ – Pathway to Power]
Okay. Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Steph. Bruce.

[Bruce T – KW 12 Noon Group]
Hi my name’s Bruce T am an alcoholic, and the IGR for the 50 west 12 noon group. Just 2 things, I think quickly and briefly. Whatever’s been going on, we don’t have all the information and I just guess I respect that sometimes that’s, it’s not every decision, not every issue can be dealt with in a in a public forum. And I just know since joining this group, since our group joined this group, and I’ve been attending these meetings that are enormous amount of work has been done. There’s transparency with financials. Through meetings that are meetings, you know. Questions get answered, and you know, I think, what has come up today is that there’s an opportunity to clarify and be transparent about updating our procedures for handling things, that’s great. I just also think, though this is at no point does this feel like some sort of, that it’s been handled badly. Could it be better, perhaps, but it’s just not possible always for all information or issues to be dealt with publicly, and I’ve just been a part of a lot of organizations, and I understand that. And I know I know emotions are running high. I also appreciate that everybody that is spoken today, I mean, I just think there’s there’s been a call for unity. And I just wanna echo that. But I think it’s really important. This is an important organization. This group has gone through so much, and reconstituting itself in terms of it’s nonprofit status and things like that. I’m gonna pause there and just ask a very quick question, and it we can deal with it in July. But I keep hearing about Group Reports. Are those required, encouraged? I mean, I was getting them by email. Now there’s another way to submit them. Could somebody give me a heads up on, you know what the protocol for that is?

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Well, I’ll take a stab at it. I always think, you know I was kind of proud of what my, when my IGR report was up there from my group, because it’s going through some struggles as well, and I always feel that being connected either to the General Service or particularly here, we need to stay connected, because it’s here we serve. We solve problems together. And so if you get reports both to your group of Wow, what’s happening and how we’re get trying to get through this and come back to a unified organization. And if your Group is having trouble, and you share your experience, strength and hop, reports are a way to do that. So I hope you do consider writing a report and sending it in. Thank you.

[Gordon C, IGR Recovery In Da House za]
Hi Susan, Gordan Alcoholic.
And thank everybody else for their service. And quickly, notwithstanding.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Gordon. We can hear you very well.

[Gordon C, IGR Recovery In Da House za]
Can you hear me now? Okay, thank you.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Better.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Yes.

[Gordon C, IGR Recovery In Da House za]
Hi, Gordon, our Alcoholic and thank you everybody for your service, and notwithstanding principles before personalities. Was the 4 month Chair lady Jane, given the opportunity by the Board to redeem herself before this decision was taken.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Gordon. We asked Jane 3 times to come forward.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Joe.

[Joe I]
I’m Joe. Great from alcoholic. No rule, a group, no rules, no trauma. Just the primary purpose. I understand that everything, from what I’ve heard was following the procedures in place at this time, and probably the question is, are the procedures that we have at this time what, you know, proper and what we really need to have? I’m a big believer in transparency. Full transparency in AA. I think that’s one of the things that separates us from just general organizations in other places. And I come from the old school some of you may remember the time that we met in church basements in such and had Area Assemblies and stuff in AA and we had a lot of transparency then, and even though some of the committees would make decisions, would be put in the position to make the decisions, they also had the obligation and the place to do it. At these assemblies to come back and explain their decisions, explain what they did. You know, make full accounting of everything that they they did. Why and all that, and I think some type of mechanism like that. Yes, probably what we’re missing here.
Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Joe. Jon.

[Jon H PIC Chair]
Thank you, Susan. I just wanted to say for myself that my statements about procedures, and bylaws and laws, and all that are personal opinions. And that there is no hierarchy involved. This is not. This is John speaking, not PIC chair, John. That’s what isn’t right to vote here but I just wanna make it absolutely clear that I’m only speaking for myself. And what I’ve said A and B I have no animus toward any Board member whom each of whom I respect and think I’ve done a tremendous amount of individual work and effort, and I thank them for that. And see I’ll just continue to say as I said, in the more private settings of the board, that I think they made a mistake, and they were wrong in this case. Again just my opinion. Thank you for the opportunity.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Jon, thank you. Jennifer.

