All posts by Cathy C

NGSG Inventory Summary for 2020

Dear Trusted Servants:

Thank you to all who participated in our NGSG Inventory on 12/21/20, including members of NGSG, and those who conducted the Inventory. Summary prepared by Zach is as follows:

Nassau County Inventory 12/21/2020

Attendees: John W. (moderator), Nisaa(timekeeper), Zach (minutes), Annabel (DCMC) and members of Nassau General Service Group

Annabel (DCMC) – opening remarks.

John W. opening remarks: In general inventories are uncommon. Not to take your inventory but to help you with the process. This is done in the same spirit as doing your own step-work. The miracle their happens in the 6/7 steps when we look at what we’ve uncovered and take some additional action. The real opportunity to help strengthen Nassau County comes after this inventory. No decisions will be made tonight. Encouraged to not have debate. Please focus remarks to John. Encouraged the current officers to listen as much as you can and try not to respond or give feedback.

Nassau County General Service Inventory
From the pamphlet The AA Group: “Many groups periodically hold a ‘group inventory meeting’ to evaluate how well they are fulfilling their primary purpose: to help alcoholics recover through A.A.’s suggested Twelve Steps of recovery.” We will apply this same principle to our county structure.

1 – What is the basic purpose of Nassau County General Service?
• Support the home groups and to receive information and pass it on.
• Communicate with other groups inside Nassau.
• Facilitate spreading the message of recovery to groups below the group level in the service
triangle.
• Provide services beyond the capabilities of the group.

2 – Are we fulfilling this purpose?
YES: One of the reasons our districts are not strong is our county meetings
provide all we need. Good leadership, communication, love and tolerance.
NO: Lack of reaching out to the area. Only as good as the person doing the service. We could be more willing.

3 – Is NCGS attracting a good cross section of AA members into Service?
In order to succeed we need enthusiastic leaders. We have ICYPAA connection which represents a good cross section.
Yes, a terrific cross section. We include the spanish district.
The people that have joined are both young and mature. So, Yes.
One of the problems is that a number of groups don’t have GSR’s and are not represented. Perhaps there needs to be more outreach.
The pulse of the group can be determined by the representation. Not diverse at all, not a lot of people that look like him.
How do we get groups that are not represented? Hopes that no one feels unwanted.
In terms of increasing representation . . are Spanish interpreters available?
How do we attract members into GS? As a DCM went to dark meeting (no gsr) and tried to encourage participation. Perhaps we should just have a county meeting and helping GSR’s get involved in committees where they have interest.
350 groups in Nassau. Due to Covid many of those closed. We do need more. In Queens they would send GSR’s to nearby meetings to encourage participation. In the past we sent letters to dark groups. We are not attracting GSR’s. We are only receiving contributions from 45 groups. Very low participation.

4 – Are we forming into cliques and being different to some GSRs?
I hope we don’t shrink into viewer districts because the DCM provides a voice. We have to make it fun! Unity breakfast, share a day, etc.
It’s the same GSR’s year after year.

5 – Is the turnover in Service positions excessive?
Consensus was no.

6 – Has enough effort been made to explain the need and value of unity (12 Traditions) and service (12 Concepts)?
• For those of us who participate the answer is yes.
• We do run tradition workshop meetings. Was sober many years before she heard
of the concepts.
• We hold regular workshops. ex. Bridging the gap, grapevine.
• We need to explain the value of these concepts and traditions. In GS you need a
thick skin. In Nassau we value and explain.

7 – Is adequate opportunity given to all members to speak and participate in NCGS activities to arrive at the actual voice and effective conscience for our whole County?
Visual affirmation.
• A good example is tonight. Annabel informed us but to get people to look at the minutes beforehand is a challenge.

8 – Are County officers picked with care and consideration on the basis that serving in this capacity is a great responsibility and opportunity for Twelfth Step work?
• In the three past rotations .. . .there have been situations where it was hard to find people to serve.

