Homegroup questions?

[Tazman53]

I go to a newcomers meeting every Tuesday night, it is by Fredericksburg standards a large meeting, 50+ folks.

For quite a while I have thought that being a newcomers meeting that a part of the opening of the meeting should be a show of hands by those people willing to be "Temporary sponsors", I have brought this up to one of the guys who chairs the meeting on one occasion and he suggested I bring it up at the next group consience (SP).

One problem with that, I have never heard them say when they were having a group consience!!!!

Okay now here comes the shocker to me, this meeting has been going on for many years and in talking with the guy who chaired the meeting last night about the above he said "I would tell you to bring it up in the group consience, but I have no idea who, if anyone is in the home group?"

He was telling me he has not only occasionally chaired the meeting but had been making the coffee for over a year and had never met a single person form the home group and the person that was the treasurer for the group no longer attended the meeting, that someone simply took the money to her and she took care of things.

Okay here are the questions:

1. Would it be wrong for me to ask when the next group consience is because I want to make that group my home group?

2. If I am told something to the effect that there is no one in the home group where do I go from there?

I really feel that the helping hand of AA right now is not in that meeting the way it should be for a newcomers meeting, I recall a few months ago a young lady during announcements stood up and said "I need a sponsor, how do I get one?" Yes that was the topic for the meeting and there were some great shares and she did wind up with a sponsor, but how many newcomers have simply thrown in the towel because they did not have the guts that young lady had?

My first meeting I went to after getting out of detox I did ask a guy to be my sponsor after the meeting, but alcohol had kicked my butt so badly that I was willing to follow directions and in detox they told me to get a sponsor, what about that person who does not even know what a sponsor is?

[mike_mass]

I know of a few meetings like this...pretty informal. I have seen people try to get them to operate in a more structured manner, all to no avail. The core people either stop going, cause disruptions at business meetings, or just ignore any resolutions that are passed. Funny thing is that most of the core people have long-term sobriety. Go figure. AA's a big tent, some meetings appeal to people because they are unstructured.

[Tazman53]

Mike from what I can gather there is no core group as far as a "Home" group goes. The folks I have spoken to about this (Very limited) concur with me that being a newcomers meeting folks with good sobriety should be letting new comers know that the helping hand of AA is there and how to ask for it.

[mike_mass]

Taz, if this is the case then go for it. It will probably benefit newcomers to have a chance to meet a temp sponsor.

[Tazman53]

Mike I have a feeling that a lot of folks who are not newcomers are very much like me and had assumed due to the age and the size of this meeting that it had an active home group, when from what I have learned it has basically been running on autopilot for at least a year!

I am going to talk to my sponsor about this tonight and get his thoughts on this as well. We both have been considering changing home groups lately, more for a change of scenery aka hearing other folks take on living life sober via AA!

[CarolD]

Hmm...
I suggest you call you call your area Central Office
and ask who are the trusted servants are for this group.

Also ask where you can buy a Service Manual.

nce you make this your home group
you can call for a group concious.
Any member can .

Let us know how this jells...k?

[nandm]

Great advice Carol.

On a similiar note. My home group just did a Group Inventory. We have regular group conscious/business meetings every month. Unfortunately, although it is announced at every meeting, only the same 8 to 10 people show up each month. But the inventory was a pretty neat thing, even though the only people that showed up were our regular group conscious/business meeting people. We had a representative come in from the central office to chair it. It helped us identify areas where we could be of better service to our community, areas where we are doing well, as well as things that would be beneficial to change. I would suggest any group that wants to improve, look into having one.

[Tazman53]

Man sponsors burn me UP!!! LOL As usual after talking to him he asked me what about the home group I was in now..... was there anything I felt we may need to improve? We spoke a little about that and then he said "You know Martin all you have to do is go to the meeting and ask at the beginning of the meeting for a show of hands of those willing to be temporary sponsors and that is that.

Once again I am taking something so simple and making it complex!!! Stinking sponsor.... gotta love him... I think! LOL

Thank you all for the advice and suggestions.

nandm I have never heard of a group inventory, I will have to check that out.

