My name is Jeroen, and I’m an alcoholic. My home group is the Amsterdam Sunrise Serenity Group and my sobriety date is December 8, 2001. Since December 2012, I’m the Chair of CER, something I’m thrilled about ever since.
The December 2013 CER meeting will be held online for the first time ever. I am very excited about this and I would like to use this opportunity to discuss some of the reasons why I think this is such a good development.
Saves about € 6,500 per meeting
An average quarterly CER meeting costs between 6,000 – 7,000 Euros. For the online meeting in December we will be using WebEx. Although the use of WebEx isn’t free, the cost is negligible compared to the costs of having a face-to-face meeting.
More democratic for Groups and Intergroups
There are many Intergroups in Continental Europe that don’t send representatives to our face-to-face meetings because they found it too expensive. Even worse: there are several isolated Groups that are not even associated with an Intergroup because of costs and travel distance. These folks can now easily be part of AA as a whole.
Over the last month, we have conducted WebEx Practice Sessions. What I found most significant is that about half of the participants were from Groups and Intergroups that were not yet represented at CER.
More democratic for AA members
There used to be a discussion about which is more democratic: meeting face-to-face or meeting online? One argument against online meetings used to be that not everybody has access to the Internet.
After the first couple of practice sessions, it became totally clear to me that having online meetings is much more democratic. It’s even accessible from smart phones. And in the event folks do not have Internet access at home and/or no functioning device, there are solutions like pooling with other CER members who do have the access.
More of the right people
For me, one of the attractions of doing service in CER was that I got to travel to various places in Europe I otherwise wouldn’t see. I suspect that this is the case for others, as well. And, it isn’t necessarily wrong. However, I am inclined to believe that when the fringe benefit of travelling is reduced, more people will join CER for the content of the job, rather than the wrapping, and I believe that is a good thing.
Easy
Some months ago, I attended a meeting of the Nordic Intergroup which is held monthly using Skype. To my amazement, it was easier for me to join this Intergroup meeting than it is to join my local Intergroup meeting because I even didn’t have to leave the house!
No big, long, heavy meetings
Parkinson’s Law says that every assignment automatically accomodates the available time. That seems the case with our face-to-face CER meetings. Â For example, most of us arrive on Friday and leave on Sunday afternoon. So, CER meetings magically fill that space.
Did you know that the other Regions (in the UK) have their quarterly meetings in one afternoon and, along the way, they do much more work than we do?
Anyhow, I have good hopes that once we get in the habit of doing online meetings, we will quickly rid ourselves of these big, long meetings.
More frequent and lighter meetings
Our face-to-face CER meetings tend to be heavy because we meet only once a quarter. With online meetings, we can have more frequent meetings which can be smaller and lighter.
Continuity
Being on the human side as we are, many of us only get active when a CER meeting is about to take place. So, with more meetings, folks will be more active and there will be more continuity.
Meet the observers
One of the great things about having online meetings, is that we can have observers. Any AA member is welcome to attend the online meetings, or parts of it. As a result, we are true to the Aim of Region of encouraging collaboration between neighboring Intergroups.
Meet the candidates
At some of the other Regions, candidates aren’t considered unless they have attended at least a couple of Region meetings. With our face-to-face meetings, that would be unthinkable. So, we have a choice between electing people that we don’t really know, or electing people that are already active within CER. As a result, I believe we tend to play a lot of musical chairs, with little actual job rotation and with few newcomers joining CER. Unless, of course, candidates are willing to pay their own trip to a CER meeting.
With online meetings, that problem is summarily solved: Candidates for positions that become vacant in the next six months, can have the opportunity to introduce themselves at our meeting, and join as observers.
Less talk about money
….and more talk about what we can do for Groups and Intergroups that they cannot do for themselves.
Jeroen S.
Editor’s note: this article has been published in accordance with our ArenA Editorial Policy.