Delegate’s Report to Area Assembly, October 11, 2020

Here are some of the highlights since I last gave a report at August Assembly, since September was elections (aka, brace yourself, this is long):

• All members of the 2020 General Service Conference reconvened via Zoom to hear our treasurer give the final financial report with the audited 2019 figures and she also presented the revised 2020 budget. I was happy to see the session went past our end time, so every person with a question could have it asked and answered.
• Delegates, GSO staff, and trustees met to have open discussions about some of the general Service Board’s Strategic Plan. Sessions occurred over the course of 4 nights, with delegates and staff assigned just one of those nights so there were fewer people at each to allow everyone a chance to participate. The trustees went each night to hear all the discussions directly, but they really were mostly listening. We focused on 3 topics around inclusivity, the effectiveness of board communication and board relevancy, and the boards role in promoting the Traditions, including anonymity. I went on the third night and it was interesting to hear that were getting totally unique and different ideas each of the nights. They said they’d compile all the input and send it out to all of us. This was a session that was supposed to have happened at the General Service Conference that there was not time for when we went virtual. I was glad to see they felt it was an important enough discussion to come up with this new way of doing it.
• Google AdWords went live. This should make AA come closer to the top of search results. There are some technical issues to work out and it’s not without some controversy within the fellowship.
• The General Service Board met on Oct 2^nd and voted to drawdown another $1.5 million from the Reserve Fund “to cover cash flow requirements in the 4th quarter of 2020.” This is in addition to the $3m taken earlier in the year. This will put the Reserve Fund balance at approximately $13.1 million, which reflects a level of approximately 7.8 months of office operating expenses. (The Reserve Fund calculation is based on recent actual operating expenses.) This drawdown was not anticipated when the revised 2020 budget was presented in August.
• There is still an insurance payment pending to cover our Detroit losses. It will be approximately $1.5m. We already received over $900k in the insurance payments.
• A retirement incentive package was offered to workers at AA World Services and Grapevine. 20 employees, with a total of 531 years of experience working there, took advantage and they have already departed. The payouts for that equaled $1.3 million and may be part of why another draw down was done.
• Hard copies of the Final Conference Report are available. Let me know if you would like me to mail any to you. Otherwise I’ll bring them when we meet in person again. An electronic version is on our website.
• The year end Financial report is a separate volume from the rest of the conference report this year (usually it’s all together). It is available only electronically and it’s also on our website.
• The September board meeting minutes aren’t out yet, but I heard a few highlights from our regional trustee:
  • Grapevine is researching podcasts
  • Grapevine is looking into opening an Instagram account;
  • My portal has resulted in the aa.org website having updates in how to make online contributions and purchasing literature and other items online.
• GSO is taking suggestions for what the theme of the 2022 General Service Conference could be. I have the form and all the past themes from 1951-2020 if you’d like to play!
• NERAASA – It WILL be occurring, but it will be virtual. I’m on the planning committee and we meet twice a month. The event will be Friday Feb 26 – Sunday Feb 28, with 1 event Thurs the 25^th. We are attempting to keep it as close to the in person event as possible without causing too much screen fatigue. This will be a great opportunity to attend the event since there’s no long distance travel or hotel costs! GO!! Registration info will follow. We need volunteers to host Zoom roundtables. You’d need to be comfortable running a poll, offering screen share help, kicking bombers out, etc. Your services would be used in the roundtable you’d already be attending for your service position. Let me know if you’re interested.
• It is likely the 2021 General Service Conference will be virtual, but taking lessons learned from this years, with much more time to plan it and having it be many days longer. The hotel has been cancelled so we get as much of a refund as possible. (The longer GSO waited, the more we’d owe)
• There will be a virtual eastern Canada/USA Forum on Saturday December 5^th from 9am – 8pm. This started out as the make up session for all the regions who missed their regional forum this year due to Covid-19 but then grew to just be all the regions in the east. Our Northeast region had our event as scheduled last year and we’ll have next years as scheduled, but virtually. This December’s theme is “2020: Experience, Strength & Hope – what it was like, what happened, and what it is like now.”  The one-day event will feature participation from the Northeast, Southeast, East Central and Eastern Canada Regions. As with traditional Regional Forums, the day will include workshops, presentations, Q&A’s, General Sharing, discussions about inclusion, and much more. Also, employees of AAWS and GV, trustees, and the general manager of GSO attend and it’s an opportunity to directly ask them questions or share ideas with them. Registration is always free and more should be posted on that soon.
• The DCM Summit will be open to DCMs, alts, newly elected DCMs and alts, people thinking about being a DCM or alt, or a member who just wants to come. It will be virtual, Saturday Nov 7^th1:00 – 4:00ish probably (more will be revealed)
• (seriously – you should go to NERAASA)

In service,

barb

Filed in: AA General Service, From Our Delegate