We just had some big controversy in my area, because 9 people from our area went to the world wide workshop in california a couple of weeks ago. Our area chair and treasurer heard about the workshop and thought it would be a good thing to send a couple of people to, so they made a motion for money to send four people. This upset a lot of people, so my sponsor offered to drive his suburban and pay for all of the gas. The area treasurer agreed to drive his car and pay for his gas. Area paid for the rooms, and nothing more. We drove 12 hours each way, and were in workshops or sleeping the whole time we were there. And we learned so much while we were there I don't think you could put a value on all we learned. But when we got back, the rumor around our area was that we all had a vacation to California. The rumor mill didn't mention that we were only there for half a day on friday, saturday, and half a day on sunday. And that our only full day there (saturday) we were in workshops from 9:00 a.m. until 10:00 p.m. But no matter what kind of rummors float around, no one can take away all that I learned that weekend. And I plan on using some of the tools that I learned there to help make my area better, starting with my home group.