WSZF – July 28-30, 2007

Southern California

Western States Zonal Forum
Meeting Record

July 28, 29, 30, 2007

Meeting Record  

Participants
Ken M. – Southern California – RD
Kelly S. – Southern California – RDA
Vince G. – Arizona – RD
Jason S. – Arizona – RDA
Jim W. – Rio Grande – RD
Laura B. – Rio Grande – RDA
Denise T. – Pacific Cascade – RD
Mike M. – California Inland – RD
Gene B. – California Inland – RDA
Karen R. – Sierra Sage – RD
Lenny R. – Northern California – RD
Matt M. – Northern California – RDA
D.W.D. – San Diego Imperial – RD
Pam J. – San Diego Imperial – RDA
Jack H. – Washington Northern Idaho – RD
Dan F. – Washington Northern Idaho – RDA
Rick W. – Region 51
Doug H. – Region 51
Tony O. – Central California – RDAH 
Clif  G. – California Mid State – RD
Doug  . – California Mid State – RDA
Ron M. – World Board 
Chris C. – WSO
Ruben A. – Meeting Facilitator
Ruben A & Lenny R.  – Recorder

Meeting was opened with a moment of silence
Introduction of facilitator – Ruben A.

Introduction of Attendees

Approval of pervious meeting records
Meeting records approval

Issue Discussion Topics

Integration of the PR Handbook 
Web-Based Phonelines 
Virtual worlds in NA Service 
 – How it is working. 
Term Limit for RD – RDA 
IDT Workshop 
Influenza Pandemic 
Getting more involvement in the CAR workshop 
Rogue events 
Financial software & systems for financial accountability 
Attendance and rotation of service commitment in sparse area. 
Insurance across the border 
Insurance 
HRP lack of responsibility and accountability 
Raffles, solicited of donations from outside of the fellowship 
How to get old-timer back in to the meetings and service 
Group donations, Home group business meeting and to get them going  
Fund flow. 
Paid events and the 7th Tradition. 
Grandiose events 
Sponsorship behind the Walls 
Youth committees 
Incorporating languages other than English into the service structure. 
Cultural outreach. 
Insurance across the border. 

World Board – 
The PR Handbook – 
How to be an effective RD /RDA 

Regional Report:

                                                            
                                    Southern California Region
                                                1935 S. Myrtle St.
                                              Monrovia, CA 91016
 
 

Our region has approximately 1260 meetings and 151 Spanish speaking only meetings throughout its 20 areas.  Of those 1260 meetings, 4 are Armenian, 3 are Farsi, 1 is Hebrew and 3 are American Sign Language. The RSC recently revised its regional guidelines. We had elections of new officers of the RSC in May and I am currently the new RD and Kelly S. is our new RDA. We have also recently formed two new sub-committees of the region. The youth committee was approved many years ago, but due to the length of time it took to get the guidelines approved, there were no longer any interested members left to form a committee then. They are now a fully formed and functioning committee now, with the purpose of helping young people finding their way into the existing service structure. They are currently sending a representative to each of the regional sub-committees. They are also planning to put on a regional youth activity on an annual basis, which they are doing through the activities committee of the region.
We have also passed the guidelines for a Sponsorship behind the Walls committee. They still need to elect officers and form the committee.
Regional Service Office (RSO):  Our RSO is maintaining itself. They still below their prudent reserve but are working on new marketing strategies to bring sales up. The RSO carry’s insurance for the regions 20 areas as well as, our Regional events. 
Hospitals and Institutions (H&I):  All 20 areas including the Spanish Speaking area attend the monthly H&I subcommittee meeting. The region carries 61 panels that go into our Hospitals and Institutions within our region. The 19 areas, along with the Spanish Speaking region carry approximately 619 panels. The subcommittee holds an annual Learning Day in the month of May.
Public Information (PI):  The subcommittee continues to reach out to the community and by educating our young people by carrying presentations into the schools. Almost every area of So. Cal. now does PACT meetings. This is where we cooperate with the Department of Corrections in facilitating orientation meetings to all recently released parolees. This year they have made it a goal to train out of the PR Handbook. Their other projects include a more in depth “About Us” page on our Regional website. They also continue in their efforts to do presentations, booth sittings, and community literature distribution.
Regional Activities:  The regional activities committee puts on 3 major events per year. The NA Birthday, New Years Eve and the Regional Campout. They also help with the H&I Learning Day and the Regional Assembly Workshop as well as the new Young Peoples Unity Day. They help out the 20 areas with their events by providing a calendar so that the areas can have regional dates so that no area event conflicts with another areas regional event. They post all areas events whether they are a regional or area event on the regional web site.
Phone lines (PL):   Phone lines are currently running a 24 hour 7 days 800 number with live addicts answering the phones. 7 areas are helping accomplish this.  The Spanish speaking area is helping the region man the Spanish speaking hotline.
Website :  The website committee no longer sits under the PI committee. They have adopted guidelines this past year and are now their own sub-committee of the region.
They have finally completed their project to make our database easily uploaded to the World database. 
Literature:  We currently have no Literature Review committee because of lack of participation.
Regional Convention:  The Convention committee is getting ready for this years convention which will be held over the Thanksgiving weekend at the Anaheim Marriot. They had a nice convention last year, which was able to increase their prudent reserve, as well as make a nice donation to the Region. They have signed contracts for the next two years back in Ontario, but not on Thanksgiving weekend. They are also trying to get an online registration with a Pay Pal account set up in time for this years pre-registration.
Cruise Committee:  The Cruise Committee had another successful event this past 
year. They went on a longer cruise to the Mexican Riviera. They don’t hold cruises on the same year as the World Convention, so their next cruise is next year, which will also be a longer cruise to the Mexican Riviera.
Spring Gathering Committee:  The Spring Gathering committee also didn’t have a successful event this year; they didn’t donate to the region. This is a small but active committee showing how diverse our region is. They are on their last year of a five year contract. More will be revealed on future events.