[Jennifer OIAA Treasurer]
Jennifer alcoholic, and your Treasurer here at OIAA and a member of the Board. I wanted to make it clear as far as for my process, it had nothing to do with personalities for me. A lot of people don’t care for my personality, and I’m okay with that. What it had to do for me was the violation of Steps, Traditions and Concepts, and I personally received that in the area of finance. And this was not taken lightly, there was a lot of fake, a lot of conversation, but I wanted to make it clear it has nothing to do with personalities. I would put my life down for the, to hold up the Steps, Traditions and Concepts, and I’ll take any blowback that occurs from protecting of that, because I believe in that, and it is saved my life.
Thanks.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Jennifer. Hugh.

[Hugh H., Three Legacies Group]
Hey, everyone! I’m an alcoholic. My name’s Hugh H.
I’m an IGR are for the 3 Legacies group. I’m also a member of the Tech Committee and Tech Steppers Committee. I don’t speak for my group in this case regarding the January 29th events on the General Service Board, I heard several people say that the only reason to have confidential meetings is when personnel issues are being discussed or on lawyers advice and I’m not sure that’s always true. But I would love to see Board meetings, committee meetings be open to anybody who wants to go, and that they’d be closed explicitly for only the reasons they need to be and have those reasons explained.
Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Hugh. Jeff.

[Jeff B Marietta, GA]
Jeff Alcoholic Serenity Group.
Yeah, I’m not an expert on the Concepts but I’m surprised that it hasn’t been brought up just reading from Concept 3. It says, as a traditional means of creating and maintaining a clearly defined working relationship between the Groups, the Conference with a General Service Board and several Service Corporation Staffs Committee’s and executives, and of thus ensuring their effective leadership. It is here suggested that we endow each of these elements of World Service with a traditional Right of Decision. And short form says, to ensure effective leadership, we should endow each element of AA – The Conference, the General Service Board and Service Corporation staffs, committees and executives, with the traditional Right of Decision. And so I have no other choice frankly, other than to presume, that the people that we voted into these positions in good faith, we’re presented with circumstances that you know I don’t understand, and may be shocked by but they were duly elected with into these trusted positions and to me the Right of Decision means that they they have the ability and are trusted to make the right decisions as necessary. Having spent a lot of years in management of various sorts there are very complex situations where you don’t, the field doesn’t understand all the factors that go into a decision, and I’m just trusting that there are good reasons why it was not forth coming, and you know I thought I heard somebody say that they met 18 times on this issue it’s not like it was a cavalier decision, so the dogs are barking I’ll pass.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Jeff. Jeanine.

[Jeanine F -Virtual Sober Start]
Jeanine, alcoholic. And this is, you know, not a representative of my group. My group is not aware of of the situation going on. I wanted to attend this meeting before I brought it to their attention. But you know, I think I think behavior is just something that we can’t manage that. And making decisions based on behaviors, is kind of a dangerous area. I happen to echo John H’s opinion about if we’re gonna operate as a governing Board, then we need to operate it completely with transparency, and with all the other tools that are available to us such as a Grievance Process so since the Grievance Process hasn’t been presented to the members, even how to a logic grievance, I’m not sure like that and that’s an action right? I’m not sure that basing these kind of decisions on, especially when it comes to the leadership that has elected leadership, that that we use behavior as a premise. As opposed to an actual actual infraction, or something that nature, that might have another impact on OIAA, because this alone is having a ripple in OIAA. And it really seems to be impacting the 36 principles that we, we try to live by. That’s just my opinion.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Carlos.

[Carlos D – Unity Chair]
Hi. My name is Carlos. I’m an Alcoholic recovering alcoholic. I’m also the chair of the Unity Committee, and I totally support the Board in the actions that were taken. I am a firm believer that OIAA does not represent all the diversity and inclusiveness that AA internationally is represented in the meeting list, that the Unity Committee that in 2 1/2 years they have 32 people going through it and something needed to be addressed in order to change some behaviors that are divisive. And I think that the Board did the right thing and did it within the principles and the bylaws that we approved, and then I think, for the opportunity to to praise the board for their actions okay because they were made with time. Everybody was heard, and I think that the conclusions couldn’t have led to a different outcome than it was. Thank you very much.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Carlos. Gordon.

[Gordon C, IGR Recovery In Da House za]
Thank you Susan Gordon, still an alcoholic, and you know what I don’t want to belabor this point as well. But it is suggested that we make it is suggested, either we change the Board or we change the Bylaws. The Board is there as our trusted servants, so number one. There are bylaws there that gives the Board the opportunity to make such decisions. So either one of it needs to go. Otherwise we won’t be deliberating this week. Hence my question earlier to Susan was she given an opportunity to redeem herself? And the answer was, no, on 3 occasions. So what, we are powerless over this. Our higher conscience resides at these meetings! So where do we draw this line? Do we forget that we are in recovery? Because we got a couple of years. Or do we forget that we just check for today? And set up just for 24 h? So I need to be very and mindful of our community and what I do, because if we’ve been trusted this Board to make decisions, an absolute. Huh! They have met on 18 occasions absolutely. And we are of a forgiving and loving age which we are powerless over.
Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Gordon. Angel!

