AOSM Fiji 2023 Report
Delegate report (Laura) (AOSM) --I went to AOSM As the English speaking Delegate for South korea. a Korean person named Mr. Paik showed up, but he is an observer and no one elected him to be a delegate. Mr. Paik was very upset that Korea does not have a delegate and he is striving hard to have one elected and sent to the next AOSM.
There were people from Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Egypt, Dubai (UAE), Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and two people came all the way from the central office in New York to help us.In total, there were 14 delegates from 9 countries and there were 2 observers from the Central Office New York and about 18 observers.
Bernie in Dubai helped Peter as his service sponsor in MERCAA, Middle East Regional Committee of AA. Bertie S works with PAF Policy, Admissions, and Finance. Peter, our previous delegate, was on that committee and is the alternate chair. Bertie S is the (now outgoing) chair. Korea is closely associated with MERCAA and also with Mongolia. The Mongolian delegates were not there because they were doing a celebration for (I believe 35) years in Mongolia.
I am on the PAF committee. We worked on proposals such as looking over the budget, and considering opening a WISE account as AOSM. This type of account would allow AOSM to transfer money in between currencies with no financial penalties, receive funds from all over the world, and prevent the horrible problem we had in the past. the Japanese Financial secretary died during his tenure, and because of Japanese Financial laws it took us two years to get $7,000 back. In the meantime, AOSM was run on $2,000 donated mainly from Australia and New Zealand. We sent emails to New Zealand and Australia, the two countries who could legally host the Wise account, and they said they would talk to attorneys in AA about how to set it up. The financials were sound. The central office in the USA helped to pay for the conference.
The PAF committee also put together a policy book that is supposed to be like the pink Concepts book. We already have to run meetings based on the Traditions and the Concepts, and we needed the same kind of book for AOSM. I am the one that was actually typing in the chapter headings and I am the one altering the document. We are also putting all of our files under the AOSM Google so that we don't have yet another problem of being unable to access materials. Our next step would be to compile all of this book, mainly from sources within AOSM. We already have things like the Preamble, the Steps, and the Traditions inside. It mainly outlines the different AOSM committees and the jobs that people have, plus of course how to elect people.
The WLP (Website, Literature, and People) committee did a LOT of work, like setting up a plan for the new AOSM website (we lost our domain and are rebuilding a new one from scratch), trying to contact more of the 77 countries in AOSM, developing links to country specific websites, and uploading literature that AOSM can legally distribute for free.
Report from Bob W., General Manager, General Service Office, New York
There are two things AOSM member can do to help poor countries:
- Sponsorship/ Service Sponsorship/Country to Country Sponsorship
Working with Others (WWO) Committee
Public Information:
The Fiji, Japanese, and Hong Kong Groups have a business card they pass out with the website in the form of the QR code on one side and a cartoon of a suffering alcoholic on the other side. This has been very helpful for the police, doctors, prisons, and hospitals. Pamphlets might be thrown away, but people tend to hold onto business cards .These cards can be discreetly given to someone who might need them. The Japanese committee has manga, which are popular among young people.
Possible to look into this:
Public Information
Get with Korean AA
While I was there, Fiji AA hosted a lunch as part of the conference. In attendance were doctors, lawyers, the Salvation army (which historically has had very close ties with AA), prison officials, and leaders from various social groups.
Language, Culture, and Geography
Notes for more ways to work on service in our groups:
Anonymous Action Steps– Create an entirely anonymous Gmail account for use with social media and online AA meetings
Action Step–Add anonymity reminder to ALL meeting scripts
Election of Chairperson and Alt. Chairperson for the,16th AOSM be held in Singapore October 16-19, 2025
Chair
Committee recommends the following presentation and workshop topics for the 16th AOSM.
Presentations
Upcoming Conventions
Note: This is an extremely short version of my huge packet of notes. I was honored to attend, was able to speak to people from many different countries, and developed relationships with them. I was very humbled to be of service, and I learned a lot about what can be done to spread the message of AA within our own countries, and all over the world. If anyone would like access to my raw notes, they are available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bm-KeBZFQpL2UtOD20eBd8LDHw0R10C7EDX5etkdlP4/edit?usp=sharing
Delegate report (Laura) (AOSM) --I went to AOSM As the English speaking Delegate for South korea. a Korean person named Mr. Paik showed up, but he is an observer and no one elected him to be a delegate. Mr. Paik was very upset that Korea does not have a delegate and he is striving hard to have one elected and sent to the next AOSM.
There were people from Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, Egypt, Dubai (UAE), Russia, Hong Kong, Singapore, and two people came all the way from the central office in New York to help us.In total, there were 14 delegates from 9 countries and there were 2 observers from the Central Office New York and about 18 observers.
Bernie in Dubai helped Peter as his service sponsor in MERCAA, Middle East Regional Committee of AA. Bertie S works with PAF Policy, Admissions, and Finance. Peter, our previous delegate, was on that committee and is the alternate chair. Bertie S is the (now outgoing) chair. Korea is closely associated with MERCAA and also with Mongolia. The Mongolian delegates were not there because they were doing a celebration for (I believe 35) years in Mongolia.
