Service
Meetings exist because somebody keeps unlocking the door.
C.A. has no employees in Santa Fe. Everything that happens in these rooms happens because a member decided it was their job. Service is also, not coincidentally, how most of us stayed clean through our first year.
Open positions, so to speak
Ways to be useful
None of these require experience, a title, or a particular amount of clean time unless it says so. They require showing up when you said you would.
Get there early
15 minutes a week
Unlock, set the chairs out, start the coffee, put the literature on the table. This is the job most people are given first and it is the one that keeps a meeting alive.
Greeter
10 minutes a week
Stand near the door and say hello to whoever walks in. For a newcomer, one friendly face at the door is the difference between staying and leaving.
Chair the meeting
1 hour a week, rotated
Open the meeting, do the readings, pick a topic, watch the clock, close on time. Usually a 30 or 90 day commitment, and you will be shown how.
Treasurer
1 hour a month
Count the basket, pay the rent, keep a simple ledger, report to the group conscience. Requires some clean time and a working relationship with honesty.
Start a new meeting
Real, ongoing
The schedule is growing and there is room for more. If you and one other member want a Saturday morning or a weeknight step study, we will help you find a room and get it listed.
Hospitals and Institutions
Varies
Carrying the message into treatment centers, hospitals and the detention center. Requires clean time, a clearance process, and a willingness to keep showing up.
How decisions get made
Group conscience
Anything that affects the meeting — the format, the rent, the literature we buy, whether we move rooms — is decided by the group itself, in a business meeting held after the regular meeting. Every member gets a voice. Trusted servants carry out what the group decides; they do not decide it for the group.
As the Santa Fe schedule grows, we will need an area service committee, an intergroup phone line, and delegates to the New Mexico area assembly. That growth is not something the World Service Office will do for us. It is something a handful of local members will do, after the meeting, week by week.
Want in?
Tell someone at any meeting, or call us. There is no application and no interview.