Grapevine, Dec 1946

A.A.'s Country-Wide News Circuit

Matches Reno Hours.-- Because Reno is a "24-hour town" the new club house on
which
members are working, will be open twenty-four hours a day if necessary. Members
of
this Nevada group will have the use of a library, card room, club room and
coffee bar
as counter attractions to other local activities. Starting with four members
last May
the membership grew to 19 in July with more than 80 now listed on the books
although
44 per cent are transient. Some of these are new and some were members of other
groups in New York, Utah, Arizona, California and Connecticut. Inquiries have
been
received not only from all parts of Nevada, but from Brooklyn, N. Y., Southern
California and even Canada as a result of an advertisement in one of the Reno
papers. Various members who travel all over the state and different parts of
California visit any one in these vicinities wishing help and extend the usual
invitation to any other A.A. members to drop in for a visit. Three new groups,
and
one day group are reported at Carson City, Nev., Sparks, Nev. and Herlong, Cal.

Welcome in West.--A.A. Grapevine's Los Angeles correspondent writes: "In
California
where everything is BIG we tried to make our welcome for B--national secretary,
just
that BIG . . . Come again, B., and stay longer!" Los Angeles A.A.s also report
that
although they do not believe there are any formal meetings in any studios just
now,
that after 20 weeks of meetings on the Paramount movie lot the Motion Picture
group
met for a while at the Hollywood hotel and is now at the Masquers Club, 1765
North
Sycamore, between Hollywood Boulevard and Franklin on Sunday nights at 8
o'clock.
About 150 attended recent sessions of the group which is an offshoot of the
Brack
Shops Group of Los Angeles. This correspondent also reports first a move to 730
South
Grand where a group was continued for about a year until the building was torn
down.
Meetings are now held Sunday nights at 2200 West Seventh for this latter group.
One
new group in the Los Angeles area has been functioning for about six months
while
another is being formed.

Public Gets Story. -- Solid progress in telling the A.A. story to the public in
a plan
for education is reported by the St. Paul, Minn., Group which has four members
on the
mayor's committee for the study of alcoholism. The committee has been placed
under
the auspices of the city Council of Social Agencies, making available to them
the use
of existing facilities including a speakers' bureau, newspaper space and other
community outlets. The St. Paul Group has been swamped with requests for
speakers and
members have recently discussed A.A. before such organizations as the North St.
Paul
Lions club, First Christian church, Young Married Couples club of Dayton
Presbyterian
church, the young married people of Fairmount Methodist church and the inmate
group
at St. Cloud state Reformatory. Further acceptance of the effort was shown when
Carl
Swanson, director of state institutions told the St. Paul Group that the A.A.
philosophy was a thing at which he marvelled and that if it could be made
universal
this would be a better world.


More Meetings Announced. -- Cleveland, Ohio -- All-Group meetings are being held
in the
Allerton hotel ball room, East 13th Street and Chester at 8:45 Tuesday evenings.
These sessions, supplanting the Sunday consolidated gatherings, are on a
three-month
trial basis. Various groups are sponsoring the meetings with the sponsoring
group
supplying four speakers, whose anonymity is assured. There is no discussion
period.
Regular weekly meetings Thursday night at 8:30 at St. Peter Calver's R.C. Church
of
Montclair, located at 56 Elm wood Avenue, Montclair, N, J., are announced by the
Essex County Group which extends an invitation to all interested. The new A.A.
Group
in Binghamton, N. Y., known as the Alkanon club, now has club rooms, including a
recreation room and meeting hall at 91 State Street, third floor, in Binghamton.

Candles (Only) Lit Up. -- Representing several thousand years of individual
sobriety,
more anniversaries are reported to the A.A. Grapevine. The 350 A.A.s who
attended the
sixth anniversary dinner at the San Diego Club, San Diego, Cal., heard the
founder of
the Group, a friend from Los Angeles and two men who aided the club in its
start. San
Diego also reports two new Groups, North Park and Down Town Study, and a
celebration
of "Goblin Night" by the Dry Mates. Changing from the banquets in honor of
one-year
members, formerly held twice a year, The Alano Society of Minneapolis, Minn,
gave
double significance by combining it with the Founders' Day Banquet to be held
each
year. The sixth anniversary dinner was held at the Nicollet hotel on November
16.
Columbus, 0., Groups gathered on a Sunday afternoon last month in the grand
ballroom
of the Neil house where 750 A.A.s and guests celebrated the fifth anniversary. A
Columbus member gave a short history of the founding and growth and then
introduced a
Cleveland doctor who was the principal speaker. Following the meeting there was
a
social hour and banquet. Guests included invited members of the clergy, medical
profession, judiciary, social workers, welfare workers and public health
representatives. The South Bend, Ind., Tribune devoted more than a column and a
half
to an account of how more than 200 from 10 cities gathered there and "gave
evidence
of the miracle which had been performed." This dinner, the third anniversary,
drew
representatives from South Bend, Mishawaka, Elkhart, Laporte, Warsaw,
Indianapolis
and Ft. Wayne, Ind., Benton Harbor and Kalamazoo, Mich., and Chicago. The
speaker
said, "The secret of A.A. is the technique of surrender. We surrendered
ourselves to
victory." The newspaper concluded the account by listing the postoffice boxes of
the
groups for those desiring information.

