Please enjoy and share these highlights from our December Board meeting. It is important for the democracy of Al-Anon that our fellow members know what we are working on and we rely on our service structure for this to happen. Thank you for taking the time to be informed.

The Board met in Auckland on 7-8 December 2019. We were joined by Sarah, our new Board member from Area 2 and Liz, the Literature Committee Chair, who will join the Board in January 2020 after she completes her term as Area 3 Delegate.

We had a stand at the Cutting Edge event (the annual meeting of addiction practitioners) that was held in Auckland in September 2019. On our table we had literature including meeting lists for the whole country, pamphlets, flyers, and Al-Anon Faces Alcoholism 2019. It was considered to have been a successful venture for the fellowship and we are now planning to participate in the next Cutting Edge event in Dunedin in 2020.

We spent some time discussing The Messenger and were disappointed that there have been so few sharings from our members and also that only 20 of the 80 Al-Anon Groups in New Zealand subscribe to The Messenger. The cost of a subscription is only $24.00 per annum for the paper edition and $12.00 for the electronic edition. With both editions, you also receive a copy of the NZ Al-Anon News and the Calendar of Events. It is easy to subscribe: send an email to NZAGSO and you will be sent a Messenger subscription form, complete it and return it and deposit the subscription amount to the NZAGSO account. For my personal subscription, I emailed NZAGSO with my request for the electronic version and then paid the subscription into the NZAGSO account (it took me 5 minutes) – and I had my first edition the next day! It is important that support increases if The Messenger is to continue.

The Board agreed that we will attend TEAM events at present scheduled for October 2020 in Area 1 at Dunedin and in Area 3 at Wellington next year on a date to be finalised. If other Areas would like to have, or are considering, a TEAM event, please feel free to contact me for further information.

Just a quick reminder that NZAGSO is closed from 19 December 2019 at 3:30pm reopening 14 January 2020 at 10am, we suggest you get your final literature orders in quickly, especially for newcomer packs.

The AA Convention 2020 with Al-Anon participation on 17-19 January 2020 at Christchurch is ongoing. The theme is “Living Serenely One Day at A Time”. We look forward to seeing you there.

The NZ Al-Anon Service Conference is to be held on 18-21 June 2020 at the Friary, Auckland. Ask it Basket questions should be emailed to NZAGSO before 16 March 2020.

The Central Regional Board Member role is presently vacant and the Northern and Southern Regional Board Member positions are each becoming vacant at the Conference in 2020, please send nominations to NZAGSO by 30 April 2020. It is essential to have a Regional Board Member responsible to take the overall viewpoint from the membership within the Region to the Board.

NZ Alcoholics Anonymous have now consented to use by NZ Al-Anon of the Te Reo Māori translation of the Serenity Prayer commissioned by AA and adopted by Conference 2019 subject to that consent.  The consent requires formal acknowledgement of AA’s copyright and consent.

If you would like to know any more about these highlights or have any questions please contact your Regional Board Member who will be happy to assist.

In service

John Bansgrove
General Secretary (trial)
NZAGSB