I am on the PAF committee. We worked on proposals such as looking over the budget, and considering opening a WISE account as AOSM. This type of account would allow AOSM to transfer money in between currencies with no financial penalties, receive funds from all over the world, and prevent the horrible problem we had in the past. the Japanese Financial secretary died during his tenure, and because of Japanese Financial laws it took us two years to get $7,000 back. In the meantime, AOSM was run on $2,000 donated mainly from Australia and New Zealand. We sent emails to New Zealand and Australia, the two countries who could legally host the Wise account, and they said they would talk to attorneys in AA about how to set it up. The financials were sound. The central office in the USA helped to pay for the conference.
The PAF committee also put together a policy book that is supposed to be like the pink Concepts book. We already have to run meetings based on the Traditions and the Concepts, and we needed the same kind of book for AOSM. I am the one that was actually typing in the chapter headings and I am the one altering the document. We are also putting all of our files under the AOSM Google so that we don't have yet another problem of being unable to access materials. Our next step would be to compile all of this book, mainly from sources within AOSM. We already have things like the Preamble, the Steps, and the Traditions inside. It mainly outlines the different AOSM committees and the jobs that people have, plus of course how to elect people.
The WLP (Website, Literature, and People) committee did a LOT of work, like setting up a plan for the new AOSM website (we lost our domain and are rebuilding a new one from scratch), trying to contact more of the 77 countries in AOSM, developing links to country specific websites, and uploading literature that AOSM can legally distribute for free.
Report from Bob W., General Manager, General Service Office, New York
- Licensing TL@aa.org
- Overwhelming number of licensing requests for licensing and translation
- Opening new request management system to manage the translation and licensing requests
- New portal is Translation Licensing Connection (TL Connection)
- Integrated with legal administrator, Beverly Jones-King
- Has DocuSign for online signatures
- 42 processes
- Now 100 inbox messages from 3000: will be current extremely soon
- Issued 144 licenses in 9 languages in 5 countries
- Will be current in the next few months
- Does NOT include Grapevine titles; will have form in TL and will go to Grapevine
- "Translation is an art, not a science." Google Translate, iTranslate, etc. are not accepted methods of translation of AA literature. [The costs can be $3000-$4000, horrifically high for small countries. Then there is the cost of shipping unless they print it in their own countries.]
- Overwhelming number of licensing requests for licensing and translation
There are two things AOSM member can do to help poor countries:
- Country to Country Sponsorship
- International Literature Fund–translation, licensing, local publishing, literature to poor countries
- Sponsorship/ Service Sponsorship/Country to Country Sponsorship
- Australia has been communicating with a neighboring country’s Intergroup which is in the infancy of its development. In that country there is a huge need for solutions for problem drinkers. However, at times there can be cultural and religious barriers to being open to seeking help from A.A.. Expats are the dominant makeup. This sometimes hinders a service structure to develop especially when expats move on. Before joining a zonal meeting there may be a need for preliminary steps to develop a basic structure prior to any zonal attendance.
- In sponsorship we don’t tell people what to do, just simply share what is our experience and why we do something. Just like how A.A. Traditions developed – newer structures can even learn from our mistakes if they so choose.
- In country to country sponsorship, we can offer much more than just financial help.
- In member to member sponsorship, it is important to consider dynamics as to what is an appropriate sponsorship relationship.(Example, gender, sexual orientation etc.) There is not a one size fit all approach, or formal criterion but the sponsor needs to assess honestly if this dynamic is appropriate in order to focus on what we do best… recovery from alcoholism.
- A committee member offered the acronym “SPONSOR- Support -person- offering -newcomer- suggestions- on- recovery.”
- In all sponsorship everyone meets as equals.
Working with Others (WWO) Committee
- Committee members agreed that the most important alcoholic in the room may be the one who is not here… yet. (The seat we save.) The Working With Others committee noted the importance of taking the time to learn people’s cultures outside of their own experiences. Many communities know who is “missing from the rooms” and now it is important to dig deeper and ask, “Why?” And how do we remove these barriers, to widen participation in all three A.A. legacies.
- Though our common thread, alcoholism, is the same, it is important to strive to learn more deeply that the roads our members and potential members have traveled to get here may shape how they perceive A.A., hear A.A. messaging, and whether they choose to stay. Privilege is not what you have experienced but rather what you have not experienced. This understanding can be an integral part of fulfilling Traditions 3 and 5.
Public Information:
The Fiji, Japanese, and Hong Kong Groups have a business card they pass out with the website in the form of the QR code on one side and a cartoon of a suffering alcoholic on the other side. This has been very helpful for the police, doctors, prisons, and hospitals. Pamphlets might be thrown away, but people tend to hold onto business cards .These cards can be discreetly given to someone who might need them. The Japanese committee has manga, which are popular among young people.
Possible to look into this:
Public Information
Get with Korean AA
- Get business card made up with someone's name on it
- English one side, Korean the other
- Phone number
- Nonprofit registration number
- Bar code / QR code to each website, Korean and English
- Need digital vCard too
- Hospitals
- Hospitals for the treatment of alcoholism
- Police stations/police officers
- Social workers
- Ambulance drivers
- Doctors
- Nurses
- Individual medical practices
- See what can legally be linked on website, like 44 Questions and AA At a Glance
- Facebook? Linking to website
- Instagram? Linking to website
- Non-denominational religion packet for religious leaders?
