[Businessmtg] Prudent Reserve / Excess Funds

[Steve Rankin]

Hi folks,
I'd like to respond to a few things that both Missy and Jerry have brought
up.
1.  The 60/30/10% distribution plan has been my experience in dozens of
face-to-face meetings.  My personal opinion is that it is as good a plan as
any and better than anything else I've heard of.
2.  District. True, there are no Districts yet and it may be a while before
we know anything for certain.
3.  However, we do know that the Area IS responsible for a number of
substantial start-up expenses and recurring operating expenses, and the
annual cost of the Equalized Expense of the World Service Conference which I
believe should have been established by WSO back in January.
4.  I believe that it is also worth noting the following:
A. WSO has exercised tight control of the process to date, far beyond what a
number of us on the CMA Forum feel is appropriate.  Examples?  
	a. WSO set detailed criteria for when the Groups would elect their
Area officers, 
	b. set detailed criteria for who could vote in the Area election
including registration deadlines that I've never seen in f2f elections.
Group Reps that were duly elected by their groups but had not registered
with WSO before WSO's arbitrary deadline were not permitted to participate
in the Assembly.   
	c. Continued to run every facet of the election process, even after
an Area Chair had been elected for that purpose.  That Area Chair was little
more than a figure head to open an Assembly run by WSO,
	d. WSO communicated with the Groups exclusively through the CMA
Forum and did nothing to inform the Groups via the normal contact
information of the CMA.  The only way for the Groups to know what was
happening was to join and participate in the CMA Forum run by WSO.
	e. Registering for the CMA Forum included a requirement that WSO
owned the copyrights to anything said in the CMA Forum - not the member who
said it.
	f.  WSO frequently instructed the CMAs in the CMA Forum that what
was said in the Forum was private and not to be repeated.  Not only is this
contrary to 'e' above, how are the CMAs supposed to communicate what they
learn in the CMA Forum if everything is subject to anonymity?
And more directly to the point about the 7th Tradition . . .
	g. It seems that most electronic meetings have no expenses.  Either
they take advantage of a free service, or the leader of the Group pays the
Group's expenses.  
	h. A large majority of the electronic meetings on the CMA Forum have
commented that they send all of their donations to WSO.  Some groups even
instruct their members to send donations directly to WSO instead.
	i. One other CMA and myself have been vocal in the CMA Forum about
the need for the Groups to donate to the new Area, but it seems that no one
is listening.  
	j.  I found it disturbing that WSO has been mute on the subject.
Even when asked, WSO has not responded.   
	k. For reasons that I do not understand, the CMA Forum is for CMAs
exclusively.  Group Reps are not permitted to join or participate in the CMA
Forum.  
	l. Last, but not least, we have received nothing regarding how to
contact our new Area Officers.  This is in spite of direct questions to WSO.

Unlike the traditional face-to-face meetings that have benefitted from
decades of work within our service structure, it seems that a very large
majority of the electronic meetings have no experience and 
As a result, it appears that WSO is receiving 100% of all donations received
by or on behalf of the electronic meetings.  This is a gold mine for WSO,
but does nothing to support our part of the service structure.  
As for Jerry's comment that our decision to withhold sending our excess
funds to WSO is not being fully self-supporting - I disagree.  Our Seventh
Tradition states "Every group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining
outside contributions."  There is nothing in the Seventh Tradition that says
anything about supporting WSO.  To the contrary, everything written in our
literature about sending funds to WSO is published by WSO itself.  
Love and SERENITY,
Steve



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