9 – Have we defined well the scope of authority and service responsibility of our County officers, by specific job descriptions or guidelines?
SKIPPED

10 – Are the issues brought to NCGS made clear so all know what they are voting for or against?
11 – Are all important decisions reached by a discussion, vote, and whenever possible substantial unanimity?
COMBINE 10 and 11 – “Do you know what you are voting on and is it clear how it happens?”
• It is because the voting process is the Roberts Rules. No one is hand picked and we go through the voting process.
• The issues are made very clear.

12 – How do we treat the “Right of Appeal” thus assuring that minority opinion will be heard and that petitions for redress of personal grievances will be carefully considered?
Visual affirmations.
• We have a good representation as far as elections and as far as committees go.
When we leave the room everyone is happy.

13 – Does NCGS carry its fair share of the job helping SENY and GSO carry the message?
• There are a small group here that carry this message.

14 – Does NCGS communicate clearly its distinction from Nassau Intergroup? Do we cooperate or affiliate?
• We definitely cooperate. There are a few committees where we work together.

15 – Are we “self-supporting through County contributions” in covering expenses for Service in
the County? Do we have sufficient operating funds and operate on a prudent financial principle? • Visual affirmation that Geralda is giving the right information.

16 – Do we have an effective system for accounting and reporting funds? Combined with 15.
Consensus was yes.

17 – Is there more NCGS can do to carry the message?
• We can be doing more. The clusters were effective. No representation among
the black groups.
• There has to be some kind of outreach.
• We need to find a way to incorporate some younger folks with us.

Concluding remarks – John: The important thing now is to look at notes and figure out what needs addressing. If groups need GSR’s this is a great time to do that. Go to business meetings and bring the new GSR pamphlet. There are never enough people to do all of the work. Focus on the solution rather than the problem. Instead of 12 committees with no chairs just have a few strong committees.

Yours in service,
Annabel B

ZOOM MEETINGS FOR HOSTS:  PROTECTING ANONYMITY & DEFAULT SETTINGS

Note:  This was shared by NYC Central Office for AA and re-posting here for all of you hosting meetings since many of us are now using Zoom to host our meetings.
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:
• Require Encryption for Third Party Endpoints
• Disable Auto saving chats
• Disable File transfer
• Disable Feedback to Zoom
• Disable Screen sharing
• Disable desktop/screen share for users
• Disable Remote control
• Allow Virtual background (this is the Zoom default and allows the user to use a virtual background instead of the inside of their apartment, for example)
In the Zoom Settings section, under the Recording subtab:
• Disable Local recording
• Disable Cloud recording
• Disable Automatic recording

A Full Table: The Day of Sharing at G.S.O.

Learn more about the Day of Sharing that took place on December 3, 2019 – below is an excerpt – read the full story from Box 459 here en_box459_spring20

On December 3, 2019, the General Service Office of Alcoholics Anonymous hosted a historic Day of Sharing with members of seven other Twelve Step fellowships. The gathering at A.A.’s upper Manhattan service office was not the first of its kind — the initial Day of Sharing took place in G.S.O.’s former location at 468 Park Avenue in 1991.

There have been several subsequent ones attended by representatives of Al-Anon and the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence (NCADD), as well as a “Fellowship Day of Sharing” in 2008 that included attendees from Debtors Anonymous (D.A.), Overeaters Anonymous (O.A.) and Narcotics Anonymous (N.A.). But December’s meeting brought together at one conference table the most diverse gathering of Twelve Step fellowships G.S.O. has ever hosted, not only Al-Anon, but also Cocaine Anonymous (C.A.), Narcotics Anonymous (H.A.), Heroin Anonymous (H.A.), Sexaholics Anonymous (S.A.), Debtors Anonymous (D.A.) and Overeaters Anonymous (O.A.). Jeff W., G.S.O.’s staff member on the Group Services desk, helped organize the gathering, and says, “What an effort they all made to come to this — some people traveled across the country to sit at that table together. I think we all felt this incredible gratitude. The potential was clear in terms of how much we can learn from each other.”

How to Set Up a Virtual Zoom Meeting For Your Group

Reposting An Email from NY Intergroup that provides great information on how to host a remote meeting for your group FREE OF CHARGE using an AA ZOOM ROOM

March 23, 2020: Covid-19 Update: Remote Meetings & A.A. Zoom Room

Please note we recommend that all groups close per the P.A.U.S.E. Government Guidelines put into place last nght.
 A.A. is not an essential business, and therefore WILL be broken up by police if they continue to meet. We’ve already had multiple reports of this happening. PLEASE, FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY, DO NOT GO TO A.A. MEETINGS. We need to keep our Fellowship safe, regardless of our age.

