Attendees:

Beth A., International Trustee

Jeff B., Secretary

Jennifer B., Treasurer

Anita M., Alternate Secretary

Susan R., Chair

John, Visitor from Day Openers group, Alt. IGR

Susan R., the Chair, called the meeting to order at 2:00 PM, and opened with the We version of the Serenity prayer. Susan welcomed the visitor and stated that any visitors’ questions will be answered at the end. This meeting is for the Board only and others can listen only.

Overview of Agenda: Minutes, Secretary and Treasurer Reports, Budget review, Old Business: Training Convention interpreters, Contributions from other AA entities, New Business: PAC committee. Assembly reporting, December elections.

Meeting Minutes Approval:  

• July 14, 2024, Board of Trustee minutes: Jeff reviewed these minutes which had been corrected twice based on feedback from Jennifer. These meeting minutes were prepared by Anita.
  • Motion: Jennifer made a motion to accept the minutes and Beth seconded. No one opposed. Minutes approved.

Treasurer’s Report – Jennifer B., Treasurer

• Jennifer reviewed the 3 July treasurer reports stating with the Budget Variance report. Revenue for July was $11,500 which is the highest total for monthly contributions in OIAA history. Jennifer mentioned that there was a $2,500 expense as a retainer for our lawyers so that they could complete the review of our Board documents.
• Balance Sheet: Straightforward report, $137,000 in bank. Cash just over $131,600 with $5,500 earmarked for the OIAA International Convention.
• Contributions: Jennifer reported that July saw very robust contributions. There were 77 groups contributing with a contribution from a first time contributor, the Stepping Stones group, being the highest.

Comments on Financial reports:

• Susan asked about her group, the Dawn Patrol online, and whether there were two groups with the same name. Jennifer stated that she had been corresponding with Susan’s group and that indeed there were two different groups with the same name being combined. Going forward, there will be two separate accounts.

Budget review – Jennifer B., Treasurer

• Jennifer first reviewed the Finance committee’s 2025 budget. She explained the items on the Finance budget.
• A motion was made by Jeff to approve this budget which was seconded by Beth. The budget was approved unanimously.
• Jennifer then reviewed the Technology committee’s 2025 budget. She explained the items on the Technology budget and stated that Mark had done a great job in the preparation of his committee’s budget. The total budget was $54,538 which is slightly less than last year’s budget.
• Questions about the Technology budget:
  • Beth mentioned that her Unity budget contains several technology items which are separate from the Technology budget and are not being duplicated. She stated that she has asked Mark to review the technology items in their budget.
  • Anita asked whether the individual budgets will be posted to the website. Jennifer replied that she will take all the approved budgets and combine them into a single overall budget which is what will be posted to the website.  This will be posted by Nov. 15^th.
  • Jeff asked whether there is any money in the Technology budget for utilizing AI for translation. Jennifer replied that there was no money specifically for that but that there is built-in money for projects to be determined.
• A motion was made by Beth to approve this budget which was seconded by Jeff. The budget was approved unanimously.
• Jennifer next discussed the Revenue budget which she and Felix had been working on. Jennifer stated that she had asked Felix to come up with a revenue budget and he performed a regression analysis for the past two years which led him to propose a revenue budget of $160,000.  Jennifer disagreed with this amount and felt it was too high.  She felt that the International Convention will have an unknown effect on revenue as we are not charging for the Convention but are instead asking for contributions.  The amount being proposed, as a consensus, was $123,000 which represents a growth rate of 24% as opposed to the 52% from the prior year as we are in a growth mode and revenue growth rates decrease when an organization is growing.
• A motion was made by Beth to approve the 2025 Revenue budget which was seconded by Jeff. The budget was approved unanimously.

Old Business

Training Interpreters for the Convention – Jennifer B., Treasurer

• Susan asked Beth whether she and Jennifer had come to an agreement on this item.
• Jennifer replied to Susan’s question. She was proposing that all interpreters speaking the same language get together so that they can all be on the same page with interpretation in their language.  She further stated that this would be a global event, not limited to the International Convention, which would make this a Board expense. She stated that it would depend on whether we want to incur this expense and whether the interpreters feel they need this.
• Susan asked what the cost of Jennifer’s proposal would be. She responded that the cost would be about $555 ($37 x 15 interpreters).  Jennifer stated that she would be the person organizing these sessions with the interpreters.
• Jennifer made a motion that she proposes to the interpreters a language training session which will cost approximately $555 with the money to come from the Assembly budget. Jeff seconded the motion. The motion was approved unanimously.

