Woodland Hills, California

Mary T., Alternate Delegate, opened the meeting with the Serenity Prayer. There were 40 in attendance, 12 DCM’s out of the 33 Districts.

Members of the Area Committee voted unanimously to give everyone in attendance a vote at this meeting.

It was suggested that we vote to ratify the process of implementation of the new area. The meeting agenda had this vote as last, so we could discuss the process first and then vote on it. A sense of the meeting was taken, and we voted overwhelmingly to discuss the process and to vote at the end of the meeting.

Mary gave out drafts of handouts for DCM’s to take to their Districts, to give to their GSR’s to discuss and/or take back to their groups. These handouts were: Purpose of General Service Meetings (District, Area Committee, & Assembly), Area Committee Survey for GSR’s, Elected Area Officers, Area Standing Service Committees. We voted to use the forms as written. Gustavo and the translation committee will translate the forms into Spanish.

The Service Manual is the best reference for all of our activities:

Area Assembly, pages S32 - S35

Area Committee, page S40

District, pages S28 – S29

Standing Committees (Conference), page S56

We had a round table sharing session so that everyone had a chance to express his or her opinion. Some comments included:

We need to set priorities for implementation of the new area -- we don’t have to do everything at once.

This is a golden opportunity to make our Districts and Area work.

The new Area belongs to the groups and the GSR’s, so the more input they have the better.

Districts should focus on local issues.

In Spanish speaking Districts GSR’s give out a written group report. Gustavo will translate a couple of these into English so we can all see what they say.

Most business should be handled at the Area Committee Meetings so Assemblies can be used for special programs.

There are too many meetings, why not keep it simple? Meetings should be shorter.

GSR’s should have one commitment a month, either District meeting or Assembly. Districts could chose to meet 8 times a year or 12 if they also want to meet at Assemblies.

We should have GSR schools to help them to better understand their commitment.

We can alternate our Assemblies between Saturdays and Sundays.

New Area 05 will be one of the smallest geographic areas in the US and Canada so we can try some informal activities.

We have three natural sub areas in the new area 05. They are (1) The English speaking districts from downtown west to the ocean. (2) The English speaking districts of Pasadena, Whittier, & the San Gabriel and the Pomona Valleys. (3) The Spanish speaking districts. Some activities like the Delegate’s report, workshops, and sharing sessions can be done on a sub area basis.

Our area is so small that we can have service committees on the Area level only -- with subcommittees instead of district committees to do local service work. Many districts don’t have enough people for district service committees.

Page S33 of the Service Manual suggests how to deal with inactive service workers.

We are one of the only areas to have different kinds of districts, like stand-alone districts, combined districts, etc. Perhaps our area does not need combined districts any longer. The Spanish speaking districts can decide if they need an interdistrict committee.

We voted overwhelmingly to ratify the implementation process. Everyone will solicit as much input as possible from GSR’s and the groups.

We voted to have another meeting (rescheduled for) Saturday July 22^nd at 9:00 am at the Plymouth-Wilshire Methodist Church 4350 Wilshire Blvd. LA.

After much discussion we voted to give voting privileges at subsequent meetings to all who attended this first meeting, plus any other New Area 05 Area Committee members and GSR’s.

The meeting was adjourned at 3:30 PM with the Responsibility Pledge.

Respectively Submitted by