[Angel H. – T.W.S.S.]
Hi! I’m angel! I’m IGR for That’s What She Said. Group. And this is my first meeting as an IGR, and I have to say, getting all these emails before the first meeting made me a little uncomfortable. I’ve done service work in person. It’s been a long time since I’ve been at like area level, and when I went on the website to look, I don’t see this subcommittee that was referred to. I don’t, I couldn’t wrap my head around what the decision process was, or how that happened, and I read people’s comments and responses. And I’ll just say for me, as a first time person is an IGR it felt very uncomfortable reading this stuff back and forth, and not seeing anything on the website or understanding what happened. And if a subcommittee makes a decision, and the Board votes on it. To me it seems like there should be some information. Who was the subcommittee? What was the process? How did this happen? Because I still don’t understand what happened. And I’m believe my responsibilities to go back to my group and take, you know this is what happened at Intergroup, and get their group conscience, their votes, or their opinions on a topic, and I don’t even know what to ask their opinion on, because it doesn’t seem like group input or other IGR are input was involved in this process. It just it seems really like there’s a piece missing to me, and that’s just my opinion. Just my observation, that’s all.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you, Angel. Beth.

[Beth D IGR Into Action Group]
Thank you. I have a question about something that’s slightly related I’d like to be able to get in touch with some of the people who are making comments. They’re offering comments, but the chat is not enabled. Is it possible to enable the chat so that everybody can communicate with everybody else? And that’s not just for this particular discussion, but for future forums and assemblies, as well.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Beth.

[Dave W]
And if I may respond. My name’s Dave, and I actually turned. Oh, yeah, there we go. I’m an alcoholic. And today I have served in the chat answering questions. The reason we discussed for the chat being sent to host on the We’re done in a number of meetings. Excuse me, is a couple of reasons, one of which is service it’s a common safety practice, and the second is that it’s too too many people to moderate on-goingly in real time. The second thing is, yes, we are going to open the chat at the conclusion of the discussion, for people to trade contact information. But 3. I have just, my video should be on, I can see me. I can see me, but maybe that’s my ego. I just started a topic in the community Forum. We have a forum, and it’s not specifically on the events prior events, but what it does ask, it says, recent events have shown there will be differences of opinions, interpretations of the 36 principles and Processes for reaching unity on conflicts. I think that might be a good place for people to share the considered opinions. I’m gonna post the link to it, and also the link to our Forum guidelines, because there are guidelines. And possibly this would be the first, best use of our new forum, and I hope that answered your question, Beth, and okay. Hmm! Hope! Keep hope, alive! Thanks!

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you, Dave. Tamara.

[Tamara M] 16:07:11
Hi! I’m Tamara. I’m an alcoholic. I’m the group representative for the Bozos on the bus meeting. Yeah, I just wanted to express my support for the board. I’ve worked with some members of the Board on the Tech Committee and on some other initiatives, and you know I’ve been an active AA member since 1988, and I’ve seen a lot of things go awry in AA for different leadership positions and I’ve seen a lot of group conscience meetings, people being very upset about how things are handled. And I just hope that people can kind of, and I’ve also been involved in a lot of boards in AA and out of AA, and there’s often a lot of controversy and and high emotion around things like this. And I just wanted to say that you know the people that I worked with on the Board have been very well qualified, and have done a great job of, you know, supporting the mission of AA. And I just hope that I feel like there’s been a lot of skepticism, and I know that sometimes, you know, I have friends who have said that in their 9th steps they revealed too much, and you can never take that back once you’ve, you know, kind of broken, some said some things that can’t be unsaid. So maybe there’s some personal reasons that people want to keep certain things confidential maybe more transparency would be helpful. I think maybe it would, but sometimes it’s not really a great option. But I just wanted to say that I do appreciate all the service that the Board is doing. I think they’ve done a really good job, and I trust that if it’s in a unanimous decision that everyone came to together, that this seems to be the right way, and you know personally, I’m okay with you know, the process the way it happens. And I hope that we can kind of all come together and move beyond this, and improve and then, you know, and then move on with the mission of AA. Because I think it’s most important that we stick together, and that we continue to offer these meetings to everyone. That’s all. Thank you.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you, Tamara. Renita!

