March 11th 2023 Board Meeting Minutes  COPY for editing and website publication

  Virtual Region March 2024 Board Meeting

                                 Sunday, March 10, 2024  1:30 PM ET

 1:33 pm Eastern time (ET) – Meeting opened with the Serenity Prayer

1:35 ET – Strategic Version Read: The function of the Virtual Region Board is to serve and support its committees, intergroups, meetings and members and to carry the message to those who still suffer.

Minutes approved from our January 2024 board meeting, since there were no objections.

Reports: FYI, from now on the Chair will change the order of doing the reports. Instead of members always giving their reports in the same order, she will flip it up. So, stay on your toes. A reminder to everyone that, in general, when we discuss Reports, if a report has been submitted, then, we only discuss updates or address questions (if necessary) at the subsequent board meeting. We don’t reread or rehash the entire report, since all board members are supposed to read them on their own before the Board meeting.

Treasurer’s Report: No (full) report this month.  

–Regarding the Convention: ———————–.  Our Vice Chair asks if it is too late to contribute? The response was no. Our Vice Chair will make a significant donation. Thank you, Vice Chair!

Below is a draft report of profit/loss from the Convention. The treasurer, will provide the full report once  she has all the updated figures.

Treasurer’s Report (continued):

         Motion to amend the Delegate Support Fund budget: Our original budget called for $0. We then bumped it up to $0. Our Chair discusses a possible caveat to getting funding to go to World Service. She suggests that the intergroups or groups who receive funding should perhaps be required to attend the Virtual Region Assembly that year (i.e. send at least someone to represent them) if they are to receive money or get an exemption. There was some disappointment that some groups who got exemptions or funding this past year did not attend our Assembly. It is mentioned that, for the Delegates Support Fund, we can also apply directly to World Service for help. This issue will be discussed further later.

         Separate Interpretation fund? The issue has been raised about possibly creating a separate interpretation fund. The Treasurer says that we don’t currently have a fund for that, but if someone made a contribution for interpretation and notified her, she can earmark the money specifically for that. 

Committee Reports:

• Bylaws:  The Bylaws Committee Chair is in the hospital, so not present. Prayers for him. Our Region Chair gave an impromptu Bylaws report. She asked if all the documents from the last Business Conference were on the website. The Digital Resources Committee Chair said we looked at it and they are, minus one PDF (from Bylaws).
• Our next Assembly – Using forms to submit motions: the current secretary checked the drives and found Form files, but not for motions. The current secretary will ask her predecessor if we used forms to submit motions in the past? She wrote the former secretary and is waiting for response. If we haven’t used forms in the past, those representing Data and Digital today said it would not be too complicated to make a new form.
• Convention: The co-chairs were not here. Our Chair gave a proxy report. She thinks an area of weakness was not announcing the Convention to the Fellowship as a whole. Particularly Young People and men could use more representation. On the other hand, the Chair points out that our social media received over 1200 messages during the Convention alone!! The co-chairs have not had the wrap-up meeting yet, so more will be revealed.
• Data: The Data Coordinator was not here due a family matter, so the Region Chair gave a proxy report. She said that there have been some issues with Data, so we will have to make some adjustments.
• Digital Communications: The chair of this committee
• Finance: The chair of this committee and the Tresurer rescheduled the Finance meeting and had a brief meeting Wednesday. They are meeting again today at 6pm for the March meeting. Request: If anyone has any historical data on the Virtual Region, please pass it to the Finance Committee.
• Twelve Step Within/Workshop: The Region Chair has been leading a 30-questions, bilingual workshop that finished today. They took a group of people through the first 3 steps in six weeks. She asked the group’s opinion about a relapse prevention small group workshop that would be on April 6th or 7th. That was affirmed. There was agreement that the TSW should move forward with hosting a Twelve Step (aka, the green book) workshop for two reasons, (1) it’s needed, especially since we don’t have enough sponsors for all the newcomers, and (2) it’s an effective source of 7th Tradition revenue. It was noted that the workshop is actually 17 weeks. There is an introductory session at the beginning and a wrap-up at the end of the 15-week course. A core group of four volunteered. This would be a weekday event. The Region Chair will work on creating an evening Twelve Step Within workshop. This evening team led by the Region Chair needs facilitators. The TSW committee needs a secretary. 
• Public Information Professional Outreach/Unity With Diversity: On Saturday, June 1st 8am – 9pm ET, and Sunday, June 2nd 1pm – 5pm ET, they will have an Open House. They made a tentative date of September 21 for the following Open House. The Region Chair said we need to look at a holiday calendar before solidifying that date (we hadn’t looked at it today, and we missed Mother’s Day in England & therefore one of our Board members).  Here is the link for one such calendar for future reference: https://www.qppstudio.net/global-holidays-observances/2024.htm

