Covering the area from Palo Alto up to the border of San Francisco, CA

Are you a Newcomer to Overeaters Anonymous? If so:

- Please read About OA

- Take a Quiz to see if you may be a compulsive overeater

- Attend one of our Meetings held every day of the week

For All:

• Please visit the Upcoming Events page for local workshops, retreats, special meetings and more.
• To find a meeting outside of the Mid-Peninsula area, click here

On Saturday, August 7 from 11:30am-12:30pm a special meeting will be held on the topic of sponsorship in OA-HOW. The meeting will take place at Open Door Church, 4150 Piccadilly Lane in San Mateo. Please email the webmaster with any questions.

The Thursday Palo Alto meeting usually held at 7pm is closing down at the end of May 2010 due to low attendance.

Please consult the Mid-Peninsula OA Meeting List to locate another meeting that fits your schedule.

The Business Conference was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico and was attended by 165 delegates and 15 trustees.  The 180 members of Overeaters Anonymous were from all over the world, representing the collective group conscience. Before voting, we were reminded to call upon our personal Higher Power for direction and guidance in our decisions for the good of OA as a whole. Region 2 has a total of 34 Intergroups, and 18 of them were represented, which meant that 58% of the Intergroups sent delegates.

REPORTS GIVEN BY BOARD MEMBERS:

WHAT DOES WORLD SERVICE DO FOR OA?

• New television public service announcement about OA on local tv stations in U.S. and Canada.  Some TV shows also are including OA in their scripts, and our WS office monitors this to ensure that Traditions are upheld.
• The professional community has been requesting OA professional packets in enormously increased amounts.
• Because of contributions to the Delegate support Fund, $5,050 was used to assist the following delegates to attend this year’s conference: Austria, Poland, Inland Empire, and Northeast Iowa.
• In 2009, the number of OA meetings worldwide was 6,658, in over 62 countries.
• OA website gets 87,000 visits per month.
• Fiscally, OA, Inc. ended FY2009 in a positive position with 14% increase in revenue.  Region 2 contributed the greatest amount.
• International publications/translations:    OA literature has been translated into 20 languages in 33 countries, including Japanese, Russian, Farsi, Icelandic, Slovenian, Afrikaans, Turkish, and Greek.
• WS Office will host an OA booth at one tradeshow this year:  American Academy of Family Physicians, September 29-October3, 2010, expected attendance is 5000 physicians and other healthcare professionals.

TWELFTH-STEP-WITHIN COMMITTEE

I chose to serve on this committee at Conference.  The purpose of this committee:  to carry the same message of recovery to those who still suffer WITHIN the OA fellowship; to deal with  relapse and issues of membership retention, offering the message of hope; and to encourage maintaining recovery and preventing relapse amongst our members. They have revised The Twelfth-Step-Within Handbook, and it was given to every delegate there.  There is also a Speakers List, which was passed around to the delegates at conference if they wanted to join the list.  Others can sign up by going to OA.ORG

ELECTIONS OF TRUSTEES

• Meg Harlor ran unopposed and was elected Trustee for Region 2.
• Geri Helms ran unopposed and was elected Trustee for Region 8.
• The candidate for Region 10 (Australia) was asked to remove his application, since he was not at a healthy body weight, which is a qualification for trustees.
• There were 5 who ran for the two General Service Trustee positions.   Barbara Bertelsen from San Francisco and Vicki Wilcox from Utah were elected.  The other 3 who were not elected were Karen C., Raymond Frye, and LaVerna Griffin.

MOTIONS

• The pamphlet, A Common Solution: Diversity and Recovery, was DEFEATED, in a very close vote.  It needed 2/3 to pass, and the vote was 113 yes to 64 no.
• The revised pamphlet, Questions & Answers, PASSED.
• The pamphlet, Sponsoring Through the Twelve Steps, PASSED 125 to 49.
• The pamphlet, The Tools of Recovery, PASSED almost unanimously.
• The pamphlet, To The Family of the Compulsive Eater, PASSED.
• The pamphlet, To the Teen, PASSED almost unanimously.
• The pamphlet, Welcome Back, PASSED almost unanimously.

These pamphlets will be available to us this Fall.

• PROPOSAL H :  Amended and PASSED: WSBC Final Conference Report be made available electronically ( and receipt of printed version to all delegates and service bodies continue.)
• PROPOSAL C:  PASSED 92 to 74:  Establish Youth in OA Conference Committee.
• PROPOSAL E:  PASSED:  Reword policy statement to make it clear that selling or displaying AA Conference-approved literature is not against Tradition Six and is permitted.
• PROPOSAL D: PASSED unanimously:  Reword policy statement to eliminate printed copies of mailings to service bodies that don’t require them.   (saves a great deal of money).
• PROPOSAL G: The words “Compulsive eater” be used instead of “Compulsive Overeater”.     This motion was withdrawn by the maker.
• PROPOSAL F:  PASSED unanimously:  Requires all groups wishing to register electronically with the WSO to provide an email contact and name with the request.
• PROPOSAL B:  PASSED unanimously:  Locally produced literature must be developed according to guidelines and be approved by a service body beyond the group level.
• PROPOSAL I :  PASSED  with a written ballot of 90 to 82, after being amended :  Add a ninth tool “ Action Plan”.
• PROPOSAL      ITEM 3:  PASSED unanimously:  Motion to eliminate unnecessary Conference mailings to service bodies that don’t need them.
• PROPOSAL ITEM 2:  PASSED:  Change wording for qualifications of delegates so that “beyond group level” is used instead of “above group level”.

