Saturday evening December 31,2011 and I am sitting at Central Office with members of my Sunday morning meeting The Garden Variety Group that meets every Sunday morning at Anna’s Restaurant at 9:30. Please feel free to join us for a great meeting and pretty good breakfast.
As is normal Doug, our LIFELINE editor, has extended the deadline once again so yours truly can get off his you know what and compose the final verse of the year. What a year is has been! Central Office has new Articles of Incorporation, New Bylaws, held our first ever spring kick off and extreme yard sale, we formed a new outreach committee, had a great picnic, our first ever chili cook off, elected new committee chairs and as of midnight tonight will begin to operate with a mostly volunteer staff with the exception of our bookkeeper Tonuah. WHAT DID I JUST SAY? HAVE WE LOST OUR MINDS? ARE THE INMATES REALLY GOING TO RUN THE ASYLUM? Relax, breathe in, breath out, concentrate on your breathing, are you okay? Good let me explain. Ron and Sandy have retired. Tomorrow we are going to have a retirement party and I hope you had a chance to get down here and thank both of them for all they have done for Central Office over the past 22 years for Ron and 17 years for Sandy. Both of them will be missed and surly there will be bumps in the road without them.
In August Wendi W, Christy R, and myself attended the Inter-group Seminar in Tucson Az. What we learned was that most groups have found themselves running in the red and that many are running successfully with an ‘all volunteer’ staff. Our office is very lucky in that we have Betty H. heading up our volunteer committee. What does that mean for us? I’m watching people signing up for times as we speak. Have you signed up yet? Why not? If you don’t volunteer soon you might just get ‘voluntold’ if I know Betty. We are counting on you for help. No longer do we have the luxury of resting on our laurels and letting someone else to take care of Central Of-fice for us. Now is the time for the community to stand up and see to it that Central Office is open
and capable of meeting the needs of the AA community and the still suffering alcoholic when they make the call for help. To be there for the visitor that needs to know where an AA meeting is close to his or her location. I will be here from 2-6pm on Tuesdays starting in January. What about you, what can you do? We can make a spot for you. 1 hour 2 hours 4 hours a week, every other week, once a month. Make a commitment, it doesn’t hurt, it won’t kill you. If we don’t have a volunteer for specific time we won’t be open. We should be open, we need to be open, call Betty H., our volunteer committee chair at 801-883-9026 or 801-244-0878 or email her at volunteer@saltlakeaa.org
Ask the people that volunteer at Central Office most of them will tell you that they are having a good time. They meet people from all over when they come in for schedules, chips and literature. New people with questions about AA. Old timers that have great stories to share and people passing through and just stopping to say hey.
Can you paint, do you clean carpet, wanna help make Central Office more user friendly? You should know that we are rear-ranging the place. I suspect that it can be done by the end of February if we have a little help. Call me (Nick) 801-664-1206 or nick7141@xmission.com then call me at 801-664-1206 and tell me to look at my email. What can I say it’s not easy being hi-tech challenged.
Hopefully you had a safe, sober and memorable Christmas and New Year. If you did be thankful. If not let us know how we can help, Lets make 2012 the best year ever at Central Office. Come join us and lets have some fun.
Your humble servant,
Nick R.