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NA WORLD SERVICES UPDATE
| Volume 1, Issue 3 | world_board@na.org |
December
1998
|
Greetings again from your World Board:
Thank you again for your feedback about the previous editions of this newsletter. We want to provide a newsletter that is informative and helpful to you, and your input helps us do that.
We will continue to use this newsletter to give you information about recent board meetings, our discussions, and activities. We are very interested in finding ways to generate discussion within your local NA communities about issues that arise during the course of doing NA service.
Our
Most Recent Meeting
We met at the WSO over the
weekend of 3-5 December 1998. All board members were present.
Our agenda was extensive, but we managed to address all of the issues.
We have a desire to infuse our meetings and all of our work with a strong
sense of spirituality. Therefore, our meeting format included:
- a focus group at the beginning
of the three-day meeting to bring us together
a time for sharing, reflection and personal evaluation at the end of each day?s business.
NA WAY
Editorial Board:
The NA Way Editorial Board
and WSO staff held a meeting on Wednesday 2 December. We discussed
the benefits that long term planning would bring to the magazine.
We also explored ways to increase the collection of articles from throughout
the fellowship, particularly from communities which are currently ?missing?
from the collection of voices that make up the NA Way. The editorial
board will be working with staff to update and clarify the editorial guidelines
for the magazine. We will continue discussion on these and other
matters the next time we meet ? one day prior to the next World Board meeting.
Craig R was selected as the primary contact person on the editorial board
through the upcoming WSC.
Communications
Task Force (CTF):
As we have said before,
continuously improving communications is our Number One priority and we
are determined to reflect this fact in our work. To that end, we
reviewed and endorsed the Communication Task Force portion of the Fellowship
Development Plan. At our meeting, we selected Mario T, Stephan L, Jane
N, and Tony W to commence this task.
The plan for the CTF includes:
- research and evaluation
of existing internal and external communication,
development of goals and objectives for NAWS communication, and
implementation of the goals, followed by regular review and evaluation.
The broad areas of communication requiring research are:World services external communications including periodicals, minutes, letters to the fellowship, reports, and other ?public communications?
WSO internal communications including management communication, memos, staff meetings (note that the WSO internal communications research is already underway) and Public relations.Education and ongoing evaluation:
The keys to implementing and maintaining an effective communication strategy are:
- adequate training and support
for those people involved in communication and
setting up an effective evaluation system to ensure that the communication system meets its objectives.
The new dates are: August 30th ? September 2nd 2000 |
WCNA 28 ? Cartagena, Colombia
Cary S, the board member
assigned to the team visiting the convention site for WCNA-28, reported
that Cartagena was beautiful and that the meetings with local vendors and
property inspections went extremely well. He expects the convention
to be a wonderful experience for our members.
In response to questions
expressed by some members about potential concerns associated with the
convention site, we are preparing an information sheet for distribution
to the fellowship before the WSC.
Development
Forum
The members of the Development
Forum Workgroup have been communicating regularly and met in person again
at the last Board meeting.
The workgroup has received responses to the letters that it sent out from most of the identified communities who need full or partial funding for attendance at the next conference. Many of these communities are working hard towards self-sufficiency.
As we combine the activities of the DF at the conference with the activities of the conference as a whole, we can begin to eliminate the perception that certain conference participants - because they have received funding or translation or other services - are somehow different from the rest of the conference. We believe that the issues that we deal with at the conference should pertain to us all. We believe that the planned changes to WSC orientation, training, and discussion will work to support this integration.
Fellowship
Development at the 1999 World Service Conference:
Certain feedback has led
us to conclude that many WSC participants understand the term ?fellowship
development? to describe only what we do to assist new and emerging communities
to participate in the conference. Although these activities are part
of "fellowship development", they definitely do not capture the whole picture.
We know that all NA communities are in a state of change and growth and
believe that all conference participants would benefit from similar discussions.
At our meeting, we discussed ways to redesign the conference to support general fellowship development. We believe that the best way to ensure that general fellowship needs are met is to review the Fellowship Development Plan for direction.
The Fellowship Development
Plan was developed to ?plan and provide services and support which facilitate
the continuation and growth of Narcotics Anonymous worldwide.?
This includes a number of
clear issues:
- increasing and planning
fellowship development
making changes to improve world services
improving face to face communication with the fellowship
training and utilizing trusted servants in the service structure
developing appropriate projects to create helpful recovery and service material for the fellowship.
