Tuesday Noon - Technical Information

For the Secretary/Chair to read before leading a phone bridge meeting

 

 As the Secretary/Chair for this meeting you will be given a “leader code” that will give you more features on the key pad than other members.

 

          Here is some information that will help before dialing into the meeting once you have been given the leader code.

 

1.    Dial the phone number and then use the regular pin number followed by the # sign that everyone else uses.

2.    There will be a voice prompt after entering the regular pin # that says “IF YOU ARE THE MODERATOR PLEASE PRESS 1.”

3.    Follow the prompt and Press 1. The word “moderator” and “leader” mean the same thing.

4.    The voice prompt will again say “PLEASE ENTER THE MODERATOR PIN (Leader Code) number FOLLOWED BY THE # SIGN”.

5.   You will join the phone meeting muted after entering the leader code and # sign.  Press *1 to unmute yourself and then introduce yourself as the Secretary/Chair of the meeting. Press *0 for a menu of all features.

 

Probably one of the most important services you can give as the Secretary/Chair is to have the highest sound quality on the phone bridge system.  This means without background noise and weak sound quality. “Sound” is all we have for the phone meeting to work.

 

Background noise can be taken as disrespectful or interruptive while members are speaking.  As a trusted servant you can guide the meeting without background noise or interruptions to the best of your ability.

 

Along with your own skills; here are a few tips and a few pieces of information to help you: 

 

1.  Technically the phone bridge system is built for “only” one person to be unmuted at a time.  This of course would include, You (the Secretary/Chair) as well as the Timekeeper to stay muted by using the *1 keys.  The timekeeper only unmutes to say “time”. The Secretary/Chair unmutes a few seconds before the member is done sharing to welcome the next share.  You can remind the timekeeper to please stay muted except to say “time”. (Only one line unmuted at a time).

 

2.    As the Secretary/Chair (with the leader code) you are encouraged to use the *5   to clear the line to address the noise.  This ensures that members will be able to speak so their share can be heard.  Then the member can press the *1 keys to continue sharing without the previous background noise.  We call this “Cycling Through”. (Most of the time people forget to mute and don’t know they are not muted). This can be done by saying “Excuse the interruption, I’m going to clear the line” and then press *5 keys. You then could say, “Whoever was sharing please press *1 and begin again,” or “Whoever would now like to share please press *1 to unmute yourself.” 

 

3.   Some meetings have multiple readers. The extra unmuted lines will cause the reading to be heard by some but not by other members.

Here are some suggestions.

 

1.   Organize the readers so they know the order they will be reading.

2.   Then tell the rest of the readers to mute until a few seconds before it is their turn to read.

3.   After each member reads remind them to mute again.

4.   (AS A Rule of Thumb), just because you can hear does not mean that other members can.  These phones meetings have global coverage. Not all phones have equal sound. Only one line unmuted at a time will keep a clear worldwide phone line for everyone during the meeting.

 

These 4 technical points can promote safety, warmth and recovery similar to face to face meetings. This was written to assist you to know and understand the phone bridge technical features.

 

Thank you for taking the time to read these suggestions. If you need help, just ask.   Congratulations on doing service and beginning the flow that opens our heart to what it already knows---that we all need each other. 

 

Sincerely,

Your Web Coordinator

 

 

The Meeting Format Starts Now

(This is the part you read out loud)

 

 

FORMAT:

Al-Anon’s Tuesday Noon Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Meeting

 

INTRODUCTION:

1. Hi, my name is ____________________, a grateful Al-Anon member and your secretary for this meeting.

2. This meeting will at the stop at the top of hour for members to share their telephone numbers.  Members can stay on the line until approximately 25 minutes after for fellowship.

3. Let’s open with a moment of silence for those family members still suffering inside and outside of these rooms, followed by the Serenity Prayer.

Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

                        (Al-Anon/Alateen Service Manual pg. 12)

 

4. Phone Etiquette:

a.   Prior to joining the meeting, we ask members to temporarily disable their call waiting by dialing *70 before calling the number to the phone bridge (example *70-1-712-432-8733). If you do not disable your call waiting we may hear your conversation or beeping.

b.   When you dial in, you will start the conference being muted.

c.   Stay muted at all times unless you are sharing. You can un-mute by pressing your *1 keys. You will hear a voice say “you are now un-muted”.  Some phones do not have a long enough beep for the muting and un-muting to happen. You may have to press *1 several times for this function to work. When the voice comes on you will know that the *1 keys have worked. 

d.   We ask members to use the *1 keys to mute even if they have a mute function on their individual phones. The *1 keys ensure the greatest sound strength for the entire phone line and provides the greatest service to all members of the phone bridge during the meeting.

e.   Please do not use a speakerphone for sharing or we will all hear an echo.  Some speaker phones will not mute even when pressing your *1 keys.

f.     To hear a menu of all the features--such as volume control and member count--simply press * by itself. 