Pleasant Growing Pains. -- Among the activities of the Memphis, Tenn., Group are
the
appointment of a member as Central Secretary and club room director as a full
time
job in answering inquiries and requests as well as club room activities,
organization
of two small affiliated groups, an A.A. breakfast on the mezzanine at Britling's
cafeteria on Sunday mornings at 9:15 and continued growth of the Wednesday night
question and answer meetings for new members. One of the two new groups is
carrying
on separate activities under the name of the Overton Park Group, meeting weekly
at
the Overton Park golf club house on Monday nights at 8. Memphis A.A.s are happy
over
being chosen hosts to the Southeastern Conference of A.A. at Memphis on October
16,
17 and 18, 1947.

Plan Vancouver Home. -- Plans for a clubhouse for A.A.s in Vancouver, now
numbering
more than 300, have readied the stage of a draft proposal in writing, detailing
recommendations for site, size, management and upkeep, which has been circulated
with
an architect's drawing for consideration by a committee of the Kerrisdale Group.
The
proposal is to obtain a clubhouse on the outskirts of the city, which can also
serve
as a "first-aid hostel" for those needing medical care to be provided by
physicians
included in A.A. At present the city's numerous groups are making shift by using
private homes and rented public halls. With Christmas approaching there have
been
extra social events, including a dance given in honor of women who were patient
with
their once-bibulous husbands.

Near Supply Source. -- Since June the Omaha, Nebr., Group has had a "skid row"
Group
going right across the street from Omaha's famous Hobo Park. For another
dramatic
touch they had an artist make a seven-foot, well dressed, domino-masked man to
peddle
a booklet on A.A. in the lobby of theatres showing "March of Time Problem
Drinkers"
and late showings of "Lost Weekend." About 1,500 pamphlets were put into
circulation
and phone calls at the club kept members hopping. Then, The A.A. Grapevine
correspondent goes on, "outstate members . . . are organizing their own local
groups
and this work needs a hand. Even if all of us didn't want to do 12th Step work,
we'd
be in it up to the eyebrows." The Group celebrated its fourth annual Fall
Festival
with a banquet at the Elks club with more than 100 hearing talks by Judge John
Tinley
and a member of the Foundation from New York. Present were members from North
Platte,
Grand Island, Blair, Auburn and Fremont, Nebr., and Council Bluffs, Ia. For more
than
two years two members met regularly in North Platte and remote control members
have
been driving the 600-mile round trip to attend Omaha meetings. Now they have
organized the Western Nebraska Group with 10 members from North Platte, Kearney
and
surrounding towns. At Grand Island a six-man Group was organized by an Omaha
member.
Recently 25 Omaha A.A.s drove to Lincoln to meet with a new group. Just to keep
things bubbling more than champagne at the Alano club, Omaha, an experiment is
being
made with a set of recordings, 18 sides, which explain basic principles to
prospects
seeking information during the day when no member is present. The data recorded
is
being mimeographed in pamphlet form, pocket size, for 12th Step purposes.

Doctors Approve A.A. -- Toward gaining support and confidence of physicians in
Tarrant
county, Texas, a member of the Ft. Worth Group spoke to about 40 doctors in the
county medical association in the Texas hotel in Ft. Worth recently. The doctors
gave
a spontaneous and approving reception to the explanation and offered their help
in
attending patients whenever called on.

Wide Awake at Waco. -- A beautiful threestory old building, formerly a convent,
has
been leased by the Waco, Tex., group and wives and members are redecorating the
part
to be occupied by A.A. Organized about a year ago, the Group now numbers about
40
members and includes in its accomplishments the establishment of a group in the
Veterans Hospital nearby. The veterans' meetings are attended by 15 members
regularly
and continuously as patients are entered into and released from the hospital.
All of
these men have been committed for alcoholism. The hospital psychiatrists
determine
which are eligible to enter A.A. meetings in the hospital, based on ability to
accept
A.A. and respond to help offered.

Another Club House. -- The Amarillo, Tex., Group has acquired a new twelve-room
club
house with approximately four acres of ground. While remodeling is going on for
occupation in the near future, offices are maintained in the city auditorium by
courtesy of the mayor and city officials. Further doings in Amarillo include
establishment of study and manual training classes at night in the public
schools for
A.A. members desiring them. In seven or eight months' time the group meetings
have
drawn more than 80.

Double A for Attendance. - A Dallas A.A. who celebrated his first birthday
recently
has attended 67 closed A.A. meetings in Dallas and 45 in the other cities as
follows:
Phoenix, Ariz., Corpus Christi and Houston, Tex., Hollywood of Los Angeles,
Mayflower
of Los Angeles, San Francisco, all in California, Portland and Seattle, Wash.,
Denver, Colo., Des Moines, la., Omaha, Neb., Minneapolis, Minn., two groups in
Chicago, Buffalo, N. Y., Pittsburgh, Pa., Cleveland, Ohio, three groups in New
York,
Washington, D. C., Memphis, Tenn., Kansas City and St. Louis, Mo., and New
Orleans, La.

New Group Grows. --Founded last summer by 12 members of the Montpelier A.A.
Group, the
Windsor, Vt., Group reports a considerable growth from the original 20 with only
a
few failures. Meetings are held in the members' homes and feature a social hour
with
lunch and plenty of coffee. Visitors are promised a pleasant memory.