Issue
discussion papers for WSC'99:
"Resolution A" and "Improving
Fellowship Communications"
We received a number of
Issue Discussion Papers from the fellowship. Thank you. We
reviewed the two topics and discussed ways of ensuring adequate discussion
about them at the upcoming conference.
The board will also present discussion papers on both topics. Our papers will be aimed at promoting discussion rather than suggesting solutions.
If our internal discussions as a board on these topics are any indication, we can expect the discussions at the WSC to be very ?lively?.
We wanted to begin preparing for the WSC as early as possible, so we devoted part of our meeting to reviewing current WSC parliamentary and business practices and ideas of how to make the conference more meaningful and helpful for participants. We intend to structure the conference so that there will be more time devoted to participant support and orientation as well as general discussion.
1999
Conference Agenda Report
Our section of the November
Conference Report left the impression that we intended to include a report
of the World Board's activity for the year in the 1999 CAR. Since
this was not our intent, we apologize for any confusion that we created
but thank you for the input that many of you provided. We have included
an overview of what to expect during the conference week in the 1999 CAR.
are 25 April through 30 April. The cost of the |
Regional Motions
There are eleven regional
motions for the fellowship?s consideration this year. In order to provide
the fellowship with information about the impact of these motions, each
issue was discussed by the full board. This information will be provided
to the fellowship through the Conference Agenda Report.
We had a lot of discussion regarding the future of the conference and the potential move away from motion driven discussion and more towards issue and project discussion.
Issue
Discussion Topics
"Thank you" to the conference
participant who sent in the discussion topic for discussion at WSC 2000.
Unfortunately, it was the only one we received from the fellowship.
As conference participants, the board is developing a list of additional
topics for the fellowship to consider.
CAR
Workshops
Due to the small number
of regional motions, we believe that these workshops will have time to
include discussions about the designated issue topics as well as the motions
themselves. This kind of agenda supports the changes occurring at
the World Service Conference, and offers members the chance to develop
discussions which can then be brought to the conference by their delegates.
WSC
Co- Facilitator
The Executive Committee
has had discussions about the support the WSC Co-Facilitator will need
to fulfill his role at the conference. There are a number of options to
consider. The Board is willing to assist in any way requested.
Website
and the Internet
The issue of posting NA
copyrighted literature on the Internet remains a significant concern of
the board. As the trustee of the FIPT we must exercise all reasonable
ways to protect our fellowship's literature.
Progress is being made with new laws that offer the type of protection necessary for Internet publication, but nothing is final yet. We only had initial discussions about this issue but will keep you updated on new developments.
World
Services Budget
We are continuing the process
of developing the unified budget. We have tentatively accepted a transitional
budget for the period January through June 1999 and will review this again
in January to ensure that no new adjustments are necessary.
We will then focus on the first full-year unified budget. We expect to have this finalized at our March meeting so it is ready to present at WSC 1999. This budget proposal will be for the period 1 July 1999 through 30 June 2000.
Developing a unified world service budget involves looking at changing the way that we allocate and record expenses. It is an extremely complex task to go through all the world service financial activities to determine their allocation in the new unified budget.
Despite the challenges, we are happy to inform you that we expect to meet our timeline for this important project.
More
To Discuss,
More To Plan, and More
To Do
We have discussed our workload
and have decided how best to accomplish what is before us now (see the
Nov. 1998 NAWS News). We have many and varied tasks ahead of
us and find that working as a team for some matters and splitting into
smaller discussion or workgroups for others meets our needs at the moment.
We will continue our discussions about the WB committee system and keep
you updated on our progress.
In Closing,
This has been another busy
period for us as we work towards meeting our goals.
We are aware that this is a very exciting time for those members hoping for positive change in the way that we work together and communicate with each other.
As we move to another year of recovery and fellowship growth we believe that it would be helpful to reflect on our NA World Services Vision Statement:
All the efforts of Narcotics Anonymous World Services are inspired by the primary purpose of the groups we serve. Upon this common ground we are committed.
Our vision is that one day:
- Every addict in the world
has the chance to experience our message in his or her own language and
culture and find the opportunity for a new way of life;
NA communities worldwide and NA world services work together in a spirit of unity and cooperation to carry our message of recovery;
Narcotics Anonymous has universal recognition and respect as a viable program of recovery.
In all our service efforts we rely upon the guidance of a loving Higher Power.
We wish all of you a wonderful 1999.
Thanks for letting us serve you,
Your World Board
News for the Public
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