Northern California Regional Report to WSZF
July 20, 2007

The Northern California Region consists of 21 Areas with approximately 1400 meetings per week. Our number of areas has increased–by one–with the creation of the Sacramento Fellowship of Narcotics Anonymous. This new area is comprised of groups that split off from the American River Area.
The NCRSC provides insurance for all of it’s meetings and most of the events that take place in its region, as well as acting as the point of accountability for H&I, PI, convention committee, and a Regional Service Office Board of Directors.

RSC:

Our RSC meets monthly, at our Regional Service Office, in Fairfield, CA. It’s been a fairly quite year for our RSC. Not much controversy. We recently held our bi-annual RSC inventory, where, for the first time, we used the small group discussion process. The most significant thing was that Matt and I got the RSC to agree to follow up the inventory meeting with a planning session, which we will facilitate, in |September.

RSO:

Our Regional Service Office–a California 501-3C corporation–serves our region through literature sales, insurance matters, website coordination, as well as providing committee meeting space for all regional committees.
After going through some financial difficulties the RSO is back on a sound financial footing and posted a $40,000 profit in the last fiscal year. Most of the profit was put into literature inventory in order to meet increasing demand. Our RSO recently opened its online store, which seems to be very well received.

NCCNA (Northern California Convention of Narcotics Anonymous):

Our convention continues to flourish. Our 2007 event (NCCNA 29) was held in Santa Clara, CA in April. The convention had 3450 paid registrations and almost twice that number at the Saturday Main Meeting.
Net income for the convention was $98,600, with a budget of approximately $225,000.
Attendance growth is once again becoming a challenge for our convention committee. We are down to only three venues that are big enough to hold the event, and we are at the capacity point for one of these venues, which will leave us with only two.
Our next convention will be held on March 20-23, 2008, in Sacramento. This will be our 30th celebration.

PR:

Our PR efforts seem to be doing okay. Freed of the subcommittee structure our regional PR meeting spends most of its time sharing information and conducting training sessions. Area attendance is up; mostly due to the fact that the meetings are much more worthwhile. Under this structure, our PR Coordinators have been freed up to do more presentations to our area committees, as well as outside agencies. 

H&I

Our regional H&I subcommittee hasn’t changed much in the last year, I’m sorry to say. It is still laboring under the burden of being a subcommittee. Some discussions have taken place regarding changing this committee to a strictly “sharing/training forum”. Hopefully to free the hands of the coordinators to actually do more to help serve our areas. Discussions have just started on how Regional H&I might be able to act as a database for members willing to do H&I meetings outside of their own areas. We have some rural institutions that are pretty much dark, because the local areas don’t have enough members to keep meetings going. This, and maybe some other hands on tasks will be very hard to accomplish under the subcommittee structure; so, hopefully by the next WSZF we’ll be able to report some major changes in our H&I structure.

