Time for a new meeting folks sorry about the posting time changes.
Is it possible to link this page to other AA's in the world? Just thought I would ask!
Yes Perry it is possible to open up the meeting to AA's everywhere in the world.
1.We can list the site in search engines,currently its not listed.
2.We can join the Online Intergroup,that Tim V. just forwarded the E-mail about http://www.aa-intergroup.org/index.html
3.We can advertise our URL in aa chat rooms.
Opening this meeting up to the world,would have many ramifications. And should be discussed thoroughly by group members.
Personaly I like the Idea....................
A drunk decides to go ice fishing, so he gathers his gear and goes walking around until he finds a big patch of ice. He heads into the center of the ice and begins to saw a hole.
All of sudden, a loud booming voice comes out of the sky. "You will find no fish under that ice." The drunk looks around, but sees no one. He starts sawing again.
Once more, the voice speaks. "As I said before, there are no fish under the ice." The drunk looks all around, high and low, but can't see a single soul.
He picks up the saw and tries one more time to finish. Before he can even start cutting, the huge voice interrupts. "I have warned you three times now. There are no fish!"
The drunk is now flustered and somewhat scared, so he asks the voice, "How do you know there are no fish? Are you God trying to warn me?"
"No," the voice replied. "I am the manager of this hockey rink."
My vote is that we put our link at http://www.recovery.org/aa/#onlinemeetings a.s.a.p.! A vote would be appropriate, of course. How about it!
I agree that we should open up the meeting to any AAs on the Web who wish to attend. From the start I was hoping that this would eventually be the case. I was at a meeting on the 5th Tradition two weeks ago and this reinforced my opinion. I agree we should have a vote.
Let's open it up. Either we're open to ALL with a desire to stop drinking, or we're not! Have any of you given this website address to friends in the Program yet?
I'm all for it!! That's what makes this whole thing so incredible. Just like our weekly topic "Service" what better way than opening it up:))My vote is YES!!!
I agree that it would be very nice to give everyone on earth (and that's what we're talking about) access to the site.
However:
1. Would this get to be too much work for the Trusted Cyrvants?
2. Would there be (perhaps disagreeable) posts from people not in the program? Would that bother people? I don't want to be a spoilsport about it, but it could and does happen. Perhaps we should just have it listed in AA resources, and not locateable by keyword search? That might ward off any problems, since people would have to go through a reference to find the site.
3. Would people be made aware of the concept of Anonymity and how it might apply on the web? I would think it necessary, for their OWN well-being.
It IS exciting to think that people all over the world would be able to find this site and use it. But some of the above are perhaps things to think about. Perhaps we could contact the "owners" of the other sites to find out how things are going?
If I were to vote right now, I would abstain. I am fairly new to this meeting, and anyway not quite sure how I feel about this question.
I'm anxious to proceed, but want to fully understand what this will mean for our meeting and our ability to carry AA's message. I hear the voice of caution expressed by Barbara and hope we are careful. Lets's not let our egos louse this up!
Historically, the original AA members had a lot of worry about Open meetings -- believing, with their overblown egos, that the world would rush to their meetings and stare at the freaks/alcoholics/special people. As we now know, 62 years later, no one rushed in to "observe" us. People who came had a reason to be there -- and they still do. However, listing ourselves in AA On Line should be sufficient. Anyone looking hard enough will find us -- and should. Besides, there's always been a "lunatic fringe" in AA, and always will be. Maybe it's US!!!
Yep!
I think Barbara brought up some valid concerns. As far as we've researched there are no meetings quite like what we are doing on the WWW. There are chat groups,and email meetings,which are moderated by a mailing list or an operator who can kick people from the chat room. What we are considering would be an open freeforall. Lampliters Group email meeting has over 600 members,at meeting times in undernet IRC chat AA can have 20-30 people online. my point is this meeting could become very large very fast. Here are some my thoughts on this
1.As the meeting stands its easy to update weekly,if we went public we would probably need multiple meetings or daily meetings. Which would require more work updating the site=more trusted cyrvants,who have and can use FrontPage 97.