[Ronnita M – serenity begins here group]
Hey? We need Alcoholic. First Time at this meeting, first time representative from my group. No idea what’s going on, and I just want to know if we get sent the minutes in our email so that we can take it back to our group. And I have no idea what’s going on. Otherwise, like, I’m kind of lost? I never got any emails leading up to this. I was just kind of thrown into this for all last week. That’s the kind of a question?

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Renita, you’re doing fine, everybody that comes into service sort of goes through that experience. Thanks for being here.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
I am, Jeff. I’m an alcoholic. Renita the minutes for for the assemblies are done by myself and my new alternate Caitlin. Typically we try to get the minutes done 2 to 3 weeks before the next assembly. Which would normally have been taking place in September, however, with within the 29th being an assembly as opposed to a forum, you should look for the minutes for this assembly to come out, It’ll have all the comments and everything that people are saying, by I would say early July.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Lorcan.

[Lorcan]
Good afternoon everyone. I’m Lorcan an alcoholic. Not currently involved in service. A couple points I wanted to make. One is one of gratitude. Thank you all, each and every one of you for making this happen it it’s unbelievable. The Board, the Acting Chair, the Tech people. It’s beautiful. Point number 2. Thank you for the information. I think the Right of Decision applies, we’re empowered, or we’re not. We’re not explicitly un-empowered to make a decision so they did the best they could. And third and finally I replied, to OIAA And I wrote in, and was told we’ll get back to you. No one ever got back, so we have a group that meets every night 9 o’clock, and we’re meeting every night and every morning at 9 o’clock in the morning. We were remiss in that we didn’t avail ourselves of the service that you guys provide. Although I knew of the website to go to other, but I would love to come with you to chat me or tell me or do something that would get me the information I need to make that an active group within OIAA so we can send an IGR and participate fully in the service structure and I’ll end with that.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you, Lorcan. Mary, and this is the lady that can tell you.

[Mary M]
I was gonna say, and I can put my email address in the chat for Lorcan if he will write to me directly, I will be glad to help him with all those questions. And this part is just for me personally, from my heart, I’ve worked really closely now with all of our Board members, including Jane. I talked with Susan, with Mark, with Jeff, I haven’t talked to Jennifer one on one, but the rest of the Board I have. And I know them well enough to know they did not come to this decision lightly. My personal reaction, you know. It’s heartbreaking all the way around. My heart goes out to everybody involved, but I also have been through some difficult times in the past when we thought OIAA might cease to be back in the summer of 2020, and one of my dear friends here in OIAA assured me. We’ll go on, we’ll heal from this, we’ll regroup and we’ll continue. And at that time we had maybe a 120 online meetings. We were running as fast as we could to try and get a website working that would would not crash. Our finances were somewhat of a wreck. We owed tax returns from past years. Just, I mean, these problems are heart problems but those were mechanical problems. And I’ve watched, I was looking a minute ago. We have about 950 members now, instead of the 50 or 60 that we had back in that time in 2020. I just encourage everyone here to keep reaching out, helping each other as we can. When you have an issue, I encourage people to take it privately. Email addresses are available. If you don’t have somebody’s, email me directly I have everybody’s email address for the whole organization. And I can put you in touch. But let’s try to keep one on one kinds of arguments without involving a thousand people. Let’s remember that when we post things to a wide audience it touches lots of folks and can be really harmful. So I just encourage us to have confidence in the Board. No, they didn’t do anything lightly that they were very serious in their deliberations, and I have to have confidence in them. So that’s what I would encourage. Just don’t get too discouraged, and I’ll now be quiet and if I can I’ll put my email address in the chat.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you, Mary. Mary was the first person that I contacted when I brought my group in, and she answered questions and emails. Still very grateful, Stormy.

