Policies for Triangle Intergroup
The most common form of communications between face to face Intergroup meetings is electronic. Intergroup members need an electronic address like an email or phone number that can be associated with the position they have taken. This method allows people to communicate with the current chair, secretary, treasurer, etc. using an alias and provides some privacy.
If a person or OA group wants to participate in the Intergroup and does not have access to the internet or does not want to provide a way to communicate electronically, come to the Intergroup for alternate communication methods. The Triangle OA Intergroup website (www.triangleoa.org) is also used for communications and stores reference material. Intergroup members can provide training on how to use the website.
When a person takes on a new position, it is critical that the Triangle OA Intergroup webmaster and the Group Outreach chair knows so communication channels can be set up. The webmaster uses this information to associate your email with the position you have taken. Any electronic communications created for your position will be directed to your email.
The web hosting service allows one or more email addresses to be mapped to one email alias. This gives the Intergroup a lot of flexibility. For instance if four people are on the Hi Tech Committee, all four of their email addresses can be linked to the hitech@triangleoa.org email and any mail address to hitech@triangleoa.org will go to all four email addresses. We can have also have one person mapped to multiple Intergroup positions. For instance Susie can be linked to retreat_chair and webmaster or if a new retreat chair needed support, the current chair may be added to the list of people who get any mail directed to the retreat chair. When there is no person in a committee position, the current chair can be assigned to the committee position. This will help prevent people from not getting a response from the Intergroup. The Intergroup can also set up temporary emails for special projects. The Soar conference email was created for the Intergroup when it hosted SOAR and contained the emails of everyone working on the project. The webmaster is responsible for keeping the mapping between the real email addresses and the positions current and adding and removing email lists. Whenever a person accepts or steps down from an Intergroup position, the positions email map to personal emails needs to change. People that aren't acting in the position should not receive email for the position after a reasonable amount of time and people who are in the position should receive email. It can be very useful during a transition period for the person leaving a job and the person starting the job to both receive the emails.
The Intergroup policy is whenever a position changes hands the webmaster will add the new person to the email mapping as soon as possible and one month later remove the original person unless there is a specific request to do otherwise. When a position is vacated without a replacement, the webmaster will point the chair emails at the vacant position unless told to do otherwise by the chair.
Texting
Telephone
Video conferencing
Triangle OA Intergroup has the following standing committees that distribute the work of carrying the message of recovery within the Intergroup and to the public. There was/is arguably some overlap in the responsibilities of the different committees. One view is that public Information / Public(Professional) Outreach focuses on informing medical professionals, the press and the general public about our solution to the disease of compulsive eating. Historically, Triangle Intergroup has assigned the responsibility of keeping the telephone hot line about face to face meetings in the Triangle Intergroup up to date so that people looking for a meeting can find one. The responsibility for making the same information available via the world wide web was given to the High Tech committee and the work of making the same information available in the Triangle Intergroup newsletter has been given to the Newsletter editor. OA world service also maintains a list of meetings. Anyone with access to the internet can add an OA meeting and link the meeting to our Intergroup, (www.oa.org->meetings->Add New Meeting. Editing a meeting is also available to anyone.
The Triangle Intergroup has asked OA groups with information about meeting changes, new meetings, and closed meetings to send an email to updates@triangleoa.org Messages sent to updates@triangleoa.org and forwarded to the newsletter editor, the webmaster and public information. Another person interested in meetings is the treasurer, who has a line item in the budget for each group for contributions to Intergroup.
In this Policy and Procedure manual, Group Outreach will maintain the master list of Group Information and will be responsible for keeping the phone line updated not Public Information / Professional Outreach. Group Outreach is responsible for contacting all the groups and representatives on a regular basis and monitoring world service for new groups in our area and other changes. Group Outreach will be responsible for keeping a master list of group information and making sure the web, the newsletter, the phone line, the OA website, and any information used by Public Information for outside media was consistent and current.
The World Service Conference representative(s) and the Southeast Overeaters Anonymous Regional representative(s) are expected to travel to OA business meetings each year.
The Intergroup pays all transportation costs, and half of a hotel room at the conference site and the cost of transportation.
The representatives are expected to book the transportation, the hotel room, and complete the registration forms before each business conference.
If you don't want to share a room the Intergroup requests that you pay the difference.
Delegates for WSO Business Conference shall receive meal reimbursement for expenses incurred during the dates of their service and during travel dates to and from the service destination. Rates of reimbursement are: Breakfast- $20.00, Lunch $25.00, and Dinner $30.00. Delegates are encouraged to participate in hotel breakfast, if it is included in the hotel cost. Receipts and a written request for travel meal reimbursement should be submitted to the IG treasurer.