2.With increased traffic,the site would need to be Hosted on as webserver,it is currently donated,this would cost $20-40 a month,which would mean a need for the 7th tradition,and a treasurer,and a P.O. Box.
Oh Ho! It becomes clearer why other groups have found it easier to go the Email route! Could possible increased traffic be controlled by limiting weekly participation on the topic? (12 is a good number for us) After all, in most discussion meetings, not everyone speaks every week. That would, of course, mean watchfulness on the part of cyrvants. The donation of website $$ over a long time bothers me. I too visualize the need for a treasurer, a PO box and a link that says "Seventh Tradition" and has a running column of expenses and expectation of a passed basket. The website is beautiful, and clearly has it's own difficulties. Once we reach concensus, how about a year of experience, a celebration and a re-evaluation? What will the trusted cyrvants commit to? Unfortunately, not everyone can "run" this technical meeting. It's more than opening up and making coffee!
Joanie O alcoholic, lets not move to fast on this one . let us take some time as kirkridge does on anything new by giving it a month and review and opinion by the steering committee and brought up at next months meeting.This is abig step for us are we ready to handle world wide AA. I have joined a national BB meeting to see how it runs and how we can best do ourselves love joanie o
Joanie O alcoholic, lets not move to fast on this one . let us take some time as kirkridge does on anything new by giving it a month and review and opinion by the steering committee and brought up at next months meeting.This is abig step for us are we ready to handle world wide AA. I have joined a national BB meeting to see how it runs and how we can best do ourselves love joanie o
Lets link to recovery.org for 1 month and see what happens. If it is to much participation , we can drop the link, regroup and decided where to go from there. I don't want FEAR to keep us from at least trying this one and only link. Thanks for listening.
Hi my name is J.D. and i am an Alcoholic, As for opening up the meeting, I really don't know what to think. I really like this meeting but i think the part I like best is that I can put a face to the names. This is really special for me cause I live in Germany and use this site to keep in touch with PA sobriety. I don't know how it would feel if it were all people I didn't already have some connection with. These are more personal thoughts and I know on another level that we need to keep with the 12 T's and cannot deny anyone the gift we were given. I have learned that it is possible to make cyber friends too. That is pretty neat, I do not think that i have ever met BARB S. but i sure like what she writes. Sooooo, I vote a resounding MAYBE !
Hi I'm Bob B. from PA. I suggest to keep it simple. I feel that we are carrying the A.A. message as the 5th tradition states. I'm new to thisand going the way we are now might be just what this meeting needs. Maybe the growing pains of going on A.A. on line may be something we can not handle now. I liked the suggestions from both Judy K. & Barbara S. Should we try & getting a treasurer & practicing the 7th tradition?
Boy, this is a tough topic. But here are some of my thoughts. 1. The difference between a meeting and a group come to me. One of the reasons for staying as a meeting would be to confine who participates. If we chose to be a group then I believe that we should follow the definition of a group and the suggestions of AA as found in the group pamphet. 2. I'm involved in an e-mail meeting and it was the conscious tha we would not allow it to grow beyond a certain size, so that everyone could get to know each other and that the number of posts would not get too large. 3. Pesonally I, like JD, really appreciate being in contact with my friends who I don't get a chance to see very often.
That's all for now but I may have some other thoughts later. This is already too long.
Another possibility: to go by word-of-mouth for awhile?
We could give AA friends the site's address and tell them that they are welcome to post to the site and to "pass it on" (the address, that is).
It would be interesting, anyway, to see what happened, don't you think?
Yes, Barbara, I've been thinking the same thing. The Program is really based on "attraction, not promotion." I also think that we need to find out if enough members are willing to donate their $$. "We are self-supporting through our own contributions."
We could open it up and if it grows too much, so that we loose our sense of group cohesiveness, we could let the new group conscience take over and start a new site for our own "inner circle".