[Stormy CPC CHAIR]
Hi Guys. Stormy again I’m CPC chair, but I’m speaking on behalf of myself, not my committee. Again I just wanted to say thank you to everybody who devoted their time and service, energy and efforts today. This has been a really trying matter that everybody’s been speaking about. But I’d just like to circle us all back to the Big Book on this issue and close it out with this. Page 417. And acceptance is the answer to all my problems today, when I’m disturbed, it is because I find some person, place, thing or situation some fact of my life, unacceptable to me. I can find no serenity until I accept that person, place, thing or situation as being exactly the way it is supposed to be at this moment. Nothing, absolutely nothing, happens in God’s world by mistake until I could accept my alcoholism I could not stay sober. Unless I accept life completely on life’s terms I cannot be happy. I need to concentrate, not so much on what needs to be changed in the world as on what needs to be changed in me and my attitudes, and I just want to thank everybody who gave feedback today on the whole issue. It definitely gave me a little bit of a better understanding of what’s going on. I, myself am not too privy on the Concepts yet, and I’m just getting a grasp of the traditions really. So you know, for those of you who are on the Board, and people who are in place in those positions we have trusted you to be that so we have to trust in your decisions because you guys know these these various aspects better than we do, or we would be in your position. So with that I just, I’m very grateful to be here, and I hope everybody has a very blessed weekend. Thank you everyone.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
This Stormy. Would anybody else?

[Gayle, Peacemakers – Individual member]
Yeah, Gayle, alcoholic. Yes. I agree that probably the bylaws need to be revisited. It was reported that Jane gave, her verbal directly to the Board, that she would resign, and you know you could have accepted a resignation and reported that, and there wouldn’t be all of this controversy to have this technical issue of a piece of paper, especially in a situation that probably was highly emotionally charged to demand a piece of paper from her and then make it this public removal. I just feel it’s really unnecessary, and and has caused a lot of controversy. And of course I’m asking questions. What happened? Who said? What was it? This person? I know this person, you know. It’s just causes all kinds of problems, and it could have been resolved with you, simply accepting her resignation. She verbally resigned to you, and so I think there’s some, maybe some things that can be done in the Bylaws to make this process a little more humane.

I also wanna say that in my knowing Jane, as much as I worked with her, there has to be some other issues going on within OIAA, that may be precipitated some of the things that brought it to this kind of conclusion, and I hope that those are being addressed by the people involved in terms of personality. And and that there is going to be that there is unity among those serving in OIAA, and I’m hoping that those things will be addressed as well. This to me is a symptom of a problem. You know it’s not all. We can’t blame all of this on one person. You know this one person is bad, and this happened I mean, I feel knowing her as well as I, good and as much as I worked with her. There it to me there’s a symptom, and I hope that those things are addressed as well within the organization. So unity, and the other thing is looking at AA as a whole, and representing the online community to the world. I just wish there could have been more negotiation, or something done, or acceptance read in the Board meeting, and that everybody could agree to get along. I don’t know. Maybe a mediator, something like that that it doesn’t have to go to this extreme. And um anyway, that’s all I got. I’m still very sad.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you Gayle. Thank you. As all of us are. Anyone else? I just would like to thank in the last 2 weeks the team that pulled together to pull off both the birthday celebration. This past Board meeting and the work today. I, this was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in service. Jane and I serve together at a conference, and. You know. I just hope, and I’m sure you all do, too, that God has his arms around her, and that I know he’ll have his arms us, and I’ve only seen us stand together in unity. We didn’t make the decision lightly, and we certainly made it unanimously. So. Let’s go forward and let our groups do what they do best. Carry the message to the alcoholic who still suffers and provides light in the darkness of alcohol itself.
Thank you.

[There was a problem here with the recording and we lost about 5 minutes. Apologies The OIAA Tech Team]

[Jeanine F -Virtual Sober Start]
Jeanine alcoholic, and I’d just like to say, based on all the conversations, what is the path anybody could take, our members if if they want to know more information. Is it to contribute, to examine what is going on, because I, too, believe that it is a symptom to a problem. And also there is and you may have had a path as a Board, and, believe me, as much as I admire every single one of you for your passion and dedication. Jane was the same person just as well. And and I just feel like it if this is going to be something that is going to occur, if we’re going to be governing with documentation, then we need to make it clear what we’re gonna use as a pathway so that in the future it’s known to everybody. Or are we going to, you know, live by the spiritual principles of love and tolerance, and get through until we have the next election? That’s why I feel like there’s there is a piece missing here. I believe in the best interests of OIAA, either A take an inventory after this, and then have the Board present a summary of the inventory, and then present a process, so that everybody is on the same page, and we’re all working together, that would be Unity.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Jeanine. Anybody else. Again. Thank you for the time that you’ve given us today. Laurie.

[Laurie C, IGR]
Okay. Sorry. My name’s Laurie. I’m an alcoholic. There’s 61 participants here right now. I’d like to see 61 people show their support, for OIAA going forward in the future by raising your virtual hand, I’ll be the first. Thank you so much. I have goose bumps.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair] 16:27:16
Thank you.

