OIAA Board Minutes Approved
October 12, 2025 2:04 pm (Eastern)

2:00 PM EDT

Zoom: 840 0946 3911 | Password: Board

Board members present: Gwen M (Chair), Sharon G (Incoming Vice Chair), Mark M (Tech Chair), Felix E (Act Treasurer), Lesliee A (Incoming Secretary), Mary M (Incoming Trustee at Large) 5 Voting members

Board members absent: International Trustee (Open)

Visitors: Mike Y (IGR One Day at a Time), Beth D (PAC Chair)

Quorum was met

The Chair opened the meeting with a moment of silence and the “we” version of the Serenity Prayer.

The Chair reviewed the Agenda.

The Chair introduced Sharon G. (Into Action), incoming Vice Chair.

The Chair introduced Lesliee A (Serenity Now) incoming Board Secretary.

The chair introduced Mary M (of many OIAA hats) incoming Trustee at Large.

Officer Reports

Mark M: Tech Chair welcomed incoming Board members. The arc of the Technology Committee this year, the two primary goals, was A to update the website. Reorganize it in a more constructive, fluid way for the user to get to what they’re looking for. We did that. I think it’s working better. The committee staged the site to prepare it for a big translation effort, which we had been investigating for the better part of a year prior to that. The Board approved the hire of BHI. We negotiated terms, 3 payments. The first invoice was for his pre-work, his investigation work. These amounts I have in front of me are euros, so we pay say, 10% on top of that. $1344 euros was the charge of his first invoice. Which translated us to probably $1,500, $1,600. The second invoice was for the entire project. That was $10,129.70. The current invoice is the third invoice $4,990 euros.

National AA Technology Workshop is in Cincinnati. It’s been a standing budget item for a few years. We have budget to send 2 people in person and 10 people virtually, which is $100 each. My plan is to just send an email to all the committees to say, “First come, first serve,” here’s a sign-up list if you want to go.

Felix E Acting Treasurer: I have mostly good news. Our group contributions were basically $4,000 above what we expected them to be. We are still receiving funds for the AE convention. For year-to-date, we are also functioning at $2,000, or about $2,500 above Budget. So, pretty good. we budgeted $88,656, and have only spent $76,000. So, we are below our year-to-date budget by $12,000. We are $14,446 above where we expected to be, in terms of contributions over expenses. BHI expenses were actually booked in September, and that’s why you’re seeing this $20,000 in September. We still have a prudent reserve of $72,000. we are receiving roughly around $140 per group.

On November 22nd and December 6th at 10am the Finance committee will present a draft of the 2026 budget to the membership in informal open forums. We would very much welcome the members of the board to be there because we will be discussing the budgets, and it’ll be phenomenal to have you there to help address any of the questions about your budgets. The finance committee, starting next week at 10 AM, will meet to start putting together the first draft, and to have it ready to be finalized by November 8th and final approval by the board for the entire budget will be the following day.

At the request of the Acting Treasurer the Chair acknowledged the visitor Mike Y who introduced himself as a new member of the Finance committee.

Secretary report: The Chair reported that since there had been no secretary she would catch up the incoming secretary. Amelia had started working with a contract worker, Paul Robert, through Upworks who is Board administrative support. He worked with Amelia on organizing the record storage on the board drive and the committee drives. Gwen asked if Lesliee would be interested in continuing to work with Paul Robert and asked her to set up a Zoom meeting with him to get a clear view on the work he has done. The chair also noted that Paul Robert could be made available to assist any Board member who needs administrative assistance. Felix noted for board special worker, we still have $3,250.

Amelia believed that a secure records vault is required as part of our records keeping within our drive. That was one area that was that was identified as an area of need.

A short discussion of the need to be crystal clear on the documents that require signatures and those that need to be stored according to the Bylaws, followed.

Mary shared that she would like for us to make sure that the whistleblower policy that we have on our website is actually the one that the Assembly members voted to approve.

Old Business

The chair requested that the incoming secretary (former Chair of the OIAA Communications committee) look at the Communications charter to consider revision that might counter the revocation of the charter done by the Board. The secretary agreed.

The motion and vote reads:

Let’s… let’s take that action. Everybody okay with that? Any opposed?

Okay, seeing no opposition, Lesliee. If you look at that committee charter and bring it to the board next month, we’ll discuss it and try.

The Chair announced upcoming events: The combined Board and Committee Chair Meeting is on October 18th. I hope the Board members can be there. It’s not only for the chairs of the committees, but any active committee members who may be a part of the committee leadership tomorrow.

The IGR Forum is on October 25^, 2025.

The Membership Assembly is on December 20, 2025.

The OIAA Int’l Convention is November 14-16, 2025

New Business

Articles of incorporation need to be updated,

But our next board meeting is November 9^th at 2pm (Eastern).

The meeting was closed with the “Responsibility” statement at 4:12pm.

Respectfully Submitted by

Lesliee A, OIAA Board Secretary Presented 25-11-23