Committee No. 4
Background Information 1
Committee 6 of the 1984 Conference report Addendum.
A question arose concerning the function of the telephone contacts in “Where to Find” at national level. The recommendation is that they should be prepared to take full responsibility as contacts “with all that this implies” and delegate where necessary.
1985 Conference report; Clarification of “With all this implies”
This implies that such a telephone number will be freely available and that the contact is prepared at any time to:
Accept a call for help;
Give information to a professional;
Guide a family member to the right source for help;
Speak to members of the fellowship enquiring about meetings;
Background Information 2
The 2013/14 Edition of Where to Find contains over 700 groups that have no contact number.
Background Information 3
Members of the Fellowship who travel and make use of the Where to Find have expressed frustrations on attending meetings that are listed in the Where to Find but have no contact details only to discover that the meeting no longer exists.
Background Information 4
It would appear to be the case that with the increasing use of mobile phones that calls to the helpline can be received from anywhere in the country thereby rendering local where to finds of little use on some occasions. Using Where to Find to get the nearest contact has lead to a group some distance away being contacted as the nearest group to the person requiring help has no contact details listed.
Comment: We would hazard a guess that more and more people will be using the internet to contact AA and therefore locate meetings in the future. Therefore the emphasis should be on ensuring that that service receives priority. The existing online Where to Find should be kept right up to date. Where printed copies are required we suggest groups produce their own local Where to Find based on the online meeting finder including listings within a suitable radius. As for telephone contacts their function we would argue is not to serve as twelve step responders. If someone is familiar with the Where to Find system then it is likely they have already been in contact with AA before. If they call they should be advised to attend their local meetings. Similarly enquiries from professionals should be directed to GSO (York). With respect to family members etc they need only be given the Al-Anon number. We're not here to provide advice or counselling to non-AA's. That is not our primary purpose. Again existing members should already have access to Where to Finds. If the online Where to Find is up-to-date there is no reason why they should be using telephone contacts for information on this. As for the use of mobile phones the above should deal with most problems. As for the rest – that's just life! Annoying isn't it!
Cheers
The Fellas (Friends of Alcoholics Anonymous)
PS For AA Minority Report 2013 click here
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