 

 

 

READINGS: Secretary reads:

 

SUGESTED AL-ANON WELCOME

We welcome you to this Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Meeting of the

Al-Anon Family Group and hope you will find in this fellowship the help and friendship we have been privileged to enjoy.

We who live or have lived with the problem of alcoholism understand as perhaps few others can.  We, too, were lonely and frustrated, but in Al-Anon we discover that no situation is really hopeless and that it is possible for us to find contentment, and even happiness, whether the alcoholic is still drinking or not.

We urge you to try our program.  It has helped many of us find solutions that lead to serenity.  So much depends on our own attitudes, and as we learn to place our problem in its true perspective, we find it loses its power to dominate our thoughts and our lives.

The family situation is bound to improve as we apply the Al-Anon ideas. Without such spiritual help, living with an alcoholic is too much for most of us.  Our thinking becomes distorted by trying to force solutions, and we become irritable and unreasonable without knowing it.

          The Al-Anon program is based on the Twelve Steps (adapted from Alcoholics Anonymous), which we try, little by little, one day at a time, to apply to our lives, along with our slogans and the Serenity Prayer.  The loving interchange of help among members and daily reading of Al-Anon literature thus make us ready to receive the priceless gift of serenity.

Anonymity is an important principle of the Al-Anon program.  Everything that is said here, in the group meeting and member to member, must be held in confidence.  Only in this way can we feel free to say what is in our minds and hearts, for this is how we help one another in Al-Anon. (Al-Anon/Alateen pgs.12-13)

 

Ask for volunteers to read:

Preamble to Al-Anon’s 12 Steps:  2 pages before January 1 in all three meditation books

 Al-Anon’s 12 Steps: found one page after December 31 in all three meditation books

 One Tradition & One Concept: of the month (one and two pages respectively after the 12 Steps in all three of the meditation books)

 

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

5. 7th Tradition:  Al-Anon is fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.  Although we have no expenses related to this phone bridge, we ask that you send your contributions to WSO and say that this is from  the Tuesday Noon Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Meeting or make donations at face to face meetings. Our WSO ID is 00503921.  We will give that information after the meeting closes.  Al-Anon literature is available via the Al-Anon website

 www.al-anon.org  or call (757) 563-1600.

 

6. Meeting time schedule will be read at the end of the meeting after numbers are given out.

 

7. Let’s go around the globe and introduce ourselves. 

 

Hi, I am _______________(Name)___________  from (_______State___)

 

8. Are there any Al-Anon related announcements?

[Business Meeting is on the 1st Tuesday of the Month.]

9. Do we have any available Al-Anon sponsors? 

 

 

10.       Are there any newcomers on the phone bridge today and you can press your * 1 key to unmute yourself and state your name so we may greet you? 

 

Do we have a volunteer who will stay of the line after the meetings to answer questions about Al-Anon or to explain the phone etiquette?  

 

We reserve the last ten minutes of the meeting especially for newcomers to share or for members who normally are quiet so that everyone on the phone bridge has an opportunity to share.

 

 

MEETING TOPIC:

 

11.       We will read Al-Anon’s 12 Steps and 12 Traditions.  One week we do a step and the following week we do a tradition.  Can we have a quick count of how many books we have available?   I’ll start. I have one…

 

12.       Will someone please begin the reading.

 

 

13.       ANONYMITY STATEMENT: In Al-Anon, this is a gentle reminder that we speak from our own experience and ours is derived from living with the effects of alcoholism.  We ask those who are members of other anonymous programs not to break their anonymity and to try and identify with the Al-Anon approach for the family illness.  Ours is a different experience and calls for a different interpretation.

 

 

14.       TIMEKEEPER: We have three minute shares. Do we have a volunteer to be

our spiritual timekeeper? Would the spiritual timekeeper like to share first? We ask the timekeeper to stay muted except to come in to gently say time at three minutes. And we ask those who share to acknowledge that they have heard the timekeeper, and wrap up their share.

