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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. 

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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.

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.

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.

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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.

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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.
 
 

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.

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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.