Area 46 CPC Committee Meeting Report
Saturday, December 7, 2024
The Cooperation with the Professional Community (CPC) committee met on Saturday morning at 9:45 am. We opened the meeting with the Serenity Prayer. There were 16 attendees; 8 in person and 8 online.
After welcome and introductions, the first item on the agenda was an update on the status of the Proposed Agenda Item (PAI) which had been submitted to the Trustees Literature committee after the August assembly. The trustees committee took “no action” on the proposed item. Their response was somewhat ambiguous as it mentioned an “in progress update” to Appendix III, but gave no clear indication whether or not the subject of the proposed item would be included in their update. We discussed several possible options: 1) Wait and see if the trustee’s committee included the information in their updates for appendix III; 2) Resubmit the PAI, perhaps modifying the wording to suggest updating the existing Appendix III with the new scientific study; and 3) submit a new PAI to create a new CPC pamphlet on the scientific study. We noted that at this time, the Literature committee receives many PAIs, and a proposed CPC pamphlet might receive more traction in the Trustees CPC committee.
Other suggestions included creating a pamphlet which could be sized to fit as an insert into the Big Book. Since the Big Book is updated infrequently (every 20 years or so), a pamphlet offers the opportunity to stay current with scientific studies.
The committee agreed to consider its options, and will revisit the topic at the March assembly.
The next item on the agenda was reporting from districts on CPC activities.
Paula L. (D16 Chair) reported that their committee recently made a presentation to volunteers with the Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) organization in Deming. There were 6 advocates in attendance, and there was a lively discussion and many interesting questions from the group. There are several other possibilities for presentations in the pipeline. The next D16 CPC meeting will be on January 15th.
The group talked about effective ways of doing outreach to professionals. Suggestions included cold calling by telephone or in person, and making face-to-face requests at community meetings. It can also be helpful to get on the agenda of an organization’s regular staff meeting, as often times, organizations are looking to fill time at in-service staff meetings. Mass mailings have been tried and are mostly unsuccessful. It was pointed out that it is often easier to make connections in smaller communities rather than in large cities.
The group had good discussion on the goal of CPC presentations. Members shared information on other CPC activities happening in the area.
We closed the meeting with the Responsibility Statement.
Gratefully submitted,
Paula Stevens, Chair – Area 46 CPC Committee