* We are rolling out a free of charge A.A. Zoom Room’ this week, so A.A. groups can continue their regular meetings remotely with our assistance . We have upgraded our account to the Enterprise Plus edition, which enables us to host 500 A.A. Meetings per hour with up to 300, 500, or 1,000 participants per A.A. meeting. We will personally supply a Admin user ID to access our account for each group / meeting.  Additionally, we will ensure Privacy and Anonymity settings are in tact. If you’d like to add your group to our ‘A.A. Zoom Room’, please fill out the form here.

* If your group has already launched a free, (or paid) Zoom account, you can switch over to our account free of charge, and cancel your group’s personal Zoom account so you can be hosted by ours.

*We will not be involved in your groups meeting(s) in any way, other than to provide the technology, free of charge. Your meetings will continue as usual–we’ll just provide the Zoom Access for you and your group members to continue your meetings at their regular dates and times. We also will have our settings set to the strongest privacy option; meaning your anonymity is guaranteed to be protected.

* I’m just a member. How can I access these groups / meetings?
All groups will be listed on our soon to be reformatted Remote Meeting page. All you’ll have to do is click on the Zoom link, or dial in by telephone, for the meeting you’d like to join. Each group will also have the ability to upload their meeting format, or any other information they’d like to provide on their own zoom page, such as 7th tradition options for your own group.

* For a comprehensive list of Remote A.A. meetings, click here. Hundreds are coming in, so please use this as a resource to stay in touch with the fellowship.

Note: We will be updating this list in the coming day to be organized by time, in a new format, so it is easier for everyone to find a meeting when they need it. 7th tradition options will be available for your group, in addition to uploading a script or posting detailed information. 

*If you’d like to add your group to this list of remote meetings, please fill out this form, and your group will be automatically updated to our list of remote A.A. meetings. 

FOR GROUPS WHO HAVE CREATED USER ID’S IN OUR ZOOM ROOM:
Thank you for your continued patience. We are a team of four supporting many groups at once.
Support Page
Keep an eye out for updates on our support documentation.
SERVICE OPPORTUNITY
We’re looking for someone experienced with creating instructions to help us document various tasks that AAs need to know to use Zoom for meetings.
PROFILE
Enter your group name as the first name on your account.
WHAT IS MY MEETING ID?
Log into your account and it is listed on the profile page along with a link you can cut and paste.
INQUIRIES
When inquiring about your Zoom account please include the email address you signed up with and the group name, so that we may efficiently serve you.
ACTIVATION
If you received an Activation Email and it asked you if you wanted to switch, be advised the transition takes about 24 hours. It is seamless, you may continue to use the existing account and your Personal Meeting ID.
MEETING LISTING
Check that you’re listed.
View Meeting Listings
Add your group if you’re not listed
Add Your Listing Here

* New York Inter-Group will continue to offer help via telephone and chat to those in need of a meeting, or simply someone to talk to if you’re struggling right now. Call us at 212-647-1680 between 9:00 a.m. and 2:00 a.m. or visit our homepage at www.nyintergroup.org to chat with someone who can help.

* If you are willing to help us keep the phones and web-chat on during this difficult period, please fill out the form here and you will be added to our emergency contact list.  **One year of continuous sobriety required to answer phones or chat.

*If you have signed up to be of service, please visit our volunteer reference page to be oriented. We will be in touch with a shift.

* If you would like to submit a group closure, please fill out the form here, and we will add it to our comprehensive list of group closures listed here. For a comprehensive list of AA Meeting closures, click here.

* We hope you can stay in touch with our local fellowship as much as possible during this difficult time. Refer to our website for the most up to date resources on meeting closures, access to conference call meetings, internet meetings, and Zoom meetings, an A.A. meeting script, a tutorial on Privacy / Anonymity settings in Zoom, in addition to our very own A.A. Zoom Room for those who would like us to host you ourselves, free of charge.