Website

In the past year Northern California has been replacing its somewhat antiquated website with a brand new up to date site (www.norcalna.org). Although still under construction the site is up and running. Along with the usual services an NA website offers, this site includes online convention/hotel registration and an RSO online store.
The new site was developed by a workgroup of our RSO Board of Directors, and included representation from the RSO, RSC, H&I, PR and our convention committee. Working with an outside vendor the site was put together at a cost of $15,000.

Sierra Sage Region WSZF Report 2007

 Greetings from the SSR of Narcotics Anonymous!  

Our region consists of approximately 120 meetings in five established areas, four of which regularly attend RSC.  RSC rotates quarterly through the Reno, Carson City/Minden, South Lake Tahoe, and North Lake Tahoe areas.  The boundaries of our region are quite extensive covering north up to the Oregon/Idaho border, east to the Utah border, south to Tonopah and its latitude, and east to the Sierra Nevada Mountains.  During the past year we finally have filled our H & I and PR coordinator positions, along with Outreach.  Filling service positions at area and regional levels remains a difficult task.

We have a wonderful website – www.sierrasagena.org – that is full of information, including an activity calendar (for all areas), convention information, phoneline numbers, a .pdf printable meeting schedule, and a very cool clean time calculator!  Just put in your clean date and it’ll tell you how many days you have clean!  We have a terrific webservant in the program that is helpful and very knowledgeable and quick to accommodate our needs. During the past year, our local population has begun to make more use of the web site. Our webservant even created a forum for everyone to use as a means of disseminating information to each other.
We are still struggling with the phoneline issue.  Due to our large geographic areas, some members, especially in the CCMA, must make long distance calls to reach their hotline.  The Reno area (BLAW) recently changed service from an answering service to an online 800 system.  There are some problems with that service, but BLAW is addressing those problems.

I visited each area committee meeting over the past few months to discuss the delegate position and delegate responsibilities and ask each area if they had specific concerns. The usual difficulty of getting members into service came up as well as unity and raffles.  I also traveled to Elko, NV, which is 300 miles from Reno.  They are busy establishing themselves, have 10 meetings a week and would like help to create Sierra Sage Region’s sixth area!  I am very excited about this and hope to get information from everyone at the forum on this issue.  I am also in touch with a member who has recently moved to the Bishop/Mammoth area.  He is trying to guide BMA in re-establishing their area.  They have been scattered and out of touch for some time and Howard hopes to help them back into the SSR and a more established Narcotics Anonymous.  Finally, the BLAW (Reno area) is experiencing growth in Spanish meetings.  The area’s PR committee has been keeping in touch with them and they have been ordering lots of literature, in particular Basic Texts, It Works: How & Why, and cassette tape sets.  There are meetings six days per week.  They have been attending the ASC and their excitement is contagious.  CCMA seems to gearing up for a surge in Spanish meetings as well.  They now have two per week.
One last thing I want to mention is our convention.  We have been trying to establish our convention as yearly, but unfortunately we were unable to secure a facility for 2006.  We have no hotel facilities large enough to accommodate the convention other than the casino venue, and we have chosen the Circus Circus in Reno as the site for the convention in 2007.  The convention facilities are excellent – separated from the casino environment, no smoking and the convention coordinator from the Circus Circus is more than gracious. We have been given a room block in a separate tower with Hospitality, Merchandise, and Marathon Meetings in very close proximity.  November 2, 3, 4, 2007 is the next date for the Sierra Sage Regional Convention XII and we hope you can all plan to attend.

CMSRSC Report to Western States Zonal Forum July 20 – 22, 2007

Greetings; 

The California Mid-State Region of Narcotics Anonymous is located in the heart of the Great Central Valley of California. The Region runs from Galt in the north (south of Sacramento) to Porterville in the south (north of Bakersfield) and from the Gold Rush towns of the Sierras in the east to the edge of the Coastal Range in the west. Our Region is comprised of seven Areas which include a variety of living environments ranging from the rural, small towns to several major metropolitan areas.  

California Mid-State Regional Service Committee, (CMSRSC), meets monthly on a rotating meeting location schedule.  First month we meet in Fresno, second month in Merced and the third month is what we call “Region on the Road” where different Area Service Committees volunteer to host the CMSRSC meeting, sometimes in conjunction with a special Area event, such as a holiday dinner / dance.  This allows members that may have an interest in Regional service to get a view of what actually is happening at the CMSRSC meeting.  The cycle repeats itself throughout the year, allowing for four (4) different Areas to host the CMSRSC meeting. 

