From Cracow to Jerusalem

Board of Trustees: July has been an eventful month for our Trustees. Three Trustees rotated off the Board after having served the Fellowship for their full four-year terms; one other was not reaffirmed by the GDA. In the meantime, our Nominations Committee has been busy recruiting and interviewing new Trustee candidates. One new Trustee was approved by the GDA at the Polish Convention in July. 

International Convention in Poland: Our first post-COVID International Convention was a great success. We were very proud and pleased on how SA Poland stepped up to host the July 2023 SA International Convention. There were some bumps working with the ICC, but as always happens the HP showed up and showed off. The international flavor of SA was evident and rich. A personal highlight for me was reconnecting with several European SA members with whom I had met and worked with in the past. Another was mealtimes when I would intentionally sit with someone I didn’t know, whose first language was not English. We used Google Translate at times to aid communication. Lots of smiles and positive nonverbal communication made such encounters so enjoyable and fun.

Next Year in Jerusalem! “Stepping into the Light”: Our next International Convention will be in Jerusalem on January 22-24. The Jerusalem fellowship has been working hard to make this convention a great success. Register now at sa.org or steppingintothelight.org. The Trustees will be meeting at the convention location on Jan 21st.  We hope to see you there.

New Pamphlet:  The GDA has approved an updated “The SA Home Group” pamphlet, which includes a new section “How to Manage Group Finances.”  

Coming Soon: The Public Information Committee is producing a great new set of videos to help the newcomer entitled the “Newcomer Orientation Video Series.” They are both fun and informative. The Trustees have reviewed and approved the videos, which will be reviewed by the GDA at the October GDA meeting. 

Meeting Census: As of July 01, 2023, through the Meeting Registration System, RAC has recorded 1,878 meetings. 33 of these meetings indicate that they do not adhere to the SA Statement of Principle. 59 meetings have indicated no region or intergroup. The Persian-Speaking Region has not used the Meeting Registration System but has stated that they have 163 meetings in their country. So, the counting continues. Please keep your meeting registration current, because the IT Committee is working to convert the sa.org Meeting Finder to use the same database. If your meeting isn’t registered, do so today! This new app puts the power of the web in your hands for newcomers to find you.

Web Application Developer Needed. SA is still looking for volunteer web application developers to build and maintain new functions on our sa.org website. Example functions are the Meeting Finder, Event Registration, SA Store, etc. Needs experience in web design and development with knowledge in PHP, HTML, CSS, and basic SQL. Talk with your sponsor about what you can do. If you are interested, contact SAICO to get in touch with the IT Committee.

Finances. This continues to be a difficult year for us, with inflation raising the prices on everything we do. Please keep contributing through your local meetings, intergroups, and regions—and make any extra contributions directly to sa.org. Remember: We accept no outside donations, so it’s up to all of us to make sure we can continue to provide the services we do.