Folks, Are we lucky ! I joined one of those other email groups listed with the online intergroup and for four days I got 200 emails that were truely horrible. People yelling at each other, calling each other names, swearing at each other.... basically what they call flame wars on the net. Very discouraging with regard to that format. I have always liked this Web site, now I love it.
J.D.
JD's description of the meeting he visited says everything about what I fear could happen to us. If we do open this up, I think we have to restrict participation, just as you would at a regular AA discussion meeting. That seems to me to mean a lot more work for the trusted cyrvants. It dosen't sound practical to me.
I really like Tim V.'s option of reverting back to our own "private meeting" if the open web idea gets out of hand.
Hello again from the great town of East Stroudsburg Penna.
Lets try for one week , the site linked to "recovery.org" and see what happens. If it stinks we can cut off and return to a "Private Referal Meeting"
My reasons for this are:
If in fact we are "Pioneers" with this web site, how many alkies could really be helped by the ease and convienance of this web site? (Medical reasons etc.) (Flight decks, prisons, DUI, Islands, deserts, etc)
Caution and Fear are important and I believe in caution. But it's not like we couldn't turn it off if we had to. And return to where we are right now!
We may need a larger server and need to pay for it. We should pay for our meetings anyway. Where can I send my dollars? In the mean time, I can send a donation to NY GSO and mark it for "International Meetings"
There very well be a really awesome opportunity to serve the world alkies out there. Why , we happen to be the first with a web page is only by circumstance? Well, we all know about how that circumstance things works, right?
My little vote is " Damn the torpedos! Captain.. Full speed ahead!
Love: Pioneer Perry !
wagons ho
I'm for a three step process. Let's begin by setting up a method to collect dues. We are self-supporting and need to show functional good faith. Second, we open to friends and friends-of-friends by word of mouth. I believe this may keep us from the problems JD describes because we are exercising choice and aiming toward positive sobriety. Let word of mouth last at least 4 topics and see if we grow in an orderly way. If we do, then we can continue by word-of-mouth and Email to carry a balanced message. The very fact that we're NOT giving out Email addresses may keep the group healthy and focused on our primary purpose!
Replace the word circumstance with coincedence and read again..
because we represent AA as pioneers we must be cautious about how our meeting is presented. we must follow as our fore-fathers did in AA to carefully carry the message of recovery not a message of problems. some channels carry only problems and little solutions/ we must share our experience strenth and hope and how we came to solutions using the 12 steps. let us not forget our purpose and te people in jails institutions and homes who will look to us for hope and solutions. we must be walking big books on the net as well . love to all joanie o
because we represent AA as pioneers we must be cautious about how our meeting is presented. we must follow as our fore-fathers did in AA to carefully carry the message of recovery not a message of problems. some channels carry only problems and little solutions/ we must share our experience strenth and hope and how we came to solutions using the 12 steps. let us not forget our purpose and te people in jails institutions and homes who will look to us for hope and solutions. we must be walking big books on the net as well . love to all joanie o
because we represent AA as pioneers we must be cautious about how our meeting is presented. we must follow as our fore-fathers did in AA to carefully carry the message of recovery not a message of problems. some channels carry only problems and little solutions/ we must share our experience strenth and hope and how we came to solutions using the 12 steps. let us not forget our purpose and te people in jails institutions and homes who will look to us for hope and solutions. we must be walking big books on the net as well . love to all joanie o
We could have two meetings: One with a link to the outside world, And this one which would be for word of mouth only. Identical page and topics, Just two different adresses... How about that!
As trusted Cyrvants Tim G. and I both thought of having 2 meetings,but realied that would mean double the work every week to refresh the sites,as it is it takes approx 30-45 minutes work to refresh.
We both agreed that when we volunteered to create and maintain this site,we looked at it as a long term (1-2 year) commitment. We are still considering if we could handle doing 2 sites. But it will be up to the group concience to decide if thats how were going to go. We are meeting this week to work on setting up a busineess meeting,hopefully it will be ready by next weeks meeting.
Your Cyrvant, Barry L.