News from the International Service Organization

The International Service Organization (ISO) of SCA met last weekend in San Diego. We covered a large number of items on a three-day agenda, and there will be additional reports as time goes by. Next year we will meet for the first time outside the United States, in Toronto.

We approved one entirely new piece of literature, “Avoiding Common Pitfalls on the Road of Recovery,” as well as a slight modification to the existing pamphlet “For the Newcomer.”

We also discussed the concept of
Regional Coordinators and asked New York and Los Angeles to each round
up one volunteer.

The Regional Coordinators act as the liaison between ISO and the local
groups and intergroups, so having one of the existing ISO reps perform
this function would make sense, though it is certainly not a
requirement.

This person would be asked to serve as a member of the ISO Inreach
Committee, which has a telephone meeting approximately every two months,
usually on a Saturday from 12-1 pm, Los Angeles time, or 3-4 pm New York time.

We have several current projects in various stages. As coordinator, you
would be asked to either work on such projects or give status reports
when there is no progress.

1) Liaison to groups and Intergroups. We have a form letter available
for emailing. You would reach out to the Intergroups in your region, to
make sure that their ISO reps exist, and to find out when they are
replaced and who the replacements are. I would also hope you would
encourage the reps (at least) to join ISO-LIST and to look at the online
SCAnner — ScannerOnline.org.

2) Nominating committee. You would let your contacts know about any
ISO-level vacancies and encourage them to suggest people who might want
to do service for these particular needs or any others they might have
in mind.

These are processes, not events, and I would expect the level of success
to vary over time and place. I am open to any approach you think would
work. Over the past year, we have successfully contacted the various
groups so that we can remove the password protection from the
International Meeting List on the Web, for example.

Our Regional Coordinator system has proved very effective overseas and
in the Central USA. I look forward to working with a Los Angeles rep in
the Western USA and a New York rep in the Eastern USA.

In service,

John F., ISO Inreach Committee Chair

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