Page title

CENTRAL OFFICE REPORT – GNOSB MEETING OCTOBER 29, 2025

DAAY in the Park. A beautiful experience of family-first fellowship. Gratitude and blessings to the members of the DAAY planning committee, all of the volunteers who extended the hand of A.A. in service before, during, and after the event; the home groups and their members for the creativity and fun they brought to the event; and all our attendees. Estimated about 250 attendees before rain arrived around 12:30pm. Closed early due to rain, yet we loved every minute of our DAAY together. 

The DAAY in the Park 2025 committee contributed $150 to the Literature Fund; financial overview report available on our website: Contributions drop-down menu → Literature Fund

Literature Table Pop-up Launch – District Workshop. Central Office was invited to host a literature pop-up table at District 21’s Corrections Correspondence workshop. We brought the essentials (Big Books, 12&12s) plus Plain Language, Service Manuals, and some of our in-house printed materials (i.e., Meeting in a Pocket/Pamphlet, Digital Newcomer Pak, Digital Service Pak). We also brought a variety of complimentary corrections-related service materials printed out to distribute in support of members interested in this realm of service. A mobile Square retail portal allowed us to complete cash and card transactions without bringing the entire retail system from the office like we do for the Spring Round Up and Big Deep South literature tables. The effort brought in $80 in net sales, including 6 Meeting in a Pocket booklets, 7 AAWS books, and several AAWS pamphlets carrying the message to workshop attendees and beyond with their ripple effect.

These literature pop-ups are something we’ve wanted to try doing for awhile and we were very grateful to collaborate with District 21 in this effort to carry the message, together. We believe the literature pop-up format can fulfill our primary purpose of carrying the message while extending reach of our literature in more specific contexts, as aligned with the topic and message of the workshop or event that we work with. We hope to do more such events with districts, committees, home groups, and other service entities interested in collaborating with us. Please email us at office@aaneworleans.org if you’d like us to bring literature to your event.

District Meetings – Group/Member Orders and Book Sales. In the spirit of the literature pop-ups, we also experimented with bringing small amounts of literature to district meetings, including essentials for home groups (Big Books, 12&12s, Newcomer Paks), our in-house printed materials mentioned above, etc. At one district meeting, we brought a pre-order of 50 Meeting in a Pocket booklets, and were able to process a district order for a metal pamphlet rack (and provide receipt) and provided Big Books for the T&C chair. At another district meeting, we were able to provide Big Books to a home group located far away from the office location. This effort brought in $120 in net sales, including 51 Meeting in a Pocket booklets, 8 AAWS books, and a pamphlet rack in support of district PI-CPC service work.

Going forward, we hope to coordinate ahead of time home group pre-orders that can either be paid for in advance or at the district meeting, and the order then delivered to and picked up by a home group rep at the district business meeting. This could improve collaboration with our central office and districts by encouraging home groups and members to participate in district meetings; they can attend the meeting to both pick up their group’s literature order and participate in the district meeting itself. This could also improve our reach in carrying the message to groups located farther from our physical office, as they may not be able to get to our physical retail store during business hours. 

Launching an online retail store could facilitate these pre-orders, and we are currently working on order/payment/delivery logistics as well as expanding our website to include this feature.

Website Needs & Goals Outlined. In preparation to work with the new website chair, we had started working on an update to the Website Chair job description and also outlined current needs and goals for our aaneworleans.org website. The chairperson was unable to fulfill the commitment, though we plan to move forward with several of these goals when the tech budget for the fiscal year is finalized.

Budget Proposal Support. Met with GNOSB Chair and GNOSB Treasurer October 1, 2025, brought concerns and budget/bill pay data to the table to help the process move forward. Previous guidance and budget/bill pay data shared by the office manager with Trustees seemed to not have been taken into consideration for previous two budget proposals. Added all budget proposals for fiscal year 2025-2026, along with the side-by-side budgets and the slide deck of an overview of budget categories (the same budget data and guidance provided to the Trustees) to the Service Board Financials page on the website.

Postage Cost Reduction Research and Proposal. In July/August, the GNOSB Treasurer and Budget & Finance Committee had expressed concerns about the costs of postage, significantly reduced the proposed budget amount for postage, and recommended that cheaper options be sought out. No further guidance was provided. 

Office manager researched the nonprofit bulk postage option, as well as other postage and shipping options to upgrade the office’s sales reach with online retail, and created a proposal with this research and options outlined. This proposal was sent to Trustees on October 15, 2025; no responses or feedback received as of yet.

Computer Upgrades Research and Proposal. Our office computers have not been updated in several years, and the back office computer stopped working entirely in September 2025. 

Office manager researched options for computers that would be within the $1,000 budget previously mentioned for computer upgrades and pulled together a budget and tech proposal. This proposal was sent to Trustees on October 21, 2025; no responses or feedback received as of yet.

BDSC 2026 Support. Tech support and admin tasks completed for website, registration, fundraising, scholarship, and treasury as the new committee members acclimate and initiate new efforts for the 2026 event planning season. Added BDSC Committee category to Events drop-down menu on aaneworleans.org website.

Meeting Guide App and Meeting Database Glitches. Meeting Guide recently went through a significant update, and this did introduce a few minor glitches. One that affected some of our regional meetings: meetings categorized with the type “meditation” were also errantly displayed with the “Men”’s meeting banner on the Meeting Guide app only, though not on the website version; this glitch has been corrected. 

Another ongoing glitch is that sometimes the website version of the Meetings database does not automatically refresh after applying search filters; this is common and has been experienced by other intergroups as well, so is not specific to our website. The Find a Meeting webpage auto-displays from our meeting database info by a third-party plugin; that plugin does not currently allow us to add other text to the aaneworleans.org/meetings webpage. A member suggested a workaround, to create a meeting listing with text that includes a note in the Name and Location fields to let folks know to manually refresh the webpage if search filters do not automatically apply meeting search results. We have applied this suggestion and are very grateful for a temporary solution while that glitch is worked out.

We also recently were made aware that a meeting that appears on our website meeting database does not appear on the Meeting Guide app. That is not typical, as usually any listings we update on our website database auto-updates on the Meeting Guide app as well within a few hours. We are currently researching a solution to this situation.

Sober Fest Resource Expo Table Participation. Our organization has been welcomed to host a table for the Resource Expo at Sober Fest, November 22, 2025. We plan to have printed literature, such as Meeting Lists, Meeting Books, Digital Newcomer Paks, Meeting in a Pocket, etc. as well as some of the pamphlet backstock. We hope to help carry the message of our recovery program to attendees of this recovery event.