[SaTiT]

My original home group was a kind of like an umberlla club.
It held 3-4 meetings a day. Generally 15-20 people per meetings.
it was all too damn complicated for me. i did manage to attend
a couple of the bussiness...i freaken ran for the hills..lmao.
Where the hell did all these damn old farts came from..lol

I made that my home group becuase that's where it all begin for
for...Nobody actaully asked me. 3-4 meetings per day, lots, and lots
of service posistion to be fill. So i just grab a mop and started mopping
and didn't see much of a lot of oldtimers. they only show up when the
boat gets rock n and a rolling pretty good..lol
So I rocked the hell out of it sometimes. I had a key to the door, but
i was only repsonisble for a sunday moring meeting...but the rest of
the time people assume i was reponsible for running all the meetings
becuase other secutary didn't show up..then people will complain..lol
not really knowing and blaming me for being late or not having the
doors or coffee made on time...lol then the old farts will show up
and try to reem me a new one.
There seem to be a lack of communications..lol
too many cheif and not enough indians..lol
Gotta love my family or home group...lmao

my current home group...well they're a wierd bunch too.
Everything done for the books or formal. service posistions
up the wazoo, bussiness meetings up the wazoo.lol
Questions about if i wanna make this my home gruop and a bunch
of other stuff, such as emergency phone list....
it's a book study...that explains it.

for me..it's like asking if I'm an alcoholic or not. only i can determine that.
same gose for my home group

[Sugah]

I probably shouldn't be diving into a question like this because I'm home, sick in bed with time on my hands!

First, Taz, I wish we'd have looked around for a meeting last week when we were in your area. Maybe we'd have had a chance to meet. We stay at the junction of 95 & 17 on our way to and from the beach each year.

Second...home group with no home group members? How sad! I ran into this when I first got sober. We had key holder, coffee makers, a rotating chair (basically, whomever chose to take it for that month), but in five different meetings and two distinct, registered groups, there were no real home group members. I say it's sad because, though every person in AA is told, "Each person in AA has a voice," that's not true if that person has no home group or if the home group doesn't have trusted servants or group conscience meetings.

When I was at almost a year sober and started asking questions about service (that I learned about in the pamphlets), I became the first GSR one group had had in several years. The key holder/coffee maker/treasurer/secretary wasn't very willing to share her job with others, but begrudgingly, she took on "assistants."

There is another meeting, a very well-attended speaker meeting, that was, like the newcomer meeting you're talking about, cruising along on auto pilot. It had one home group member, an oldtimer who was committed to keeping the only dedicated speaker meeting (meaning, it was always a speaker meeting, not just in certain weeks of the month) alive. His other fellow home group members fell away -- either because they'd gone back out, joined other home groups, or were attending fewer meetings. He started calling, at every meeting, for members to adopt the meeting. Over the course of time, he's been joined by four or five others. Those who were home group-less got their voice back in AA because they now have regular group conscience meetings and a GSR who carries their group conscience to the district level.

So, I know your original concern was the availability of members to be temporary sponsors, and your sponsor gave you a great suggestion -- just ask!

That doesn't answer the question of where this particular group is in the service structure, though. Are they at the top of the pyramid, where they should be, or off the radar? Do all of those other attendees have home groups? If you (or someone) can answer the question (are there really any home group members?), and that answer is no, I'd go ask support from the district and/or intergroup in beginning a membership drive. Sometimes groups or unregistered meetings choose, for whatever reason, to forfeit their voice, but if this is a newcomer meeting (especially because this is a newcomer meeting!), what better place to begin introducing newcomers to the structure of AA than offering them a home?

Just some thoughts. I know that it's taken awhile, but through the efforts of many people in my district who believed in the importance of every member and every group, we have only a small number of non-participating groups. Representation at monthly district meetings very often is 75% or better.

Anyway, it wasn't my intent to complicate things for you again! I would suggest bringing it up at a district/intergroup meeting and asking for their support in reviving this group's participation....after, of course, discussing it with your sponsor

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[barb dwyer]

Taz -

If you're going to follow through with what I sensed going on underneath your post.... call your local GSO or District offices, and find out who the GSR is. That's who calls business meetings - and that's who keeps up with who's doing what and that goes for within the geroup - and as the group relates to district.

A group conscience can be taken right then and there (meaning in the meeting) there's no need to call a business/officers meeting for that wehn your sponsor pretty much told you the deal. Some groups do this whole big 4th step kind of group conscience thing - but when it's something for right there in that meeting - the chair can pause the flow and call for a conscience.

BUT : if you're going to see about changing anything about the opening reading for the group - THEN you have to get the whole gang together and do the whole Roberts rules shindig.
Like if you were going to have it put in the preamble reading for the opening reading of the meeting.
The stuff BEFORE the 'how iot works' speil.

Newcomers meetings are pretty much disorganized. At least that's what I'm being told and PM'd anyhow. I think some of it comes from not many individuals in there have that much sobriety, and others who HAVE gotten some sobriety under their belt - move on. The other is just the nature of a meeting where so many come and leave so quickly.

Not many of us make it, whether in AA, or 'alternative' recovery.

And that's the bottom line.