[MLKC(ROTTIE)]
Okay. Susan. I didn’t hear you. Sorry. I’m Mark. I’m an alcoholic, and I’ve been. I’m listening loud today. This is, I think, the third meeting, in OIAA I have been to. I got in the IGR for Aa all ways group. Were just new. I’m not new to the virtual stuff, but I just like to share a couple of things that are going through my mind. You know, and Tradition 2 comes to mind all, through through all of this. There’s one ultimate authority that’s a and we we don’t govern. I don’t know, I know a few people in this room actually several.
I would hope that everybody that’s on the board is here today right now. And I hope they are. I don’t know that, and that’s none of my business, but I would hope that everybody that’s on the Board is here for this meeting, or was here so that they can maybe hear this stuff whether it’s right or wrong or indifferent everybody’s got an opinion. There’s a hundred people here today, and everybody’s got a personality and and that’s never gonna change. I don’t care who you are. Everybody’s got one right, and no matter what happened or where go, I can see this, you know, you know from my heart, you know, all I get was emails. And I’m like, Huh, okay, so they just just let that person go. And I don’t know, I mean, who knows man. And I don’t know that anybody necessarily needs to know all the details. I don’t want to know. I don’t want to know. That’s sad, you know. It is sad to me. When anything like this happens, you know to somebody that is devoted to, you know, committing to a Group, especially OIAA, you know. But I’ll remind everybody of this, you know the highest rank in AA is called usefulness. That’s it. Period. That’s it. And when people start becoming enthralled and consumed by their position of service in the group, it it can cause problems. And yeah, I’m here. I support this group. I support my group and other groups that I go to. But man. Yes, we have to remind ourselves of why we’re all here, and that’s that primary purpose thing. And I’ll stop with that. Thanks!

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Mary. You had your hand up from before?

[Mary M]
The one thing I if my hand was up back accidentally, and for those of you who know me, I do that from time to time, my apology. But you know Mark mentioned that last year the 12 Step Committee received almost 5,000 urgent requests for help, and we said almost 20,000 individual replies to those almost 5,000 people that’s what keeps me here. People really need alcoholics Anonymous. They need to know that somebody out here in the ether cares about them, even if we haven’t met them yet. That’s what helped me get sober. Finding my own in person home group here, where people cared about me more than I cared about myself when I got here, and I just appreciate all the comments that everybody’s made today. So you have my permanent, undying support.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Thank you. Anybody else. My evening is clear. You can talk. Whatever you need to say to us.

[OIAA TechStepper-Mitch C.]
Yeah, I’m Mitch an alcoholic. I have a tough time remembering that there’s 3 little basics. Does it need to be said? Does it need to be said by me? Does it need to be said by me now?

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Mary! Alright!

[Mary M]
Jon H. Said that to me a few months back, when I was thinking about sending something out to about something that I didn’t agree with, and he said exactly that to me, and you know what I did. I use my delete key. Not on what John said, but on my draft email. I thought, well, that’s really, you know what you’re exactly right.
I don’t have to try to solve every problem in the universe for OIAA or any other AA organization. So. Thank you, Mitch. That was timely.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Anybody else.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Jon.

[Jon H PIC Chair]
Thank you, Susan. I would like to move that we end this meeting.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Do I have a second?

[Tamara S (Security/IGR/TechStepper]
Tamara Serenity Hour IGR, second.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Parliamentarian? Do I need to take a vote?

[Mary M]
He might be gone.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair] 16:33:58
All in favor. Then I’ll take a vote all in favor.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Yeah.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair] 16:34:02
Yes. Take a vote. Jeff.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Yes, take a vote.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay. Could you raise your hands?
I can’t look at all of you.

[Tamara S (Security/IGR/TechStepper]
Maybe put it in Gallery view for us. Look!

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Yeah.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Hmm! Probably the easier way to ask it. Is there anybody opposed?

[Tamara S (Security/IGR/TechStepper]
It’s a better way.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Well, then, all those hands have to go down.

[Jeff B., OIAA Secretary/Parlimentarian]
Yeah, well, yeah, I think it’s kind of unanimous.

[Susan R, OIAA Acting Chair]
Okay, what I would like to do, because I feel so strongly about this organization.
And I am so grateful for the people that pull together.
It’s about the groups. It’s about the groups.
Could we say? Responsibility, pledge to get there? I am responsible.
When any one any reaches up for help. I want AA always to be there. And for that: I am responsible.