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GNO Service Board Meeting – Thurs., July 25, 2024

Product Scanner. We’ve added all products with bar codes to Square and have begun building out a book of bar codes for all products without them, about 80% of our more than 600 SKUs have been added or had bar codes created for them, and we intend to complete this project by end of July.

Phone Lines and Hotline Transition From Landline to Digital. Success! AT&T installed the new phones and Wi-Fi hardware on Friday, July 19, 2024, and ported our office phone number and hotline phone number to the new digital lines. We programmed the hotline schedule into AT&T’s web portal, so the hotline number call forwarding now happens automatically on that schedule. Any changes needed to be made to the schedule for substitutions or home group hours can be routed through manual overrides via Central Office (if enough time is given during office hours to program the override) or via AT&T’s Tech Support hotline and backup customer support. Both help desk phone numbers have been provided to hotline volunteers. Besides a few minor hiccups during the transition to the new system, so far so good.

Website Updates. We continue to work on building out webpages for different service committees and areas of the fellowship. Our current focus from a tech perspective is on rebuilding the website for navigation and accessibility with the Service Board Website Team. From a content perspective, our intention for the website is to support both newcomers to the program as well as members who are interested in getting more involved in service work.

Printed Meeting Guide and Meeting List. We have begun an outreach initiative to local districts, home groups, and meetings to begin a review of our meeting data. This is our first step in beginning the process of organizing and formatting that meeting data in more accessible ways. These include newly organized versions of the printed meeting lists available in Newcomer and Treatment Packets, as requested by T&C service committee members, as well as bringing back the Printed Meeting Guide in time, as requested by our fellowship.

Digital Packets. We received more guidance from AAWS, first the Literature committee and then the IP committee very soon after the June 2024 Service Board meeting, when we first presented the drafts of the digital packets. We have updated the digital packets per that AAWS guidance, including edited disclaimer verbiage and changing the links from the pamphlet PDFs themselves to the AAWS webpage that links to the PDF. Drafts of previous versions of these digital packets seem to have left with attendees of last month’s Service Board meeting. We request that any versions of the previous drafts of the pamphlets will please be returned to Central Office or discarded in favor of the updated version of those digital packets. Thank you.

Digital Packets Pricing. As this initiative is intended to offset the rising costs of pamphlets, and by extension the packets that contain them, we have considered different options for how to price (or not) the digital packets. To abide by AAWS terms, instead of charging for the digital packets themselves, we propose offering the PDF files for free download from our website, and then offering printing services through Central Office at a fair price comparable to other local printing businesses. This would cover the costs of our printer paper, ink, and maintenance fees. We would like to make a motion for a discussion on this, because if approval would be possible at today’s meeting or next month, we already have districts, committees, meetings, and local community care providers who are interested and willing to distribute this digital literature alternative and carry the message with us.

Updated Laminates. Our Assistant Manager Colyn has updated our meeting laminates and has created several new laminates to create more options as to how we carry the message during meetings.

T&C Products. We have updated the T&C Meeting Format available via Central Office and have added products such as cardboard pamphlet holders for use in meetings at corrections facilities, per requests from T&C service committees.

Pricing Changes for Central Office Products & Service Board Financial Inventory. While costs do continue to rise, we also recognize that prices of some products at Central Office are inaccessible to members of our fellowship. We would like to move forward with lowering prices on certain products. To do so effectively, we would need to have a more accurate understanding of Service Board annual revenue sources outside of Central Office product sales. These revenue sources to support Central Office operating expenses have included contributions from Big Deep South, home groups and meetings, as well as individual members and Central Office Backers. A financial inventory would provide clarity to the Service Board and Central Office.

This information would help us discern whether our Office could move forward with the proposed lowering of product prices while also maintaining the ability to cover monthly operating expenses and sales taxes, product costs, and to remain reasonably fluid as a place of business. We request that the Service Board Trustees review the Big Deep South financial situation as part of a larger Service Board financial inventory. Central Office could then calculate any contribution that may be coming from Big Deep South events as we move forward with these product pricing decisions.