May Day is a public holiday celebrated on May 1 in many different cultures around the world. For some of them, it is a day of unity, togetherness, and rebirth. In the rooms of A.A., we come together over and over for that purpose and more. In the last six weeks, we have had to dramatically alter the way in which we do so and it has been a remarkable transition, one absolutely marked by unity, togetherness who who knows? Maybe even rebirth!

With incredible support and participation from local members we have been able to update our website, populating it with the 400+ remote meetings you all organized. Additionally, we curated and shared best practices for online meetings, hosted a webinar on A.A. in War & Crisis that maxed out the 500 participant limit! The event drew attendees from all over the world, including Japan and Columbia and the speaker recordings are available here . Further, we oriented a dozen new HelpChat volunteers in our first remote orientation, hosted a workshop for more than 50 other offices on this service, filled every single Teleservice shift, answered hundreds of emails and had a highly attended monthly Intergroup meeting (summary here). We have also received a record number of individual contributions and more group contribution support than we imagined. 

That being said, we encourage meetings to continue to collect a 7th Tradition. Even if you don’t have meeting expenses now, you will have them when you return to your meeting space. If your meeting is not yet set up to receive digital contributions from its members, check out our article Best Practices for a Digital 7th Tradition. When the shelter in place is lifted, we hope all meetings will have the resources needed to gather and carry A.A.’s message to the still suffering alcoholic. If you are an individual member with more to give, please consider becoming a Faithful Fiver!   

We are looking ahead and hope to make the transition back to physical meeting rooms as smooth as possible. Along those lines, we are hoping to get a strong response to our Shelter-in-Place survey which will support that effort. In it, we seek to find out about meeting disruptions, self-support and what things might look like ahead.

Our next monthly Intergroup meeting is on Wednesday, May 6, so please, Please, PLEASE take the time to fill out the survey over the weekend so that the results can be shared there. 

There are a few annual events coming up, as well as some of the usual suspects. Now is as good a time as any to check out a Ninth Tradition service committee you’ve been curious about in support of it and your own Twelfth Step!

The CNCA Pre-Conference Assembly starts tomorrow! This is where your GSR takes your groups conscience to our Area Delegate who, in turn, brings it to the annual General Service Conference. This is all happening online this year, from the comfort of your own home! If that is not your idea of fun – or for a fun break in between this two day event – join our friends at Western Roundup Living Sober for their annual Spring Fling!

Three of our Intergroup Committees are hosting their regular monthly meetings in the next two weeks: Technology Committee Meeting on Monday, May 4, The Point on Saturday, May 9 and our former Public Information/ Cooperation with the Professional Community (PI/CPC) Committee, which is transitioning to a new name – Public Relations Committee, on Monday, May 11. It not already posted, meeting details for each will be added to the Events page as they are available.

Further, our two local General Service Districts, District 10, Marin General Service, and District 06, San Francisco General Service, also have their regular events coming up in the next couple of weeks: Marin will host a Twelve Concepts Study and San Francisco will have it’s regular monthly meeting preceded by orientation.

Stay tuned and please, for the love of well informed decisions, PLEASE complete our survey and share this information with your social media communities and encourage your A.A. fellows to subscribe to The Buzz. All of our prior updates can be found here.

All decisions will be re-evaluated as the situation changes; we are doing our best and appreciate your support and understanding.

Your AA Central Office