Current Intergroup Minutes

February 5, 2023

1. Open the meeting with the “we” version of the Serenity Prayer:

God, Grant us the Serenity to
Accept the things we cannot change
Courage to change the things we can
and Wisdom to know the difference.

2. Volunteer for the timekeeper: Give reminders at 30 minutes, then announce “time” when the meeting ends.

3. Reading of the 12 Traditions of OSPA

4. Introductions - Attendance List: Cassidy, David, Jamie, Cathryn, Amy, Brenda, Molly, Greg, Mera, Amanda, Leah

5. Last month's Meeting Minutes: Accepted

6. Reports

a. Treasurer - Greg

Opening balance for January 2023: $4550.97

- $ 5.82 PayPal fees

- $ 14.99 Zoom monthly subscription

- $ 250.00 legal fees (Loeffler IP Group, P.A.)

- $ 204.09 web site fee (WIX)

+$ 100.00 Donations

Closing Balance for January 2023 2022: $4176.07

From last IG:

Question: Has there been an increase or decrease in donations this year compared to previous years. We do not have a budget at this time because our costs are minimal. This is why it is important to ask the question of how we spend money.

Zoom setup requests

2 requests received so far

b. Webmaster report - Amanda (with David as consultant, in absentia)

General data from January 2023 (from analytics.google.com):

376 users (309 new users)
866 sessions (2.3 sessions per user)
Average session duration 1 min, 53 sec.
16 countries represented

Most visited pages (Google Analytics, “What pages do your users visit?”)

Meeting Schedule 33%
Home page 23%
Literature 8%
Getting Started in OSPA 5%
Tools of OSPA 5%
Are You An Obsessive Skin Picker? 3%
The Three Lists 3%
About OSPA Meetings 3%

Important news: Both David and Amanda will be leaving the Web Manager/consultant roles, so we are in need of a new person or persons to take on these roles!

David F will take on the commitment!

c. Tax Status Committee - Jamie and Greg:

Trying to file taxes right now, committee is having issues figuring it out
IRS sites have been out of operation at the place where you file the returns
Stuck at this point, will return to the site and see what happens
What is the deadline?
- We are late filing 2021 taxes which was due before end of 2022
  1. We don’t owe anything, we just file a card that says we made less than 5k to keep in good standing as a non profit
- Have we considered hiring outside help per Tradition 9?
  1. Not sure if it would be helpful since the filing is not working, not sure what another person can do

d. Email Support - Cathryn:

2 support emails with questions about the program and meeting times
Both answered, requesters attended meetings 🙂

e. Social Media Account Moderator - Amy

Nothing to report

f. Chip Representative - Jamie

No updates

g. OSPA copyright/intellectual property Committee:

Jamie and Amy had a helpful meeting with someone who does trademarks and patents, it will be expensive
- Recommendations from the first call
  1. Register the OSPA name/acronym for trademark, this is the most important
    1. Next ™ the logo
    2. Flat renewal fee for filing $750 for one patent - for legal time, filing and fees for the ™
      1. Renewals are in different increments (5 years, 10 years…)
    3. Should do trademarking before doing anything we would use our name on (ie chips, literature)
    4. For the name/acronym and logo is a total of $3,500
      1. This includes legal fee and filing costs
  2. Need to remove the “registered” trademark from the website now since we are not currently registered
  3. No one else is using the OSPA name so it’s not currently a cause for confusion
  4. He suggested to copyright the literature after we ™ the name and logo, should do this before we put out more literature
    1. Don’t need to do each pamphlet as a copyright but can submit like 5 at a time
- Greg uses Legal Zoom and Rocket Lawyer (apps?) that look like they could be significantly cheaper
Jamie’s recommendation is to get a second opinion/estimate
Next step:
- Getting second opinions and seeing if we can reduce costs

h. Literature Committee: Currently no one is leading the literature committee.

i. Meeting Representatives:

Monday 9pm ET (Cassidy)
Tuesday 2pm ET:
Tuesday 11pm ET:
Wednesday 2pm ET:
Thursday 7pm ET (Cassidy):
Saturday 3pm China time (Felix):
Sunday 11am ET (Brenda)

7. Unfinished Business - None

8. New Business: OSPA IG Google Drive Access: The motion is to inform all the individual meetings of OSPA (via the website and meeting announcements) that as of March 31, 2023 the OSPA Intergroup Google Drive will only be available for OSPA IG Officers and Business. Each meeting will have until March 31, 2023 to request their files. After that the Google Drive will only be accessible by current IG officers.