Accepting Contribution from GSO UK – Beth A., International trustee

• Beth A. described her attempt to obtain shared experience on this issue. She stated that she had never seen money be sent up the triangle, only downward.  She mentioned that she contacted the New York Intergroup who thought that was unusual and suggested that she contact Member Services at GSO which she did.  Doug R. from the Members Services team responded to her email and stated that we should discuss the issue and come to our own group conscience but that GSO has never done this.  Beth shared his response with the Board.
• Beth expressed concerns about accepting contributions from entities that we have not traditionally accepted them from and whether this was unethical and would set an inappropriate precedence.
• Susan asked Jeff whether OIAA had made contributions to other GSOs in the past. Jeff responded that in 2020 we made contributions to six International GSOs of $300.  Jennifer corrected this and stated that it we only sent money to 2 International GSOs, Ireland and England.
• Jennifer informed the Board of the 3 contributions received from GSO Great Britain: $94.91 on 2/10/23, $143.17 on 9/27/23 and $143.17 on 5/10/24. She also informed the Board that there had been several contributions from Districts in the US, including one online District.
• Jennifer stated that she agreed with Beth that this is unusual but since these contributions come from an AA entity they are not unethical nor a violation of our Traditions.
• Beth made a motion to postpone the discussion on this topic until Barry and Mark were present and could weigh in. The motion was seconded by Jennifer and approved unanimously.

New Business

The Chair, Susan, discussed several New Business items on the agenda:

• Reports at the June Assembly. Susan asked if Jeff and Beth would be willing to do a report to the Membership at the June Assembly on our respective roles, Secretary and International trustee. Both Jeff and Beth agreed to give a report. Susan also mentioned that items for the Assembly agenda are due by tomorrow (8/12).
• Susan asked about the Elections Assembly in December. She asked Jeff if he was planning on running for Secretary in the next rotation.  He replied that he will not be and that he will be rotating out of the Secretary position at the end of December.  Susan mentioned that Mark and Barry were not present and that she would reach out to them to see if they will be standing for their current positions at the December elections.
• Susan mentioned that Dave W, has been asking about who has access to the Board drive. Jeff stated that only Board members should have access to the drive as there is some sensitive and confidential information contained on that drive.

Officer Reports

International Trustee report – Beth A., International Trustee

• Beth reported that we currently have 1,787 people registered for the International Convention from 50 different countries.
• Several AA members will be providing entertainment:
  • On Friday night, Tom R. from History Lovers will be doing a presentation. He’ll be doing publicity for the International Convention amongst the more than 46,000 members of his group.
  • On Saturday, John M. will be doing a session on the Best of Wit’s End.
• Beth mentioned that some groups have dropped out and others have taken their place.
• Beth stated that, over concerns that she and Carlos have for large numbers of attendees, she would like to do an unfunded budget request to obtain a special license from Zoom to have over 2,000 attendees in a meeting. This may be necessary for a meeting like the sobriety countdown and for some of the country meetings.  Without that license, if the attendees exceed 2,000, then the meeting can only continue in Webinar mode where you cannot see the other participants.
• Beth reviewed her unbudgeted request with the Board. Jennifer stated that an unbudgeted request does not require Board approval if it is being sent directly to an Assembly.  Jennifer stated that Beth only needs to send the unbudgeted request to Susan and ask that it be put on the agenda for the Assembly.

 Secretary report – Jeff B., Secretary

• Jeff mentioned that he and Anita are largely caught up with minutes.
• He stated that all the approved minutes have been uploaded to the website and that the approved Executive session minutes have been uploaded onto the Board drive.
• Jeff summarized the results of the June Membership poll. He reported that the new quorum until next June will be 36.
• He reported that the Board Book is over 80% complete. One item that we are still working on is uploading all the approved Committee charters. Items still missing are the finalized Board documents (Whistleblower, Conflict of Interest and Document Retention) which are being reviewed with our lawyers and a strategic plan.
• Anita and Jeff reviewed their budget which was sent to Jennifer who asked us to come to the 9/14 Finance committee for review and approval of the Secretary budget. Jennifer asked about our Registered Agent and stated that she does not see any payments to them going back several years.  Jeff stated that he would reach out to determine the status of our registered agent.

Chair report – Susan R.,

• Susan reported that she continues to work with Jan BB on the PAC committee as Jan is a committee of one. She had recently started working with a new member who wanted to join the committee.  However, this individual was involved with a group that had been delisted and so he was asked to leave the committee and his access rights were revoked.
• Susan reported that she has been doing some outreach for the OIAA International Convention and has sent out over 160 emails. She also reported that, after some back-and-forth, she was able to get our event listed in the summer edition of Box 4-5-9 which comes out in September.
• She mentioned that Barry has volunteered to become the chair of our Convention committee. She also had a conversation with Patrick C. at GSO who confirmed that we will have a suite at the AA International Convention in July, 2025.
• Susan reported that Leslee and Randy from the Communication committee were considering rotating in December but Susan reached out to them and asked them to consider staying on in their roles. She stated that they have also agreed to take over the IGR Forum planning that was previously done by our Vice-chair, Nona. This will be discussed in the Executive session.
• Susan reported on various other activities that she has been performing.

The meeting ended at 4:11 pm EST when the Board went into Executive Session.

Motions Summary

The following motions were voted on by the Board at this meeting:

• Meeting Minutes for July 2024 were approved.
• Motion to approve the Finance committee 2025 budget was approved.
• Motion to approve the Technology committee 2025 budget was approved.
• Motion to approve the 2025 Revenue budget was approved.
• Motion to postpone discussion on the topic of taking contributions from GSOs and Districts was approved.

Respectfully submitted,

Jeff B.

OIAA Secretary