Minutes of the December 2017 Board Meeting
Minutes of the December 2, 2017 Meeting
605-468-8028 #780643
All are welcome to participate, Saturday January 6, 2018, 9:00 AM
The Clerk left the meeting early; the following minutes are an accurate recording of business.
My notes for the meeting for Coda Intergroup
Sandy, David, Paul, Ted, Doris, Crystal, Juliet
Minutes accepted
Group Reps
Danbury – 4 – 8 members going strong.
Nashua – haven’t been there. David moved. Meeting ½ hour from Claremont. Ludlow group.
Glochester – Cape Ann – Marblehead and Cape Ann decided to participate in conference calls. Marblehead 15 – 40 people.
Cape Ann – 8 – 15 people. Marble doing an inventory out of Coda book. Talking at next Group conscience, bus meeting about doing conference? He said conference calls. Not a lot of sponsoring for Coda or co-sponsoring. Working on it. Need other sponsors with 20 – 30 years experience. Marry it with docs received from Ca. Agreements that are specific to Coda. Newbury port never got info about conference. But they don’t have a contact name. Nothing to send it to. He told them that.
Bennington – two members. Small but we are still here and planning on staying here.
Northhampton Sunday – 14 – 15 – 20 people. Business as usual. Chugging along.
Northhampton – Business as usual. Get newcomers and they stick. Doing well. Good meeting.
Westfield – no longer needs support. 4 people walk in the door a couple of months ago, taking responsibility for the meeting and like coda stuff. Doing well.
Treasurers Report – accepted
Remove office
Communications Report – needs a chair. Constant Contact. Let him know if you don’t get email. Goes live Jan. 1. No payments until then. Website needs to be redone. David needs to meet with web designer. Didn’t attend convention. Rob thought location was terrible and price was too high. Why are you so bitter? Still interested in helping with website? No response.
He has a gentleman he was going to talk to about website. Give him a little time, contact him one more time and then move on. Not serving our needs.
Ted needs list of folks from convention to make sure their names are in his list. They are making arrangements to do that.
Need a distinct list as several men want to stay in contact. One long time attender expressed the concern that it was hard for him to come, but he didn’t feel that there was follow through from the Intergroup in stuff that he wants them to follow through with. Needs to get done in the next month or it won’t be meaningful. Constant contact is a great idea. Ted sends out the notices.
David has the list of all the emails. He’ll take care of it. That is completed. Send list to Ted so he can put it in my contact list. Until constant contact gets the routine.
Crystal - communications
If we are discontinuing office, it should say mailing, to remind us of what we do. David has password to website. Rob may have other websites. May have a hosting password. He will ask.
Men’s list – it was suggested that we reach out in the next month and that is going to take responsibility. Who is going to be responsible for constructing the email and make sure it gets out? He is going to send it out for constant contact. We are on hold. Made decision to go live in January. Gives him time to get it organized in his mind for material.
Sandy – Can that note go to Ted. Then he can send it out with his December email. A note from Ted’s list would help. Do this in January. Don’t delay it. Guys will drift away if we don’t gather up that energy. David will email Ted.
He said that he hasn’t been a sponsor is that there is such a high drop out rate in coda that he doesn’t want to invest the time. There is something about fall out that is part of a structure as well as our personal nature.
For website, Crystal wants Evie for the website and webmaster.
Events Report
Convention report – Doris – 92 people attended. There is a check that was missing. Someone came up and preregistered. Tried to find her check. She finally sent check.
40 dinners. Ordered 40 dinners. Paid, reimbursed for 40 dinners. Not counting scholarships.
After take out 1000.00 for the start next year. 5, 520. 15 income. That is what she will transfer over to main account. Seed money is 1000.00 stays in convention account. Keep 1500.00 to build that up. She will transfer 5020.15.
David thanked everyone that worked at convention.
Feed back was pretty positive. During the convention not a lot of concern on cost, that was good. Most people liked the facilities. Food was good. Good comments on dance although it ended early.
Response back was good.
Wanted to increase attendees from 80 – we did do 10% higher.
Some scholarships were sent out.
Let people know there is scholarships. Caution is needed.
Hotel – everything was organized. Contact person was always there. Room Kenny Rogers thing was negative.
One person is interested in sponsoring next years convention. Marblehead.
He has to start looking for the next location.
I will approach the Crown plaza in Pittsfield and North Adams and get basic info. Send him info over Christmas break.
Sandy knows the person who volunteered and she hasn’t brought it to business meeting. So looking other places is a good idea.
Crystal – at the time that Marblehead hosted, it was a totally different structure. NECoda has taken on a lot of the responsibility that the host used to have to do. People from board will help out.
If you don’t hear about it at the business meeting, Sandy will let David know if it doesn’t come up at business meeting and we will move on.
Hampton is not handicapped accessible.
Outreach report – Need a spring assembly host. Westfield? Northampton?
Delegates Report -
Crystal – within a couple of months the national website will be fixed and working.
Literature can come to conference now without going through the conference without going through the committee. It will take two years, but it is better that waiting for the literature.
708.00 to Crystal. I will send it out Monday night. She’ll email her address.
Reports from special committees – no report.
Setting prudent reserve table.
Optional face to face every other month.
Strategic planning – face to face every quarter. Hold it in communities that are active and meet as a voting entity. People to meet to do their voting entity thing and for their work. Coda national is pushing hard for us push out as voting entity. She would like to see a day long workshop. She is talking about another assembly type thing, 4 times a year. This would be a great platform for sponsors and co-sponsors. We could do a step study.
Sandy is volunteering to do a north shore sponsorship workshop, using coda lit from Coda to do that afternoon piece and invite all to participate. Sponsorship. Workshop would be around sponsorship. January workshop. Put it all together for January. Mailings, etc. plans. Feb. church in Marblehead. Sandy will get back to us.
He would like the board to dedicate a half day to just meet.
Workshop days throughout the year. We will think about what we can do to put this structure together. Implement this in the next four to six months. When you think about it, visualize what it will take to put it together. Free locations. Charge 10 – 15 a day to pay for the room.
Face to Face Coda Intergroup business meeting with structure of an assembly. Think about it and we will do some more brainstorming. Who can help make it happen?
New Business –
Constant Contact is set up. Delegates received it too.
New Business – get it on the agenda – reworking our bi-laws, forming another committee to do that. Implement what we have and put together ideas before we rework them.
Voting entity – face to face meetings for this. Needs a structure.
There are guidelines created by IMC Committee for creating the entities. There is an intergroup structure for each state. We are unique as New England.
Break down into states and doing State Group Caucuses at Assembly. Each state would elect a delegate that would not necessarily be funded. Delegates would apply to New England Coda for funds. Need to have attended NE Coda intergroup for one year. That is likely to extend the timeline. Outline of what is involved. Crystal will send it to us for where we can get information so we can investigate. Introduce it at the assembly.
Literature person. We don’t have person in charge. She is willing to do literature.
Kevin’s wife will notify us when she is ready to have David come and get other literature.
CORE told CSC that they sending a representation of literature to any new meeting that registers with International site. This is only for brand new meetings. If you registered after Oct. you can get it, otherwise, forget it. Just one big book, one 12 and 12, etc. They are doing it for outreach. Doesn’t know if it is available internationally.
We will extend the meeting for 15 minutes.
Danbury issue tabled.
Under GSR’s when Danbury reports, write issues with Danbury board? This will be a cue to ask what he wanted to say.
