Serving Bucks & Montgomery Counties Pa
This the category for general information that may be useful to members of Alcoholics Anonymous. At District 23 A.A. we are committed to helping our groups and our AA members carry the message of hope to those who still suffer.
The TGIS Group that formerly meet at the Doylestown Hospital is now Open at a new location. It has been a long COVID Shut down for this very popular weekend speaker group so please help spread the word. CLICK HERE FOR FLYER
Off Street Parking, Large Clean Meeting Room, Handicap Accessible
Here is a link to the revised proposal we voted to send to the area at our September District meeting. You will find the full proposal in PDF format to share with your groups.
Have we reached out to our local radio stations about Area 59 PSA
We contacted WRDV Hatboro
Have we contacted local Rehabs and halfway houses with website info and Zoom Meetings
Possible Contacts:
Brooke Glen Rehab, Fort Washington Pa
(The General Service Office has made this optional statement available as an A.A. service piece for those groups who wish to use it.)
Suggested Statement on Safety Our group endeavors to provide a safe meeting place for all attendees and encourages each person here to contribute to fostering a secure and welcoming environment in which our meetings can take place. As our Traditions remind us, the formation and operation of an A.A. group resides with the group conscience. Therefore, we ask that group members and others refrain from any behavior which might compromise another person’s safety. Also, please take the precautions you feel are necessary to ensure your own personal safety, for example, walking to your car in a group after a meeting. If a situation should arise where someone feels their safety is in jeopardy, or the situation breaches the law, the individuals involved should take appropriate action. Calling the proper authorities does not go against any A.A. Traditions and is recommended when someone may have broken the law or endangered the safety of another person.
Service Material from the General Service Office
Our Common Welfare
Each member of Alcoholics Anonymous is but a small part of a great whole. A.A. must continue to live or most of us will surely die. Hence our common welfare comes first. But individual welfare follows close afterward. —Tradition One (Long Form) It is hoped that our common suffering as alcoholics and our common solution in A.A. will transcend most issues and curtail negative behaviors that could jeopardize the safety of anyone attending an A.A. meeting. Nevertheless, Alcoholics Anonymous is a microcosm of the larger society we exist in. As such, problems found in the outside world can also make their way into the rooms of A.A. For this reason, groups and members discuss the topic of safety — to raise awareness in the Fellowship and to seek through sponsorship, workshops and meetings, to create as safe an environment as possible to carry A.A.’s message of hope and recovery to the still-suffering alcoholic.
Due to the current changing health situation, many AA meetings across the U.S. and Canada are finding it safer to close. To help members during this time, we are giving everyone free access to all of our 2020 Grapevine and La Viña issues. (The audio to Grapevine’s stories will be available as well, so people can listen to the stories if they like.) Please share with your fellows. We have also included a link to our Youtube channel with some original audio stories as well as other important information.
To visit: A.A. Grapevine Site To Read 2020 Issues Free of Charge
www.aagrapevine.org/we-are-here-to-help
A.A. Grapevine on YouTube
Find on Youtube channel some original audio stories and other important information.
GrapeVine YouTube Channel Click Here
Audio download The recorded 2020 issues are available for download.
DOWNLOAD THE ZIP VERSION
Dear Fellow Members,
With the current public health situation created by the COVID-19 pandemic, your Area 59 Officers have been working to understand and follow PA health officials’ advice regarding our event planning. As previously announced, Eastern PA General Service (Area 59), has cancelled our April 5th Pre-Conference Sharing Session that was to be held at the University of the Sciences in Philadelphia.
We are developing a system that will enable all AA Members to gain access to a set of discussion threads and to share their perspectives on 13 select Agenda Items. The following link can take you to the site:
https://groups.google.com/a/area59aa.org/d/forum/pcss
Once you are there, you click “apply for membership” and our site administrator will set your email up to access the “Area 59 Pre-Conference Sharing” section. Once you agree to follow some good manners guidelines and state that you are a Member of A.A., you will be given access. Then you will be able to click on individual items, access the Agenda Item background information and see other Member’s sharing on each topic
The purpose of the sharing is to give our Delegate an idea of the group conscience from across Area 59 in order to prepare to participate in the annual General Service Conference (G.S.C.). (Only elected Delegates participate in the G.S.C.) The G.S.C. is where final deliberations and decisions are made with regard to the group conscience for all of A.A. on the Agenda Items. This year, the G.S.C. will be held the week of April 17th and it will be a virtual conference through online meeting technology due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
So, as a Member, please know that we value your input. You can find additional information on our Area 59 website: www.area59aa.org. You should also feel free to contact any Area 59 Officer or your Delegate (delegate at area59aa dot org.) If you have questions or issues with the sharing site or in gaining access to it, please contact officer-at-large at area59aa dot org.
Most of our meetings have resumed in person attendance. For the most up to date listing of on-line meetings in the South Eastern Pennsylvania Region pleas refer to our Intergroup meeting list you can find here.
How It Works – Preamble – The Promises
This is an On-Line meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous. We are glad you are all here — especially newcomers. In keeping with our singleness of purpose and our Third Tradition which states that “The only requirement for A.A. membership is a desire to stop drinking,” we ask that all who participate confine their discussion to their problems with alcohol.
When we use digital media, we are responsible for our own anonymity and for protecting that of others. When we post, text, or blog, we should consider whether we are publishing at the public level. When we break our anonymity in these forums, we may inadvertently break the anonymity of others.
Please No Recording Screen Sharing/Shots and remove your last name from participants list. > Click Participants > YourName > More > Rename
Thank You
This is a variation of a service piece provided by: (The 1987 General Service Conference) for on-line groups who wish to use it.)
For Zoom users: With the rush to shift to online meetings, many of us did not take time to investigate what this meant to the spiritual foundation of our recovery – namely, anonymity. Now that online meetings are accessible, we want to pass on best practices for protecting anonymity. These have been curated from the membership and online resources.
The default Zoom settings run counter to AA’s spiritual foundation of anonymity. The meetings are publicly accessible and full names and faces are often displayed. Additionally, by default all Zoom meetings are recorded to the cloud. Turning that feature off is simple, fortunately.
There are other settings in the Meeting subtab that can also be adjusted, such as disallowing remote control of devices, file transfer, data sharing with Zoom, and screen sharing.
Here are some suggested settings for your meeting to use. Please note that most, if not all, of the settings below are not the Zoom default:
Go to: Settings > Recording and click off the Local and Cloud recording features.
In the Zoom Settings section, under the Meeting subtab:
In the Zoom Settings section, under the Recording subtab:
We will update this page with additional information as we learn it and encourage you to share tips and tricks with us that we can include. And stay tuned for information on Seventh Tradition contributions.
We have upgraded our Zoom package to bring this to more people who are in need of this information. We will have a max of 500 participants. Because so many people have contacted us about this webinar we decided to do it again this
Sunday, March 22nd at 7pm EST … Details to join and itinerary are below.
What we will go over:
Zoom Best Practices
Zoom Meeting Controls
Roberts Rules Of Order In Zoom
Zoom Third Legacy Voting
Starting an Online meeting via Zoom
Q&A
Details to join: Zoom Best Practices and 3rd Legacy Voting (Option 2)
Time: Mar 22, 2020 07:00 PM Eastern Time (US and Canada)Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/521468240 Meeting ID: 521 468 240