Page title

GNOSB MEETING, THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2024

New Products. Plain Language Big Book (released Nov. 1, 2024) – our first order of 100 copies (received 11/8) sold out in under a week, including 40 copies held for pre-orders, and our second order of 100 copies shipped 11/20, with another ~30 copies already pre-ordered. Seems to be a tool for exploring Big Book messages’ language and interpretation, to help us carry the message in meetings, via sponsorship, and via PI/CPC, T&C and other community-focused efforts.

Also, the Printed Meeting Book is now available at Central Office, $5 for a 64-page booklet containing nearly 600 in-person and online meetings hosted throughout the GNO area. These meetings listings and other resources are in addition to “Meeting in a Pocket”, where we have filled the whitespace of the booklet with the preamble, and common readings and prayers used to facilitate A.A. meetings. We are producing these meeting books quarterly, and printing them on-demand, with about 7-10 printed in the office. We request that orders of 5+ copies be placed via phone or email so we can print those for pickup. We appreciate and encourage your feedback and continued efforts to share meeting updates with us.

Printable Service & Events Calendar(s) plus Holiday Fellowship Flyers. November 2024 calendar available; December 2024 calendar in production (awaiting more December events).

We have also created a printable Thanksgiving Day meetings and events flyer for meetings, home groups, meeting spaces, and other T&C and outreach efforts to help connect alcoholics with meetings and fellowship during the holidays. We emailed this flyer out earlier this week with a call for any additional events or meeting changes to include and will send that flyer out again with any further updates early next week.

We will create a similar holiday fellowship flyer for Dec. 24th-25th and New Year’s events, so please spread the word to share those events and meeting changes information with Central Office to update the website and be included on the flyer.

Pricing Changes. We have heard our fellowship’s concerns about pricing on products at the office, and for the past several months have had discussions and made decisions on how best to implement such changes. Pricing structure changes for products sold in our central office have now begun taking effect; all books are now priced with the new structure, and we are working on pamphlets, followed by other non-literature merchandise. Shout-out to Assistant Manager Colyn N., who has been instrumental in the admin work of updating prices and shelf tags throughout this process.

Technology Upgrades – Zoom Equipment and Color Printer. Previous meetings have included discussion of investments in Zoom equipment, and we also would like to request an upgrade for our color printer. The color printer we have in the back office is outdated and expensive to maintain; a more prudent option may be to invest in a new printer with more accessible toner and maintenance. We can time purchases for both the color printer and Zoom equipment with upcoming holiday sales to make best use of our technology budget. Motion.

DAAY in the Park 2024. DAAY in the Park 2024 was a huge success, with lots of food, family fun, and, most importantly, recovering alcoholics and their loved ones. Home group participation was awesome, and our planning committee had more than enough food, drinks, and fun and games while remaining within budget. 

Introducing: Literature Fund. The DAAY in the Park 50/50 committee chair suggested that the half of winnings that would normally off-set costs of the events be used instead this year to fund purchases of literature for home groups and members. To facilitate this, we have created a Literature Fund that holds this money on a Central Office gift card, so that if individual members or meetings/home groups request complimentary literature from us, we can now facilitate those requests with the money from that Literature Fund.

This fund could be an initiative that is ongoing if members and meetings/home groups are interested in contributing to the fund, or this can simply be a use of this event’s 50/50 funds, and when the funds are used, we wait until the next year’s event to replenish it. We are limiting Literature Fund purchases to Big Books and Twelve and Twelve’s only.

More info available at aaneworleans.org/literature-fund.