At the Regional level, we utilize Regional Information Coordinators (RICs) to provide support to each Area Subcommittee (H&I, PI, Activities & Literature). The Hospital and Institutions subcommittees of each Area service numerous Federal, State and Local Penitentiaries, Prisons, County Jails, Honor Farms, CYA Facilities, Psychiatric Facilities, Women’s Shelters and Treatment Centers. Anecdotal indications are that our Region has the highest density of correctional institutions of any Region in California making a daunting challenge for our service committees. The Public Information subcommittees in most of the Areas are active, functioning with low to medium support from the members of each Area, which assist in providing fairly typical NA style PI work. There is a growing interest in some of the ideas introduced in the new Public Relations Handbook. 

Like a lot of Regions, CMSRSC secures an Annual Regional Insurance Policy to provide insurance for Recovery Meetings and the locations they meet in.  The past several years, we have faced an ongoing battle with increasingly high insurance premiums, even though we have had almost zero claims against our policy and no pay-outs.  We would appreciate an opportunity to open a dialogue with other Regional Service Committees to investigate methods that may be utilized to keep these costs down, such as pooling our purchasing power. 

We are currently attempting to encourage each Area Service Committee to review the information base NAWS uses for its “Meeting Locator” to ensure the information is current.  The meetings listed on the NAWS web site don’t seem to agree exactly with what is listed on each Area’s current meeting schedule.  

CMSRSC has been engaged in a long-tern project to better understand our organizational obligations. We have developed professional relationships with a CPA and a business attorney, and for the first time ever we have filed Tax Forms with the Federal and State agencies.  More will be revealed on the direction we take to ensure we keep within the boundaries of “productive members of society” and resolve our legal entity challenges.

You are all invited to attend CMSRCNA X which will be presented in Visalia on June 6 – 8, 2008.  Early Bird Registrations are still being accepted until September 1st and the cost is $10.00.  You may download the form from our convention web site, www.cmsrcna.org  .

This is a very brief summary of CMSR.  I am hopeful that it provides a snapshot of our Region. 

California Inland Region Report to WSZF 2007

The California Inland Region is comprised of 4 area’s in the inland region of southern California from Victorville in the north, Temecula in the south and Blythe in the east. We currently have 186 meetings weekly, and the region meets on the 1st Sunday of the month in Banning at our Regional office. We also rotate to each area on a quarterly basis to help get the local fellowships involved. At this time we have one area that is in the midst of a division. This is something that has been talked about for years but it seems like now is the time. They have been working on it for several months and by following the suggestions set forth in the Guide to Local Service it appears to be going well in fact I would use the word spiritual.

As was reported last year our convention had been canceled due to the facility closing for remodeling. Well I am happy to report that we held our convention at a new site 2 weeks ago and it looks like “We Are Back”. I don’t have any final figures but just from what I saw it looked like it was a success.

We have spent time in the last year with a Regional Inventory. I would like to thank those of you that sent me your info on inventory’s. We put together a questionnaire that went out to the fellowship and was posted on our website (cirna.org). We received a lot of feedback and we are in the process of prioritizing and roundtable discussing the topics/issues that have come up. I was surprised at how many want to see more learning/service days/workshops. It will be interesting to see how things shape up over the next few months.

We still operate with resource officers rather than standing committees and have had a hard time keeping these positions filled.

Our first annual Learning Day last January was a huge success. We started out the day with a workshop for GSR’s that was so well received that we could have probably spent the whole day on just that one topic. I would like to thank the Central California Region for their help and participation in this event. They helped facilitate the round table discussions on the IDT’s. We where hoping to have 50 people in attendance and ended up with close to 80 in attendance and had to scramble for more tables and chairs. We are looking forward to next years learning day with the Conference Agenda Report being our main topic.

We have no issues to bring forward to this body this year but we are looking forward to our discussions the next couple of days and I am sure that there will be a lot of things to learn from our fellow regions.

