It is impossible for CoDA volunteers to know with absolute surety whether
a meeting is active or not at any given time. CoDA relies on the
meeting contacts to provide us that information. Unfortunately, the
last thing on the members' minds when a meeting closes is to notify CoDA that
the meeting has disbanded. We gratefully thank those meeting members that do
remember!Certain words are use throughout this policy to indicate actions
taken on meetings. Their definitions are provided for clarity here:
New: The meeting contact sends in information
on a new CoDA meeting that has not previously been submitted to CoDA.
Update: Some change to the meeting's
information. Every change made by the Fellowship Services worker
causes the "Last Updated date" to change to the date that she makes the
changes. Meeting contacts can use the
online form or download the
PDF form, fill it
out and mail it in.
Active: While not seen by the fellowship,
there is a field in the meeting database that indicates whether the
meeting is active or not. As long as the Active field is checked
which indicates the meeting is active, the meeting will show up in the
meeting searches. This is a definitive statement that the meeting
is active. It is a statement that indicates that CoDA has not
received any information to indicate otherwise.
INACTIVE?: This does not mean that meeting
is inactive. This means that CoDA is unsure whether the meeting is
active. Therefore the meeting is annotated as follows:
The Facility Name will be labeled as
“INACTIVE? Facility Name”, where Facility Name is the actual name of the
facility. Note: This is done so that attention will be drawn at the
summary listing level. Then in special instructions, a message
will be added; such as, “This meeting may be inactive. If you have any information about
this meeting, send it to meeting@coda.org.”
Deactivate: This means that the
meeting's active field will be "cleared" indicating that the meeting is
not active. When a meeting is deactivated, it is not deleted!
The meeting is still in the database, but will not be visible in meeting
searches. If a meeting is deactivated by mistake
or the meeting becomes active again, the Fellowship Services worker can
re-activate it without re-entering all of the data.
Deleted: As a general policy, CoDA does not delete meeting
records. However, there have been several times when converting
from one type database to another, that deactivated meetings have been
copied to backup spreadsheets and deleted from the database. The
Fellowship Services worker does not have a way to delete meetings on the
Web Coordinator.
Index:
Definitions
Policy #1 (Update of meetings, primary responsibility)
Policy #2 (Update of meetings, secondary responsibility)
Policy #3 (Update of meetings, general Fellowship)
Policy #4 (Update of meetings, Outreach Committee)
Policy #5 (Update of meetings, Web Coordinator)
Life of meeting
The following represents CoDA's policy for updating meeting information:
Policy #1 (Update of meetings, primary responsibility)
Each Group's primary contact is responsible for
submitting new meeting information and
updating the meeting information either by
online meeting update form,
email
to meeting@coda.org or mailing in the
meeting update form.
The Fellowship Services worker is the only one that will do actual
updates to the database with assistance from the Web Coordinator. When
a person uses the online forms and submits it, the data is sent via
email to the Fellowship Services worker.
Meeting contacts can do a meeting number search on their meeting
in the Meeting Resource Center (Meeting
Locator.) This search will either give
them the meeting details, tell you that the meeting is not in the database or
that the meeting is in the database and has been deactivated. At that
point the instructions will tell you that you can email meeting@coda.org to
reactivate the meeting.
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Policy #2 (Update of meetings, secondary responsibility)
Each group's secondary contact, local meeting coordinators, intergroups,
and our Outreach Committee are secondary sources of update information.
No direct access by meeting contacts or area coordinators will be granted
to the meeting database. These individuals must use the
online meeting update form,
email or
mail
in form to update the meeting information and must identify themselves and
the position that they are in.
The Fellowship Services worker is not responsible for determining the
right of the individuals to update the meeting if they identify themselves
as one of these secondary sources of information.
NOTE: Primary and secondary contact information should be provided with meeting
updates even if the individuals do not consent to this information being
released to the public. In the event there is no information provided
and a person states that he or she is a contact or a new contact, the
Fellowship Services worker will take this statement at face value.
From time-to-time, the Web Coordinator may dump the database to a
spreadsheet for use by various CoDA Committee's as they request data for
special mailings.
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Policy #3 (Update of meetings, general Fellowship)
If someone other than the meeting contacts sends in a meeting
update
request and does not state that they are the new contact for the meeting,
the Fellowship Services worker will:
Compare their name to the primary and secondary contacts for the
meeting.
