NERF, North East Regional Forum
May 29 – 31, 2015 – Albany, NY
This was a great place to meet the people from the General Service Office that serve AA. There were Trustees, Directors, Chairmen, Publishers, Treasurer and Staff. They were all friendly, polite, generous and most of all informative.
Richard Purtell the recently elected North East Regional Trustee provided Opening Remarks and presided over most of the sessions. The lineup of presenters was impressive, the information thorough yet brief. Upon entering the meeting hall morning and afternoons there were handouts to further explain what we were about to hear/see. Examples of the handouts: G.S.O. Staff Assignments effective August 2014, The General Service Conference Structure (USA and Canada), Member Services & Statistics, Services Provided by G.S.O./A.A.W.S. Additionally the Ask-It-Basket questions were a source of questions to be answered by G.S.O. members. The goal appeared to be full satisfaction for all attendees on anything and everything about our Central Office.
The Grapevine Board Director and Executive Editor as well as the La Vina Editor made presentations followed by Q & A. All Delegates gave presentations with our favorite Delegate Vicky Shaw speaking on “Our Primary Purpose”.
Robert Wilcox, Trustee at Large/US was a young, energetic man who has been covering a lot of territory in the past months. He had a slide show to better inform re how AA looks and works in other countries where we are sending Literature and other help. He had slides from El Salvador, Latvia, Japan, Russia 1, Ukraine, Russia 2 and more. Pictures of some of the offices with a table and a chair and a few books makes one grateful for what we have here at G.S.O.
Workshops were offered in two time slots on Saturday evening. It was difficult to decide what to attend I chose” Sponsorship – is a Service Sponsor a Requirement” (recommended) and “Grapevine: The Grapevine Rep and More – Bringing our Message of Hope to Alcoholics”.
The sharing from Past Trustees brought together people who are proud to have served AA with many stories to share. Their experience, strength and hope was poignant and strong.
I came away with a better sense of who we AAer’s are and hopeful that we will always have this Society.
Alternate Delegate, Anita Lee