Washington Northern Idaho Region

We have 21 Areas consisting of approximately 800 meetings spanning over 74,000 square miles that include Washington State, North Idaho, and a bit of North Eastern Oregon, and part of Western Montana.  Our RSC meets quarterly for two days at a central location. Average attendance is 50 committee members. Our RSC has lots of unity and most of our decisions are reached by consensus

At our Annual Convention, we held a small group discussion on “Who is missing from our meetings”, and then presented a draft RSC Vision Statement, and did small group discussion on regional goals.  This continues to be a successful way to communicate information and it is likely to continue.  We plan on asking our Conventions and Events committee to include holding small group discussion at our region’s conventions as a permanent part of the program at our conventions.

Our RD team continues to utilize a quarterly report to the region that summarizes NAWS News, NA Way Magazine, World Board reports, and and Western States Zonal Forum news.  The purpose is to increase communication throughout the levels of service and to particularly reach the individual group member.  It is a one page report and we bring enough copies to our region for RCMs to distribute to all groups.  I see this get back to my home area, and my home group, and it is cool to see it being read by members there.

12 of 21 of our areas have merged H&I and PI (and usually phonelines) into PR committees, and most of our areas are actively moving forward with implementing the Public Relations handbook.  Our RD team has been reading and discussing it at our quarterly all subcommittee meeting and regional service committee meeting.

The region by unanimous consent nominated our regional delegate, Jack H., as a regional nominee for WSC co-facilitator at the 2008 WSC elections.

The only noteworthy issue we have is a resistance to move away from CAR Workshops and use the Regional Assembly as a communication mechanism.

Pacific Cascade Region of Narcotics Anonymous 
Western States Zonal Forum – July 2007

Hi, my name is Denise, and I am the regional delegate for the Pacific Cascade Region.  Unfortunately, our alternate delegate, Tauni M cannot be here.  She is in Coos Bay attending our regional service conference and assembly.  We hold our regional service conference quarterly and our regional assembly twice a year.  We rotate this event all over the region with different areas hosting each conference and/or assembly.  This allows even the smaller areas to participate.

Our region consists of 14 areas, as listed below, with a total of 463 meetings per week.  Our Portland Area has recently formed three separate areas; Portland area, Tualatin Valley area, and the Greater Willamette Valley area.


Area 		# of Mtgs per Week 
Central Oregon High Desert24
Coos Bay11
Eugene47
Greater Willamette Valley17
Linn Benton Lincoln 36 
MidWillamette Valley23
North Coast4
OR-Cal8
Portland165
Rogue redwood27
Siskiyou17
Southern Oregon34
Tualatin Valley 28
Umpqua Valley22

Our website, PCRNA.org, recently added a very nice map of our region.  It shows the location of all of our areas.  We also have links to NA.org and each of our areas.  Our wonderful webmaster is also including our regional minutes, budget reports, and regional events.

I enjoy our regional assemblies.  During the two Tauni and I facilitated this past year, we covered issue discussion topics and the basic text project.  Our region is struggling to find trusted servants to fill regional positions.  This also seems to be a continuing issue in many of our areas.  It seems our program grows as we grow.  Sometimes we have tremendous spiritual growth – we can finish several steps in one month, can attend six meetings a week, have extra time to help out with the dance, attend area, and still have plenty of time for our jobs and our families.  Other times it is all we can do to get out of bed and get through that day without using.

So goes our fellowship.  Sometimes we have plenty of gung-ho people to carry the message.  Then we have the times when we limp through the RSC with only 5 out of 17 positions filled.  I feel that to be part of the solution, I need to continue to grow spiritually so I can be present to do my part.

Denise T
Honored Trusted Servant
Pacific Cascade Region –

http://www.pcrna.org/images/PCRNA%20oregon-county-map.GIF

PS – I hate to beat a dead horse, but we’re still working on the insurance issue.  Our region is also interested in discussing how, or if, other regions are integrating the PR handbook in their regions.  In other words, are you combining H&I with PI and/or Phone-line and utilizing the handbook in that way? Or some other way?  Inquiring minds want to know.

NAWS Session

Implementation of the PR Handbook
          The PR Handbook contains two main sections. Section One (chapters one through four) provides the foundational material for effective public relations, and Section Two (chapter five through thirteen) provide guidance for specific areas of PR work.

When considering a public relations project in your area or region, the appropriate chapter in Section 2 of the PR Handbook can help guide the service body’s discussions. Before getting started on a project, consider these questions:

Public Relations Goals. 