Shari Greenberg

Mid-Peninsula Intergroup Delegate

May 2010

Katie’s R2 Spring Assembly Report (March 19, March 20, 2010):

Hello fellow intergroupers! Sorry I can not give this report live and in person. I am up in the sticks probably freezing my butt off right now. Here is my report!

I attended my 2nd R2 assembly, and I will say I even enjoyed myself. I enjoyed learning about the business part as this time I knew what to expect therefore was a lot more present. My items were: Motions, Interactive workshops, and report on young person committee meeting.

MOTIONS:
Motion 1 was to amend the IFAP procedures for submittal. The IFAP is a form that a intergroup files out before they can get reimbursed for attending the assemblies. This for smaller intergroups that can’t always afford to send a rep. What was amended was the due date for the application. IT was amended to be 60 days prior to the assembly, from the current “due by end of first business session”. This will lessen the confusion of how much money the individual receives, as well ass further confusion at the assembly.

Also amended was the fact that the treasurer will notify the intergroup representative no less then 30 days prior to assembly the amount that IFAP scholarship will be for.

This motion was approved

Motion 2 was to amend the budget to increase the amount of the 12-step within committee allowance from 50.00 to 100.00. Their reason was to help with costs of spreading information to other Intergroups, pamphlets and such.

This motion was approved.

Motion 3 was tabled till fall assembly

Motion 4 was to use the unused funds for 2nd level reps and supplement 1st level reps. For this assembly only. This would take the available money and substitute the costs for the 1st level reps.

a 1st level rep is the chair, co-chair, treasurer, secretary, I am not sure what the 2nd level reps were, I will get clarification on this before next assembly report.

This motion was passed

Motion 5 was to add 500 dollars to the PI(public information) budget to buy “take back items” to be given out at the convention in June 2010. The money will be used to purchase pens etc that will display the r2 logo as well as OA approved items that participants in the convention can take with them in order to carry the message. This additional money will be for this year only and used at the 2010 convention.

This motion was passed

Motion 6 (the original motion was withdrawn)

Motion 6 b This was a motion to increase the amount of scholarships for smaller intergroups to send a representative to the world business conference in New Mexico.

Surprisingly this raised some cons and I was involved in the going back and forward that this motion produced. In the end it was voted on to limit the amount of scholarships to 1,000 per intergroup with no more than $3,000 being used for this cause. This is to help the smaller intergroups send a representative to the world business conference this year.

What this motion means is that 3 people who would not have been able to attend due to small intergroups and lack of funding will be able to attend the conference and extend their mindful service.

INTERACTIVE WORKSHOP

We were broken up into groups and each given a particular story that violates pretty much all of the traditions. It was then the individual groups part to find what traditions were broken, and then explain why.

We also learned a new way to look at the traditions, which I thought was very helpful:

1.    Unity

2.    Trust

3.    Identity

4.    Autonomy

5.    Purpose

6.    Solidarity

7.    Responsibility

8.    Fellowship

9.    Structure

10.  Neutrality

11.  Anonymity

12.  Spirituality

This was very informative because it is sometimes hard to put the traditions into action in a meeting as well as everyday life. I suggested to Lynn that we sign up for a S&T (service and traditions) workshop to improve the quality of our meetings at the group level as well as intergroup.

YOUNG PERSONS

We grew! We got bigger by 5 people and 3 of those people were actual YOUNG people!! It was very exciting and I was very motivated when I left the meeting this time. We talked about ways we can spread the message. We decided that “planting seeds” should be the focus of our committee and we are in the process of going over the literature and gear it more toward young people and see if that helps. One of the fellows is contacting facebook on finding a way to have a fan page that will be for information only and that way we can display meetings, blogs, sayings etc. all anonymous.

I made a commitment to the committee to be more active as well. My action is to contact at least one high school/college health service dept. and see if they are willing to have any information displayed at their office, or if they want further information.

I am also writing a story for the newsletter.

Thank you for allowing me to be your R2 rep. I am really loving learning about the behind the scenes of the program that means so much to me. I hope to continue to learn more about this program and myself as well.

Thank you,

Katie

The  Saturday 10:00-11:15 am HOW/OA Speaker meeting has changed locations now meets at the Open Door Church, 4150 Piccadilly Lane in San Mateo, between 41st & 42nd Ave just west of El Camino Real. This new location is Handicapped Accessible and can accommodate large meetings! See map for location details.

There are several OA Men’s speaker/sharing meetings held in individual’s homes throughout the year. For more information download/print the .pdf flyer

All HOW/OA Meetings that were normally held at 910 Marshall Street (the Birch Building) are now held at the Kaiser Hospital Pediatrics Building (610 Walnut Street). Details/directions in the .pdf flyer

The Mid-Peninsula Intergroup meeting location and time has changed. See the Mid-Peninsula Intergroup page for details.

There is a Saturday OA-HOW Phone Meeting. For more information, download/print .pdf flyer

The Monday night 7:30 Half Moon Bay meeting has moved to Wednesday mornings at 10:30am.  Same location.