Respond to the individual with CoDA's meeting update policy, but
will not update the meeting.
As an exception to the above, if someone other than the primary or secondary contacts for a meeting emails/notifies/updates/etc. and
says that the meeting is not meeting, CoDA will annotate the meeting as
INACTIVE?.
Note: Notification by someone that tried to attend a meeting and could not find
anyone at the meeting will only cause the meeting to listed as
"INACTIVE?".
It could be that the meetings has moved to another day of week or location, decided not
to meet that particular date or numerous other reasons that the meeting may
still be active, but not there when the person tried to visit.
As another exception to the above, if someone in the general fellowship
notifies us that a meeting marked "INACTIVE?" is
active, the annotation will be removed and the last update date field
changed to the current date.
A second or third notification of the same meeting on a different date
will prompt the deactivation of the meeting without further notice. Please realize that the
Fellowship Services worker may not always realize that it is the second notification and may not take immediate action.
[Top of Page] [Index]
Policy #4 (Update of meetings, Outreach Committee)
As the Outreach committee receives various notifications of meetings
becoming inactive, meetings that have not updated their information for a period of time
or questions concerning whether a meeting is active
or not, the Committee may contact the meeting
directly by mailing, email or phone call.
Outreach Committee decides when and to what extend to contact the
meetings. Usually for a mailing, the mailing is sent to the
Facility address (a returned mail from an individual will indicate the
person moved or is not interested, but may not indicate that the meeting
has closed.)
Note: Providing full addresses for meeting Facility, contact
names, address, email, & phone numbers assist Outreach in this update
process.
If our Outreach Committee sends out a mailing to the meetings and does not get anything back in 4 months after mailing or the mail is
returned to CoDA unopened, the meeting will be deactivated by the Fellowship Services
worker.
If Outreach Committee emails the meeting's registered contacts and
does not receive a reply within 1 week, they can notify the Fellowship
Services worker to deactivate the meeting at
any time.
If Outreach Committee calls the meeting's registered contacts and
does not receive a reply within 3 days, they can notify the Fellowship
Services worker to deactivate the meeting at
any time.
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Policy #5 (Update of meetings, Web Coordinator)
At the beginning of each quarter, the Web Coordinator will prepare three
lists of meetings:
INACTIVE List 1 will be a list of meetings that have been
annotated as "INACTIVE?" by various processes in
this meeting policy during the quarter.
INACTIVE List 2 will be a list of meetings that have not been
updated in 3 years from the beginning of next quarter.
Deactivation List will be a list of meetings that have not
been updated in 5 years from the beginning of next quarter.
These lists will be posted on the website under "Breaking News",
the Meeting Resource Center and in
the QSR.
Also the lists will be forwarded to the Outreach Committee with contact
information for them to take action as they determine reasonable.
No action on these lists will be taken by the Web coordinator till the end
of the quarter.
At the end of the quarter, the Web Coordinator will update and take
action on the three lists as follows:
INACTIVE List 1: No action.
INACTIVE List 2: Web Coordinator will update the list to
remove those meetings that have been updated. Those meetings
remaining in the list will be annotated as "INACTIVE?".
Deactivation List: Web Coordinator will update the list to
remove those meetings that have been updated during the quarter.
Then the Web Coordinator will deactivate the meetings leaving the last
updated date as the original date.
[Top of Page] [Index]
Life of Meeting:
Meeting is created and updated by primary contact on a yearly basis.
If meeting is no longer active, the primary contact will inform CoDA and
the meeting will be deactivated.
OR
Someone tries to attend meeting and meeting is not active. They
notify CoDA. The meeting is annotated as "INACTIVE?".
On a second notification or confirmation from Outreach Committee
research, the meeting is deactivated.
On notification that the meeting is active, the
annotation of "INACTIVE?" will be removed.
OR
Outreach Committee acts upon various indications that meetings may
not be active, sends out a mailing, emails or calls the meeting's
contact to confirm the status of the meeting.
If no response is received (mailing - 4 months, email-1 week,
call-3days) or response indicates that the meeting is inactive, the
meeting will be deactivated.
OR
After posting list indicating action will be taken the next quarter
at the beginning of a quarter, Web Coordinator will update the lists to
remove meeting that have been updated and then take the following
actions:
Meetings not updated in the last 3 years will be annotated as "INACTIVE?".
Meetings not updated in the last 5 years will be
deactivated.
The CoDA World Fellowship 