Ask other fellows in program to join you in a committee and meet (virtually or in person) for short periods each week to discuss what needs to be accomplished and what tasks have already been completed. This is a great opportunity to practice the Al-Anon principles, such as making a group conscience. This is also a good time to voluntarily contribute to start-up meeting costs, such as literature, rent, and meeting supplies.

Decide what type of meeting you want.. Will it be a speaker meeting? Will it be literature based? Will it have a focus, such as for beginners, parents, or adult children of alcoholics? Will it be a virtual meeting or in person? Hybrid?

For in-person and hybrid meetings, find a venue that your group can afford. Look for places that host other 12 Step meetings such as churches, schools, hospitals, and community centers. It’s helpful if the venue has a place to store meeting items.

Write the meeting script to ensure a consistent meeting structure. Look at the scripts of other meetings to get ideas and possibly borrow them. The Al-Anon opening and closing is on pages 10 and 18 in the Al-Anon /Alateen Service Manual.

And write a business meeting script to make the business chairperson’s service easier and to ensure a consistent business meeting structure.

Choose what you will be reading at each meeting (the Twelve Steps, Traditions, Concepts, Al- Anon Preamble to the 12 Steps, etc.). They can be found in 12 Steps & More under the Resources header. You may need to print them out.

Pick a group name. We suggest including the neighborhood name, day of the week, focus, or format in your group name. For example: Park Slope Serenity; Step into Saturday; The Three Legacies.

Decide when you’ll meet: a day of the week and time; pick a start day.

Register your meeting with Greater NYC Al-Anon Intergroup here to add it to the meeting list. In New York City, most people learn about meetings from our meeting list.

Registration with World Service means your meeting will have a voice at the World Service Conference. If your group will be electronic, it automatically becomes part of the GEA (Global Electronic Area) and will be listed on the Al-Anon.org website which is seen by people from around the country and around the world. Use this link to register electronic meetings.

If you want your listing to be more local, the New York South Area is working on an Electronic District. It’s not ready yet but it’s coming. Check the New York South Area website for updates.

If your group will meet at a physical location, use this form..

Send a flier with your start day via our Submit an Event form and ask to be included in the “Al-Anon Related Announcements” which are read at many New York meetings. Ask members to announce it at other meetings and print flyers to hand out at in person meetings.

For in-person meetings we suggest getting a binder, plastic sleeves to hold the materials you will read and pass around, a notebook for the business meeting minutes, a bookkeeping ledger to track treasury, a plastic envelope to collect voluntary contributions and another to hold the meeting’s accumulating treasury, paper envelopes to pay rent to the venue, a plastic file box to hold literature and other meeting items, including pens.

For in-person meetings order literature for the meeting. We suggest having copies of the Welcome Newcomer pamphlet , How Al-Anon Works (B-32), the three readers: Courage to Change (B-16), Hope for Today (B-27), One Day at a Time in Al-anon (B-6) and some popular bookmarks. These can be ordered from NYC Intergroup’s Literature Store. