HANGE BULLETIN OTES ON ALCOHOLICS ANONYMOUS WORLDWIDE

Volume

6

Published by General Service Office of A.A,, P. 0. Box 459, Grand Central Station, New York 17

Number 11

INDIVIDUAL SUBSCRIPTION $1 A YEAR

December,

1961

e’e4eN44 9eeee Dear Friends:

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For A.A. this is the twenty-sixth Christmas and for Al-Anon it is the

GSO GATHERING 1962 DIRECTORY INFORMATION

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Cards from which the 1962 World Directory will be compiled have already been mailed. The cooperation of every Group, Loner, Central and Intergroup Office and Club will make it possible for members throughout the world to locate other A.A. ’s easily and quickly whenever the need arises. This year there should be only one address on the return card. We will use this address for all our mailings and will lisT’IT that way in the 1962 Directory, Anita R. of GSO Staff, who is in charge of this operation, has asked that all cards be returned by January 1, 1962. For those who may not know, each year GSO compiles a World Directory and distributes it to General Service Conference Committees, Central and Intergroup Offices, Groups, Loners and Internationalists, all over the world, The Directory is confidential, but individual members can purchase copies through their group officers. GSO recently received the following order from the Secretary of a group at a New Jersey State Hospital: ’Will you please send me a World Directory, The reason for this request is that a lady truck driver (believe it or not) was recently a patient here and took to A.A. like a duck to water. There are eleven towns where she might be held over en route to Florida and back to New York and Hartford, She wants to know how she can find A.A. meetings in all these places. She is a swell gal so let’s help her,”

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NEW PAMPHLET FOR CLERGYMEN

With this Bulletin you will find an order blank for the new pamphlet, “A Clergyman Asks About A,A,” This Conference approved pamphlet will give a helpful introduction to A.A. to those clergymen who are not familiar with the Fellowship. It will also be of interest to some A.A. members as it shows how the collective A.A. experience in helping alcoholics can be made available to interested clergymen,

LETTER FROM PARIS

“Dear Ann: Thanks for your letter. It arrived shortly after my return here to Paris from seven weeks of A.A. in the U. S. I was in Los Angeles for eleven days with my sponsor, Anna L,, and her husband. As it happened, my third A.A. birthday came while I was there and I got my cake at the Motion Picture Group’s meeting in Hollywood, You might have thought I was the first fellow to make three years in this organization, and now I’m spoiled rotten! I went to eight meetings out there and met a lot of nice people, and will say the California A.A. is tremendous, “Most of my time was spent in Oklahoma. I was in Tulsa for a few days and we had a sort of family meeting and program, Uncle Dud was the chairman, and my cousin Bill and I were the speakers and they really gave me a ride, I think it was the first time I realized that anything I ever did while drinking was funny. It was a very serious matter to me and I’ve always been reticent to talk about it much, Anyway, they made it sound funny and the whole evening was fun, “In keeping withAbA,’s Birthday Plan idea, I will enclose a birthday contribution as a little token of my appreciaton, both to A.A. and to Ab. Ab was my Uncle Dud’s sponsor in Tulsa nearly fifteen years ago, and Uncle Dud is directly responsible for my joining, “We had a good meeting here in Paris at the English- speaking group last night with several visitors and a new and promising candidate. A fellow called from the Orleans base this morning and wanted all the literature we could spare him, in a hurry. The doctors have given him permission to hold meetings in the base hospital. We’ll help him all we can. Thanks again for everything, Sincerely, Fred 5,”

ANY SUGGESTIONS?

This month, Bert R celebrates his tenth A.A.Birthday in Jasper, Alberta, with one other member. He moved to Jasper after joining A.A. and has been trying to get a group going there ever since, “Perhaps I made a mistake in starting out with an open meeting,” Bert writes. “I knew some people who could really use the program and hoped a few might turn up out of curiosity. But nobody from Jasper appeared We had a meeting though, with A.A. ’s coming to give us a boost from other towns, some as much as two hundred miles away, “My superiors are very much in favor of A.A. and have provided us with a nice place to meet Sunday seemed like the best day, and I have been going in regularly now for months. The meetings are posted on the company billboard and listed in the local paper. So far only one other person has shown up. He is a railway worker whose hours are just as irregular as mine are. But he makes one more contact for anyone coming to Jasper. Any suggestions for getting our group started will be appreciated (How about it, Readers? Any suggestions? If so, send them to us and we’ll pass them along to Bert,)

THE 1962 GENERAL SERVICE CONFERENCE willbe held April 25th – 29th, at the Hotel Roosevelt, New York. Eighty-five Area Delegates will attend a series of meetings together with the General Service Board Trustees and the Directors and Staffs of GSO and Grapevine. All phases of A.A. world-wide services will be discussed. We have been notified that the following 15 new Delegates have been elected to serve during 1962 – 1963: IDAHO – Charles H., Nampa ILLINOIS (DOWNSTATE) Carl S.,, Rock Island KANSAS – Paul M., Hoxie KENTUCKY – Bob P., Lexington MINNESOTA (NORTHERN) Mrs. Donna T.,, Bemidji MARYLAND – John V., Baltimore MONTANA – Ed G., Warm Springs NEW JERSEY (SOUTHERN) Harry K., Haddonfield NEW MEXICO Ken 0., Farmington

OREGON – Bruce W., Salem SOUTH CAROLINA Manuel B., Eastover TEXAS (SOUTHWEST) Marguerite C. , Austin NORTHERN WISCONSIN & UPPER MICHIGAN William C., Ishpeming ATLANTIC PROVINCES Jack M., Halifax, N. S. WESTERN ONTARIO Clair H., Burlington

Jack K. , from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, has been elected to serve as Delegate for the year 1962 from the new NORTHERN ONTARIO AREA. This area was approved by the 1961 Conference last April and was placed in the Conference Panel that sends new Delegates in the odd years. Jack will therefore serve for one year only and the area will elect another Delegate to serve for 1963 and 1964.

ANSWERING SERVICE IN DAYTON

Miles E. , of Dayton, Ohio, writes, “After our years of difficulties with A.A.’s answering service, the Telephone Company’s cooperation has helped us solve our problem. The company has installed three ’off-premise extension’ phones in the homes of three A.A.’s who are Intergroup Committee members and who live in different parts of the city. These three phones all have the same number which is listed in the phone book under ’A.A. Information.’ When this number is called, all three phones ring simultaneously. By prearrangement, someone is always on hand to take the call. Whoever answers the call checks his list of available l2th-Steppers and relays the call to an A.A. in the caller’s part of town. “This system has been in operation for a year and works fine. Maybe somebody else can use the idea. If you want more details, let us know.

SOME BASIC INFORMATION ABOUT A.A.

The pamphlet, “Background Information on the Fellowship of A.A. 11 is becoming increas ingly popular with A.A. members. Prepared originally by GSO for release at A.A. ’s 25th Anniversary in 1960, this little folder was designed to answer quickly questions about A.A. that are asked most frequently by writers, editors and broadcasters. “Who runs A. A. ?”, “How is A, A. supported?”, “Does A. A. recruit?”, “How is A. A. organized?” are some of the questions it asks and succinctly answers. ,

Many groups are now finding it useful in performing their public information service and individual members are using it to brief their friends and relatives in the basic facts ofA.A. Take it along when you talk with a local editor about a story on your group’s anniversary meeting, or when you speak before a non-alcoholic group of “civilians.” We will be glad to send you a sample copy gratis. Or you can order a supply. The price is 2 copies for 5.

ANONYMITY BREAK

The Directors of A.A. World Services, Inc., have granted permission to a certain area committee to reprint a limited number of copies of Bill W,s article, ’Why Alcoholics Anonymous is Anonymous, 11 The reprint is a section from the pamphlet, “A.A. Tradition How It Developed 11 Proper credit to the source has been shown on the reprint and no copies will be sold, The secretaries of forty-three local groups have already received copies and there will now follow an extensive distribution to A. A. members in this area so that they may know the story behind our Tradition of Anonymity, Most A.A. ’s today are committed wholeheartedly to the principle of personal anonymity before the public. Identification of an A.A. member at press, radio, TV or film level is rare, but occasionally it does happen. Anonymity breaks usually occur when some ———–.,–.’.—–IJ1tUL, pro LUieUW-LLy ns _..__.1._ overgenerous friend in one one communicatio p’the use of names, gives one of our members public recognition when none is sought. However, there have been some rare cases when individual members, for private reasons which seemed to them more important than A.A. Tradition, deliberately identified themselves publicly by name. This particular area committee had been faced with the latter situation. They believed that an informed membership would be the most effective means of preventing the occurance of another “break, ’ This was the reason they wanted the reprints, The A.A. World Services Directors were happy to cooperate,

CHRISTMAS GREETINGS from The Grapevine Staff and a last reminder that December 14th is the deadline for mailing GV gift orders to be received by Christmas. The two GV Christmas Bonuses are: A.

1.-year’s subscription to the GV, plus AA TODAY

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$4.95

B.

1-year’s subscription to the GV, the Serenity Prayer in color, copies of five A.A. slogans, and the miniature Grapevine

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$3.95