Tradition Scenarios

Cooperation 
          A group has been holding meetings in the same facility for several years; recently, group members have neglected to properly maintain the facility, allowing members to discard cigarettes on the property, leave coffee cups around the meeting room, and ride their motorcycles close to the entrance of the facility. The group shares the building with members of the public, and the facility manger is upset by the complaints about NA from other occupants.

          In a cooperative spirit, 

The feedback that we got from the workshops that we conducted:

Self-Support 
          A local public information committee is offered a free exhibit booth at a health fair that is being hosted by a hospital. Many community providers (such as treatment centers, health screening tables, and social service agencies of the city) will be present; however, NA is the only organization being offered a free booth. The CEO of the hospital’s teenage son is a member of NA and the table is being offered free to NA because the CEO is so grateful.

The feedback that we got from the workshops that we conducted:

Anonymity 
          A local television station is producing a series on addiction and one of its featured segments is “Narcotics Anonymous—-A Community Resource.” In this segment, an NA member is featured as a spokesperson for NA in the community and the interview is conducted showing the member’s full face. The member who was interviewed has no problem with breaking his anonymity.

The feedback that we got from the workshops that we conducted:

Feedback from the 2nd group that worked on the Anonymity question.

2nd Set of Workshops on Implementing the PR Handbook:

PSA – TV:

PSA – Billboards:

2nd group feedback.

PSA – Radio:

Topic Discussions 
The following is a compilation of the input given by the Zonal Forum Participants on the discussion topic.

Consensus Based Decision Making. How It’s working?

Rouge Events:

Integration of PR Handbook/Regional H&I/Pi Restructuring

Sponsorship Behind the Walls

Paid Events and the 7th Tradition

Youth Committees

Note: Mike M. was chosen to write and read the WSZF report to the 2008 World Service Conference

Insurance:

Agenda For Sunday Session

Discussion took place on starting and ending times for the Sunday session, and how much more NAWS participation we will have time for
NAWS Report 
Being Effective RD Workshop
Finish Topic Discussions

Issue Discussion Topic Workshops

This topic was mainly about which regions have done workshops; and generally speaking how they were attended and received.
As with most things some went well and were well attended and others were frustrating.

Term Limits For RD and RDA

Financial Systems & Software for Financial Accountability

Cultural Outreach

Web Based Phonelines

Getting More Involvement in the CAR

Insurance Across the Border

Grandiose Event

NAWS Session

How to be an Effective RD

Regional Delegates are a crucial link in the chain of communication and decision making in the Narcotics Anonymous service system. As leader in service, these trusted ervice set an example for other members in how they fill their roles and responsibilities. In order to do the best job possible, there are a few requirement.

Requirement for Success

What RD’s should know:                                                 Skills and Qualities RD’s should have:

Steps, Traditions, Concepts                                                 Preparedness
Their own strengths & weakness                                         Integrity 
History of Decision                                                              Facilitator skills
                                                                                              Communication skills
                                                                                              Delegation
                                                                                              Leadership development 

After considering the “Requirement for Success” that we have defined for ourselves and our trusted servants, we should consider the following questions:

Role of RD

  1. Effective communication point between WSC and region. (both ways)
  2. Educator
  3. Knowledge base
  4. Discussion facilitator 
  5. Supporter of areas. 
  6. history base
  7. Steward of history/knowledge
  8. Provide intermediary capacity to NAWS for more responsiveness.
  9. Leaders (servant)
  10. Responsibility to ask difficult question.
  11. arbitrator 
  12. Know your regions heart
  13. Mentors & examples of service & recovery.
  14. Participation in world level decision making 
  15. Resource for world level service. (and all levels)
  16. Single point of accountability. 

Questions Workshop

What can the ASC, RSC, and NAWS do to help these trusted servant reach those goal?
Skill

  1. Expect accountability
  2. Express clearly defined expections
  3. Resources of past history duties
  4. Pretend they care
  5. Take action on information provided
  6. Atta Boyst
  7. Present workshops.

2nd group

  1. Hold servants accountable 
  2. Use tools  supplied by NAWS
  3. Fourth Concept
  4. Education to the fellowship of what an RD is.

What can an RD, alternate, or potential RD do to move toward the “Requirement for Success:?
Skills

  1. Understand message to convey.
  2. Sit with mentor of experience 
  3. Reserve personal opinion
  4. Pick you battle
  5. Prepare before report
  6. Work steps & again
  7. Unity more important than being right
  8. Don’t always voice opinion
  9. Speak only once on issue
  10. Talk to, not at.