  

15.       Fifteen minutes before the meeting closes:  We are now at fifteen minutes

before the close of the meeting; we will now open up the sharing for newcomers or for those members who do not regularly share.

 

CLOSING (Five minutes before the top of the hour):

16.          Please call out the names of members you would like telephone numbers which we will get after we close the meeting?  After the 2 closing readings we will take the actual phone #’s.

 

The Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions Epilogue on page 139

        The unending flow of letters to and from members all over the world- from many nations, many religions, in many languages- proves that, in Al- Anon, we are one, united by a single, simple spiritual program.

          I letter from one member sums up beautifully the way the program works. It is said in part:

          “I often think of a picture that came to my mind when I first read the Twelfth Step and tried to understand it.  I looked back on my troubled life, before Al- Anon, when I felt as though I were groping around in a terrifying black cave.  There was no way out.  No matter how desperately I prayed and struggled, I was trapped.  There was no way out of the hopeless confusion of my life.

“Suddenly someone, a stranger, took me by the hand and led me around a turn in the cave that opened up into a tunnel, dotted by a row of lights.  He led me as far as the first light and said, “Just keep following the lights and you’ll be all right.”  I didn’t care where they led just as long as I could get out of the black despair I was living in.

“As I walked from one light to the next, the path through the tunnel became more and more bright and my fears gradually faded.  Finally there came the brightest light of all- sunshine and freedom!

“The lights were our Twelve Steps and our Twelve Traditions which kept showing me the way out of my confusion.  With them I felt wholly secure.

“I knew there were many others like me who couldn’t find their way to that tunnel lighted with the lamps of hope.  Remembering my own pain, I tried to start many others to that ultimate sunshine we find in our beautiful program.”

 

17.     Suggested Al-Anon Closing found on page 24 of the Al-Anon Service Manual.

In closing, I would like to say that the opinions expressed here were strictly those of the person who gave them.  Take what you liked and leave the rest.

The things you heard were spoken in confidence and should be treated as confidential.  Keep them within the walls of this room and the confines of your mind.

          A few special words to those of you who haven’t been with us long:  Whatever your problems, there are those among us who have had them too.  If you try to keep an open mind you will find help.  You will come to realize that there is no situation too difficult to be bettered and no unhappiness too great to be lessened.

          We aren’t perfect.  The welcome we give you may not show the warmth we have in our hearts for you.  After a while, you’ll discover that though you may not like all of us, you’ll love us in a very special way – the same way we already love you.

          Talk to each other, reason things out with someone else, but let there be no gossip or criticism of one another.  Instead, let the understanding, love and peace of the program grow in you one day at a time.

 

 18.     The Al-Anon Declaration: (Paths to Recovery Roman Numeral page IV (9)

Let It Begin With Me

When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help,

let the hand of Al-Anon and Alateen

always be there, and---Let It Begin

(Al-Anon/Alateen Service Manual pg.24)

 

Serenity Prayer

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference.

(Al-Anon/Alateen Service Manual pg. 12)

 

19.NAMES AND PHONE NUMBERS: Of the names that were called out, we will take their phone Numbers now.

 

20.MEETING SCHEDULE: Meeting formats, schedules and phone bridge information can be accessed on the web at www.alanonphonemeetings.org. Format changes or requests can be emailed to alanonphonemeetings@yahoo.com. Any new meetings and format draft ideas can be brought to the Group Conscious Meeting on the 4th Saturday of the month at 1:30 EST.

 

 

All Eastern Time Zones on the same number and pin as you dialed in for this meeting 

8am                      Saturday and Sunday
9am                      Weekdays (Monday thru Friday)
11am                    Sunday
Noon                    Monday ----- Saturday

2pm                     Sunday
4pm                    7 days a week
8pm                    7 days a week
10pm                   Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday
12 midnight         Thursday

 

OTHER AL-ANON PHONE NUMBERS: Does anyone want to announce just the phone number and pin for other Al-Anon Phone Meetings?

 

Chair passes off to the volunteer (say name) able/willing to serve as newcomer greeter. By way of signing off, Chair might wish to say that those wishing to participate in fellowship may stay on the line for approximately 25 minutes after the hour (or whenever the line closes).

 

MEETING IS NOW FORMALLY CLOSED