• Intergroup Outreach and Renewal: IGOR. We still don’t have a Chair. However, the Region Chair believes that by the end of the month, we’ll have one. They are going to work on the new Intergroup Renewal Document. A number of people have already offered to work on it.
• Interpretation & Translation Committee: They are forming their Interpretation and Translation Committee, and they will be making announcements about it this week. We need to decide if this should be an ad-hoc or permanent committee.

Chair’s Report: (the report was interspersed throughout the meeting; here are the main takeaways):

Liaison relationships: Our Chair is experiencing some confusion about the to the point where she no longer thinks that this system is workable. The Chair’s suggestion was to change to the model of co-chair model, meaning that a Board member would be on a committee. There was a fair amount of disagreement with this from various members, so the Chair withdrew her idea.

Our Chair wants to talk to intergroups and meetings from the Virtual Region. People have been going into the chats and telling people not to register for the Convention or not to join the Virtual Region. Our Trustee will address some of that before the Open House. Hopefully, the other Region Chairs will be respectful. However, it was brought up that we OA’s are human beings. Moreover not everyone is always working spiritual principles or the Traditions.

Trustees Report for the World Service Business Conference (WSBC): Upon reading this that our Trustee has prepared for WSBC, our Chair said that we really have accomplished A LOT this past year!!

Fully functional calendar for the Virtual Region: By the end of this week, there will be a fully functional Calendar. FYI, we are putting up ONLY open meetings, because the site will be used by professionals as well (doctors, nurses, psychologists, etc).

A focus on newcomer & specific focus meetings: The Chair says that we will really be focused on newcomers and specific focus meetings. Moreover, the 3rd spot for the Ebony Intergroup will be finished by Wednesday. “Get ready everyone!” says the Chair, “we are going to go to a new level in outreach!”

Radio announcements: Approaching your local radio station is the best way to get a radio announcement. Our members will drive that most of all.

Look at the Carry the Message assets: Our Chair encourages us to view Carry the Message assets.

Getting members to do Service for the Virtual Region: Our Chair points out that 392 people signed up to do service for the recent Convention! Now let’s get them to sign up for committees!

(again, there will be some more info from the Chair below. This is listed in mostly chronological order in which things were said).

Vice Chair Report:

The Vice submitted her report and gave an update on the calendar and what she has done for it. She has already transferred over standing events. It seems to be going well.

         Our Virtual Region Tech Visitor says that the Google calendar needs to be accessible to non-VR members (so that means for those that have email addresses that don’t end in virtualregion.org). There was no objection to making the change to the google calendar, so the change will go forward.

Old Business 

• Since Assembly is approaching (June 22-23, 2024), our Chair reminds us that in order to update the By-laws, a motion has to come from an intergroup, a committee, or the board. Our Chair points out that we don’t have to get change-happy here. If we feel there is something that needs to be changed, we can submit it to the By-laws committee. Our Chair encourages us strongly not to wait for the 60 days before the Assembly, the deadline to submit motions: the deadline to submit motions is APRIL 23, 2024. If Board Members have changes to make in the descriptions of their roles, please put them in now.
• Virtual Region Inventory Status: The Chair asked who has done the Virtual Inventory (it’s on the website). Very few members of the Board had. So far, we have 70 responses. Please go to the website and participate. We can do so as individuals (not Board members). The Virtual Inventory has a deadline and will only be available a little longer.
• Status of updates of bylaws P&P and minutes from the last assembly – All seemed okay, except the Digital Resources Committee Chair said that one document from By-laws was missing on the webpage.
• Proposed dates for Assembly, Board meetings, Convention (2025). The board voted on WhatsApp the date of the June Assembly is June 22 -23, 2024.