Details: Currently every OSPA meeting has folders in the OSPA IG Google Drive. Some include their meeting formats and business meeting notes.
Requirements: Each meeting must send an email request to the OSPA Support email (or an officer designed as such) for a copy of their files by March 31, 2023, after which the remainder will be discarded. Intergroup is not responsible for any files that are misappropriated, lost, or stolen. No text requests, phone calls, or voice messages will be accepted.
Why: This motion will allow the OSPA Intergroup Drive to have singleness of purpose for the OSPA Worldwide service and its officers only thereby reducing security risks to the account and requests to the webmaster/IT staff for access.

Notes:

Should we open a new service position to manage Drive?
- Also recommend that each meeting create a Drive service position to take ownership of each of these files/folders
How does Google Drive connect to email? Can we provide access to some files not others?
Good idea but we need more time, maybe 90 days? End of March seems rushed
- Amendment: make the new deadline for August 31st, 2023
  - Amendment accepted
Interested to hear what the fear/resistance is for each group owning their own materials?
- Confusion - the motion is to separate Google Drives for IG and each individual meeting, inform the meetings, setting a time, and having specific requirements for how to do this. It is overwhelming there’s a lot going on in the motion, it is well intended and may be needed but it is overwhelming
- We’ve been operating one way, and we are changing (first big thing being the Zoom accounts), this is a logical step, but for so long it’s been a certain way. Readying the meetings for this change is a lot. Like the idea of giving it time, also like having the idea that there’s a service position in IG that manages the Drive. Not even sure if other groups have their own separate Google Drive. Next month feels too soon.
- Some meetings are very small and it’s hard to fill even the basic service positions. Doing more might be challenging, but we can try
- Thoughts on this feedback:
  - Wanted the motion to be actionable and clear which is why it has so much packed in
  - Doesn’t have to be gDrive could be any file sharing service
  - Intention - if we’re growing at the rate we’re growing, looking to circumvent the access issues and sharing sensitive info wider than it should be
- “Each OSPA group should have its own content and a way to share its content”
Motion is withdrawn until it can be revised to be more clear and actionable
- Dave is going to partner with Amy on these revisions

Question: Will IG propose a recommended contribution % for IG to guide the meetings as they become self sufficient?
Motion: Secretary can reformat the notes doc for IG meetings

9. Brainstorm About Strategic Planning for Funds And Growth Of OSPA

OSPA participation in conferences - Greg

https://www.bfrb.org/ - “TLC is working hard to create an opportunity for the BFRB community to gather in-person in 2023. Stay tuned for some exciting details to be announced soon.”
Mayo Clinic Phoenix April/2023
7th Annual SKIN: Practical Dermatology for the Generalist 2023 | Mayo Clinic School of Continuous Professional Development
American Academy of Dermatologists- New Orleans March 2023
2023 Annual Meeting: Exhibitor resources

10. Next Intergroup Meeting March 5, 2023

11. Items to be Carried Over to the Next Business Meeting

a. Drive Motion

b. Question: Will IG propose a recommended contribution % for IG to guide the meetings as they become self sufficient?

Motion: Secretary can reformat the notes doc for IG meetings

12. Meeting Closed at 1:14pm EST

13. Closed the meeting with the “we” version of the Serenity Prayer:

God, Grant us the Serenity to
Accept the things we cannot change
Courage to change the things we can
and Wisdom to know the difference.

The OSPA Intergroup meets on the first Sunday of every month at 12:15 pm Eastern. The meeting is scheduled for 60 minutes, and on occasion may be extended to address immediate needs of the group. Everyone is welcome to attend.