Who's sitting next to you

[navysteve]

A great story from the Grapevine:

The Home Group -Who's Sitting Next To You?

[traid77]

Wow, too true. Thanks for sharing that.

[navysteve]

Up here where I live now they pass around phone lists and call it reaching out. And if you say anything about this you get an influx of what's your part?

To which I usually say:

Well as a new guy in your area I am left in a quandary, you folks seems to have nothing I want since you can't be bothered to extend a hand to the new guy, so if you don't mind I will hang around on the outside looking for other folks who don't seem to "fit".

[jimhere]

Originally Posted by navysteve

Up here where I live now they pass around phone lists and call it reaching out. And if you say anything about this you get an influx of what's your part?

To which I usually say:

Well as a new guy in your area I am left in a quandary, you folks seems to have nothing I want since you can't be bothered to extend a hand to the new guy, so if you don't mind I will hang around on the outside looking for other folks who don't seem to "fit".

Hey Steve,

It seems that in the meetings around here most folks idea of Twelfth-Step work is to hand someone a meeting schedule with a bunch of phone numbers on it. That is never sat well with me and over the last eighteen, almost nineteen years I've got maybe one call from giving my number out on schedules.

What I try to do is make a practice of approaching the new person after the meeting a personally talking with him and exchanging numbers with him. I think the meeting directory with numbers on it is very impersonal.
Jim

[navysteve]

Hey Steve,

It seems that in the meetings around here most folks idea of Twelfth-Step work is to hand someone a meeting schedule with a bunch of phone numbers on it. That is never sat well with me and over the last eighteen, almost nineteen years I've got maybe one call from giving my number out on schedules.

What I try to do is make a practice of approaching the new person after the meeting a personally talking with him and exchanging numbers with him. I think the meeting directory with numbers on it is very impersonal.
Jim

See Jim, we agree on stuff (just teasing buddy!)

[jimhere]

Originally Posted by navysteve

See Jim, we agree on stuff (just teasing buddy!)

I think we probably agree on more than what we disagree on.

[barrylane]

Good story, i pray i never get too busy to make you feel welcome... that's my job today, to be there for the newcomer, and the visitor... why? because someone was there for me!

[Music]

Bare with me for a minute while I play devils advocate. The emphasis here seems to be on the people who've been around for a while, not doing what's expected of them by welcoming strangers or newcomers. What's not said is that for every newcomer or stranger who's timid, shy, unskilled, hungry, angry, lonely, or tired, there may be just as many people who've been around for a while, feeling the same way. The problem here is since nobody does anything, nothing gets done. Just because I've been around for a while, doesn't make me immune to these same feelings, or sometimes just not wanting to be bothered with any more than I already have going in my life. The bottom line is EXPECTATIONS whether put on the newcomer/visitor, or the person who's been around for a while. There are times when the newcomer/visitor needs to let it be known, who they are and what's going on.

[Sugah]

I know who was sitting next to me last night. It was a young woman to whom I handed a meeting list with my phone number on it. I was the only woman present that night, but if there were ten other women, I still would have approached her, pointed out my name on the list and urged her to call -- and to keep coming back, get to enough meetings so she could find someone who was good sponsor material and get moving on the solution.

Well, that meeting several weeks ago was the last she'd been to. She did a fair job of white-knuckling it until last night, desperate for a drink, she came across said meeting list and did the miraculous -- picked up the phone and called. She was forty minutes away, and somehow, without breaking the speed limit (by much, anyway), I got her and we walked into the meeting before the readings were completed.

I've read more than a few times about the uselessness of phone lists. I don't know that it's the list that's useless but the way it's presented. And newcomers are greeted, before and after our meetings. Within a week or two, we're encouraging them to stand with the greeter so that they, too, can shake every hand that walks in, new and old. You won't get any argument from me that the program is contained within that first 164 and more specifically within those twelve steps, but fellowship is important, too. Can't have it if you're not taught how to create it.

Rant over.

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[Sugah]

Pardon me for a momentary hijack -- for levity's sake:

Originally Posted by Music

Bare with me for a minute..

Music, I love you, man, but I respectfully decline

Peace & Love,
Sugah

[FightingIrish]

Every meeting I go to they ask in the announcements if there are any newcomers. I have never seen someone raise their hand, announce they are new, and walk out of the meeting without being approached. In fact, usually it is like chum in the water after the meeting. I have actually gotten resentments because there are a couple of oldtimers who have become adept at being the first person (no matter where they're sitting!) shaking the newcomers hand and offering help getting started.

[navysteve]

I have never seen someone raise their hand, announce they are new, and walk out of the meeting without being approached.

I have been that guy who has raised his hand and had exactly that happen. I have also seen people who come in off the street be treated that way. Now for the flip side, I have also been welcomed into peoples homes my first day in a new area. I was overseas and folks who could barely speak english showed me around their town and took me to some great local places to eat that I would have never found.