Note: The above meal allowance was approved during fall 2018 and superceeds any earlier polocies.
The OA organization organizing the conference usually has a hotel associated with the event. The representative is not required to stay at the conference hotel however the price paid by Intergroup will not exceed one-half the cost of a room at the conference hotel. It is up to the representative to verify this to the treasurer when getting reimbursed.
How does a representative get a roommate?
Airfare prices are constantly changing and it is up to the OA member booking a ticket to be responsible with the Intergroup funds and their own personal needs when making a purchase. The OA member generally pays for airfare with a personal credit card and is reimbursed by the treasurer. An advance can be made by the treasurer before a ticket is purchased at the discretion of the treasurer.
The Intergroup does not typically pay for car rentals to drive around a city for business conferences because the member generally stays at the hotel. If a situation arose where the Triangle representative wanted to stay with a friend or family member for free and the cost of the rental car was less than or equal to the hotel, the treasurer could reimburse for the car rental at their discretion. The Intergroup does reimburse for the cost of getting from the airport/train station to the hotel.
Send an email to the treasurer and attached the scanned receipts or bring the receipts to the Intergroup meeting with the total so the treasurer can write a check and reimburse your costs. The treasurer can also mail a check to an address to reimburse someone for Intergroup business.
The Triangle OA Intergroup uses the IRS guidelines for calculating reimbursement based on miles traveled. 2014 IRS Mileage Rates
When the Intergroup has established a budget for travel to the Intergroup meetings for Intergroup members, the treasurer is authorized to reimburse people who have asked for travel assistance at the U.S. government rate for mileage for nonprofit organizations as long as money is available. It is suggested that the treasurer use the money based on the order people have asked for assistance and the distance traveled. People traveling more than 50 miles are reimbursed. People traveling less than fifty miles (50) miles are encouraged to coordinate transportation with other Intergroup attendees
People that travel to Intergroup meetings may deduct the travel expense from their taxes. (True/False) It is also suggested that the treasurer discuss any suspected abuse of this privilege with the Intergroup Board. If the Intergroup budget does not include a line item for travel reimbursement, a member may petition the Intergroup for assistance or ask the group being represented to help with the expenses.
An Intergroup representative, committee chair, board member or any other interested person may request to attend an Intergroup meeting electronically by asking the chair at least two days before the Intergroup meeting to include the member by phone. Include your contact information in the request, phone number, email and/or other contact information
Some jobs are accomplished more easily and efficiently with a software program. For instance, the treasurer may use EXCEL® or Quicken. The Secretary may use a word processed for the Intergroup notes. The Webmaster may use Word press. The Newsletter editor may use Publisher®. It is up to the person doing the work to decide what tool to use and if necessary to use the committee budget to pay for the tool or request the Intergroup purchase the tool.
We have been putting reports on our website in PDF format so as long as a software program can create a PDF we should not have any problems putting it on the website. This is not a rule and programs that create other formats that can be put on the web can also be used.
Some OA recovery events are hosted by groups. Some are hosted by Triangle Intergroup and other organizations. When an OA group hosts a recovery event, the group can use the Intergroup's resources to advertise the media without charge unless the advertising is not part of the regular Intergroup expenses. For instance, if a group was hosting an event and wanted Intergroup to print a flyer and insert it in the newsletter, that cost would be additional and the group would need to reimburse Intergroup. If the group submitted information about an event that the newsletter editor could put in the newsletter as part of the eight (8) printed pages budgeted for, there would be no cost to the group. There is no additional cost to a group for adding and events to the Triangle OA website. If the group wants to use the OA logo, then the event becomes cosponsored by the Triangle Intergroup and a portion (all??) of the profit from the event goes to Triangle OA Intergroup.
Most of the work done by Intergroup goes on the Triangle Intergroup website which is publicly available. If you want to protect your anonymity, please use aliases for your name, email, phone number. The Intergroup is made up of volunteers who are not experts in information protection.
To put the WSO OA logo on the flyer, we must add the Intergroup name below the WSO OA logo, this is to comply with
OA's copyright policy. “Triangle OA Intergroup” must be printed directly beneath the OA logo. The use of these logos makes the event sponsored by or cosponsored by Triangle OA Intergroup.Where is the logo and when can it be used
See the Triangle OA Intergroup bylaws Section 6. Term of Office. Partial terms count as a full term for rotation of service guidelines. For instance if a SOAR representative was elected in April of 2017, the representatives's term of service would be less than the normal two years and their first term would end in December 2018. The SOAR representative could be elected to another term at the end of 2018 and serve until the elections in December 2020.