2nd Group

  1. Work the steps
  2. Attend & facilitate 
  3. Sponsor/mentor

NAWS Report

NAWS Update – unofficial notes for Western States Zonal Forum, 22 July 2007

Issue Discussion Topics
As reported in past issues of NAWS News and the NA Way magazine, we have been able to use input on the issue discussion topics to take some next steps. Here are some of the latest discussion points from each topic:
 

Building Strong Home Groups: Members everywhere seem to share common understandings of what a strong home group should do and how it should do it. We have collected these ideas and compiled them into the “Qualities of Strong Home Groups” piece that was included in the April NA Way. This information was also helpful in developing the Building Strong Home Groups worksheet, which appeared in the April NA Way and the NAWS News that followed the January board meeting.

Who’s Missing from Our Meetings and Why?: Input on this topic led to two important distinctions. First, there are populations in our communities that we are not reaching with our message. This could be due to misconceptions about what NA is and who we’re here for, or it could be due to gaps in our outreach and public relations. Second, there are also populations that find us, but don’t come back or stay. We can take a look at our groups to make sure we’re making room for all addicts, and making sure they know they’re welcome. 

Our Service System: Input on the third issue has raised three main areas of concern. First, we need to find ways to make our service meetings as attractive and welcoming as our recovery meetings. Second, we need to clarify the connections between our principles and leadership in our service efforts. Third, we need to address limited human and financial resources. The third and final point has two sub-issues: encouraging self-support among our membership (not just money, but time), and implement planning at all levels to accomplish the most with our resources.

Project Updates

Basic Text: following the deadline for input, we processed a great deal of information from around the world. The workgroup oversaw revisions, including decisions about stories to be added and removed. The approval draft has a total of 51 stories, and will be available by the end of August, free for download or $8.00 by mail.
The new Basic Text will be 6×9 in size. 

PR Handbook: The PR Handbook remains available for free download at na.org, but can also be ordered for $5.00. When the second batch of addenda material becomes available, the price will increase to $8.50. Addenda material (also available for free download) will be available separately for those who already have copies of the handbook at $3.50. It is possible to sign up at na.org to be notified when new resources are available, and the resource section will also be posted separately online with a cover page so members know if they have the latest information.

Other Service Material: The board recently approved the first round of board-developed service pamphlets, including the following titles: “Introduction to NA Meetings,” “Group Trusted Servants Roles and Responsibilities,” “Group Business Meetings,” “NA Groups and Medication,” and “Violent and Disruptive Behavior.” These pieces are in production and will be mailed to all conference participants. They will be available for sale at the same price as regular IPs. More pieces are in the works, including pieces about leadership, the benefits of service, and an explanation of NA World Services. We also have a new US insurance bulletin available.

Targeted literature: The Youth workgroup met in early July to process input on the draft materials, and made recommendations for revision that were subsequently approved by the board. Approval drafts of the new pieces for young addicts and for parents of young addicts will be ready soon to be included in the CAR.

Service and Fellowship Development Workshops

NAWS continues to host workshops at a wide variety of local events around the world, including regional conventions and zonal forums. In addition to the importance of ongoing dialogue through the IDTs, we are able to conduct sessions on a number of service-related topics as dictated by the needs of the local communities. CAR workshops will soon be an important focus.

Freestanding NAWS events have recently included worldwide workshops in Lincoln, Nebraska and Paris, France. The next NAWS event, other than WCNA, is the Literature Distribution and Convention workshop in Woodland Hills, which takes place in November.

Other notes

WCNA-32 will take place 29 August – 2 September 2007. Pre-registration ended on 13 July. Please visit na.org for the latest information.

Issue Discussion Topic session profiles were posted at na.org in June. Please use these resources to conduct IDT workshops in your communities and share your input with us, both on the session profiles and on the topics themselves!

The Basic Text joined our huge collection of online literature in January. Spread the word!

The Locally-developed resource area at na.org remains available. A lot of material has been downloaded, and a bit has been shared with us. Please continue to share your local resources with us so we can make them available to the rest of the world!

Finally, the conference participant bulletin board also remains available for all conference participants from WSC 2000 on. Please help us and each other by participating in these discussions. One of our hopes is to develop tools to help RDs, and this is a great place for you to share your thoughts and ideas with us.

Meeting ended at 12:00 pm on Sunday

WSZF