- Packet for lawyers?
While I was there, Fiji AA hosted a lunch as part of the conference. In attendance were doctors, lawyers, the Salvation army (which historically has had very close ties with AA), prison officials, and leaders from various social groups.
- Delegates sat at various tables with these people and talked about what AA is and isn't, and we were asked some extremely thoughtful questions.
- Then we got in the middle and a few of us, half men and half women, had a very short meeting to show what a meeting is like. This made them feel very happy because many of them had never been exposed to an AA meeting and many were pleased to find that we shared honestly and openly and were very supportive of other alcoholics.
- Then there was a question and answer session, and I heard absolute heartbreak, especially from the ministers, many of whom also had family members that were alcoholics. At this time, there is no medical spin dry for anyone to get sober in the entire country of Fiji. So, people are risking their lives just to get sober.
- They also had no experience with the Al-Anon Family Groups. Many people were relieved to find that there was help for them as well.
- They also have early morning meetings for lawyers, and these breakfast meetings are often very helpful for the lawyers to understand and to suggest help for their clients.
- Korean AA would have to be the one to implement this in Korea, and I will definitely suggest this to Bruce.
Language, Culture, and Geography
Notes for more ways to work on service in our groups:
- Be very careful with:
- If working in Indigenous villages, approached the village elders first and explain who you are and what you're trying to do very respectfully
- Women
- LGBTQ
- Important to have online women's, men's, and LGBTQ meetings in local languages
- Have a "troll protector" to kick trolls out of the online meeting
- Train sponsees in all service positions–group and intergroup
- Have electronic ways to pay
- Train people in opening and maintenance of online meetings
- Alternates for ALL positions
- Move meetings to coffee shops as locations close due to rising rents
- MUST have Zoom/Skype/Google Meet meetings due to sudden meeting closures and people in remote areas, plus medically fragile people
- Have service workshops to introduce people to service roles and how to do them
- It's bigger than you!
- The hand of AA should always be there!
- It's bigger than you!
- Make documents describing service roles and how to do them with checklists
- Documents available on website or Google Drive
- Make sure people can access these documents in perpetuity and can be updated
- Documents available on website or Google Drive
- If working in Indigenous villages, approached the village elders first and explain who you are and what you're trying to do very respectfully
Anonymous Action Steps– Create an entirely anonymous Gmail account for use with social media and online AA meetings
Action Step–Add anonymity reminder to ALL meeting scripts
- Consider using a VOIP or WhatsApp phone number that transfers to a real phone number for flyers, websites, etc.
- Be EXTREMELY careful about full names in email addresses and phone numbers for AA emails that might get forwarded
- Lock up document depositories with passwords
- Use completely new passwords
- Be sure you NEVER use a work email
- Public event online –turn off camera and explain anonymity
- Logos do NOT HAVE AA IN THE LOGO
- Have specific days for step study, Big Book, Daily Reflections, Living Sober, As Bill Sees It, speaker
- Formats reflect this and so does website
- Rotate positions and chairperson
- Smaller groups harder to maintain multiple service positions
- Prison and H&I meetings
- Use sponsors to train sponsees on service positions or maybe a virtual service conference
- Must emphasize service in meetings
- Young mother's meetings held at local community centers–Australia
- Hong Kong women's meeting have kids in meeting
- Use of Naver Translate Papago and other apps in mixed language meetings
- More people able to attend because of online meetings–remote areas, parents, remote workers, people all over the world with different time zones
- When there sound service structures, AA can grow
- General Service structure = the power of groups
Election of Chairperson and Alt. Chairperson for the,16th AOSM be held in Singapore October 16-19, 2025
Chair
- Doug–JP–Chair
- Sheli-Hong Kong–Alternate Chair
- Greg–AU
- Steve–NZ–Treasurer
- Mary–Fiji
Committee recommends the following presentation and workshop topics for the 16th AOSM.
Presentations
- Carrying the message through country-to-country sponsorship
- Translations, Licensing, and the International Literature Fund
- Extending the hand of AA into all communities
- Unity – the importance of consistent literature
- The Value of specialized AA groups
- Cooperation with Professional Community as a key to growth
- Experience with country-to-country sponsorship
- Cultivating unity within a country–passed
Upcoming Conventions
- November 3-5, 2023 Hong Kong
- March 28-30, Saitama, Japan 50th Anniversary
- New Zealand January 2024
- March 2025 Australia 80th Anniversary
- November 3-5, 2023, Yeongdong, S. Korea
Note: This is an extremely short version of my huge packet of notes. I was honored to attend, was able to speak to people from many different countries, and developed relationships with them. I was very humbled to be of service, and I learned a lot about what can be done to spread the message of AA within our own countries, and all over the world. If anyone would like access to my raw notes, they are available here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Bm-KeBZFQpL2UtOD20eBd8LDHw0R10C7EDX5etkdlP4/edit?usp=sharing