      Dates for Virtual Region A, B, C’s (Assemblies, Board Meetings & Conventions)

         Assembly 2024:  Sat​urday & Sun​day June 22-23, 2024

                             ​            Sat​urday & Sun​day November 16–17, 2024

         Board meetings for the rest of 2024:

           April 7, 2024 – @ 1:30pm Eastern Time

           May – N/A because so many involved go to World Service

           June – N/A because of our Convention June 22-23. We meet there twice.

           July 7, 2024 @ 1:30pm Eastern Time

           August 4, 2024 @ 1:30pm Eastern Time

         *September 1, 2024 1:30pm ET. *Perhaps change ? It’s Labor Day Weekend.

           October 6, 2024 @ 1:30pm Eastern

           November – N/A ​because of Assembly Nov 16 & 17.​ We meet there twice. 

               December – N/A we voted not to have one & The Chair suggested ​perhaps having 

                                 a holiday party​ for the Board instead

Convention 2025: (This is the only date I didn’t find. Are we sure we voted on it?)

Fellowship: For those interested and available, when we have a Board meeting, 1 hour before @ 12:30pm ET we have fellowship in the same Zoom room. And perhaps the months when we have no meeting planned, some folks might still like to meet for Fellowship.

New Business –

• Discussion on liaison structure request put forth a motion at the next assembly to change from Liaison to co-chair. There was a lot of feelings contrary to the idea that the Chair brought up within the group, so the Chair, who brought it up, said she would let it go (as there didn’t seem to be enough support for it, and certainly not at this time).
• Discussion of Formation of a Technology Committee? – Do we want to make a motion to have one? The Tech Support Visitor feels that, as a whole, the Virtual Region has a “hole” in the Technology area. We have Digital and Data, but that leaves Technology. We have other things like Cloud participation. Our Zoom administration and management has always fallen on our Chair, and that may not be the best idea (we’re fine now, because the Chair is a wiz, but the Trustee points out that the position should not be dependent on individuals’ talents and qualities). Tech support says that you can have Digital, Facebook sections of such a committee (and maybe education, for those among us who aren’t tech wizzes). That was tech support’s suggestion from behind the scenes. The Tech Support Visitor, The Digital Resources Committee Chair, The Data Coordinator, the Region Chair, and the Digital Resources Coordinator will meet to further discuss the issue of the Technology Committee. The Trustee suggests meeting and working toward making a motion.

Board Updates or Questions, if needed

• • Trustee:
  • Secretary: 
  • Data Coordinator: 
  • Digital Coordinator: 
  • Chair

• Vice Chair

Old Business

The Chair brings up: Do we want to formalize the interpretation/translation committee or leave it as ad-hoc? The Trustee points out that if this committee were to become formalized and were an ongoing thing, we could get literature to people who can’t afford it and who are at different parts of the world. Members with abroad experience share how as it stands, the current system is complicated, costly, and very lengthy. If this committee were to exist, it would help our members tremendously as an ongoing practice. There is no large clearinghouse that could reach people all over the world like the Virtual Region could. There is support for this idea. Currently, it is an ad-hoc committee. The Chair asks us if we want to put it in the policies and procedures? Our Trustee, Gary is on the World Service committee that gives licenses for literature. An ad-hoc committee can be dismissed at any time almost at the whim of a board or the whim of a chair. The Chair suggests that several people work on the motion.  

April 7th 2024 is our next Board meeting. And remember, stay on your toes during the meeting: from now on the Region Chair will do a rotation thing for giving reports. It won’t be the same old/same old.