6th month 6th Tradition

[kremjk]

Our A.A. experience has taught us that:

6.) An A.A. group ought never endorse, finance or lend the A.A. name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.                             (short form, pg. 562 4th Ed.)

6.) Problems of money, property, and authority may easily divert us from our primary spiritual aim. We think, therefore, that any considerable property of genuine use to A.A. should be separately incorporated and managed, thus dividing the material from the spiritual. An A.A. group, as such, should never go into business. Secondary aids to A.A., such as clubs or hospitals which require much property or administration, ought to be incorporated and so set apart that, if necessary, they can be freely discarded by the groups. Hence such facilities ought not to use the A.A. name. Their management should be the sole responsibility of those people who financially support them. For clubs, A.A. managers are usually preferred. But hospitals, as well as other places of recuperation, ought to be well outside A.A.-and medically supervised. While an A.A. group may cooperate with anyone, such cooperation ought never go so far as affiliation or endorsement, actual or implied. An A.A. group can bind itself to no one.             (long form, pg. 563-564 4th Ed.)

© Copyright 2007 Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.
All Right Reserved

[kremjk]

I 'grew up' in an "Alano" club. I believe that name "Alano" comes from the suggestions in the AA Service Manual for organizing a club house. The struggles of managing property as a group of strong minded and opinionated individuals who all want to be the 'leader' are addressed in that portion of the Service Manual.

I believe that the group there has done as well as most in the dividing of the spiritual from the material. The club is still the focal point for AA in this community. I no longer attend many meetings at the club however. The division of the concerns that the building and the parking lot and the lawn and the trees and the water heater and the smoke exhaust and etc. etc. etc. and the carying of the message, the keeping of these seperate concerns in their seperate realms, requires energy and focus. Sometimes the needs of the property make it to the AA meetings and those who are appointed to focus on the property, the ALANO Society board, (all AA members at this club) need to steer the issue to the Alano meetings and free up the AA meetings for the purpose of carrying the AA message.

I have a home group that 'rents' a space from a local church. There are four other such groups in town and four more in the nearby towns. We have freedom from concerns of the property we meet in. The churches, city buildings and restraunts we meet in take care of the property. And we are free to move our meeting if we need to.We can pack up the books and the coffee pot and go.

The benefits of the club that we miss out on however are that we cannot use the facility throughout the day. And there are times when others use the building at the same time as we do causing interruptions and concerns of confidentiality. Also, the local referral centers are often not aware of the smaller groups and the clients they send to AA are sent to the Club as it is the more 'visible' and it is open every day.

There are meetings three times a day, every day at the club. The smaller groups meet once a week. Of course we attend meetings at each other's groups so we don't have to wait a week for the next meeting. But I consider myself a guest at the other groups meetings and a member of my home group meeting. (for instance, I don't vote on group concerns at the other meetings)

I went to a meeting at the club last night. It was a good meeting and I was free to join in as a guest visitor. I noticed the new front stairs are in need of repair already. But I kept that to myself.
(If I was in charge it would be a wheelchair ramp)

jim k

[WolfM]

Dear Jim,
The meetings I attend in Saipan are in a church where we rent space. In Guam, the group I belonged to rented space in a strip mall and we had 13 meetings a week. But it was not an Alano Club. When I visit my folks in San Francisco, there is an Alano club about a 10-minute walk away and there are meetings all day, every day. When I visit family in Columbus Georgia, there is an Alano club I visit there. But no matter where I go, whether in the US, or Asia, or Australia, I always feel right at home and among family. That is just the way it is.
Wolf

[kremjk]

Thanks Wolf,

Our meeting in a church basement moved outside to the sidewalk tonight. The floor was stripped with fumey chemicals today and we could not tolerate the toxic air inside.

We had a great meeting with the sun setting and nighthawks and swallows gobbling up mosquitoes overhead.

jim k

[samf]

We meet in the local library, and pay rent. I go to another meeting, as well, that is semi-local. They also rent from a library, in another town.

When I lived in a bigger place, there was an Alano Club I loved being able to go to. It was open, all day, and especially in early sobriety, it felt like a "safe" place to go, when I needed a place to go. there were always other sober people there, who were willing to talk.

I never got involved in the machanics of the running of it, but was so grateful.

The outside meeting sounded wonderful!

Last year, we had a meeting for a while at one of the lakes, in the evening...it was perfect.

Sam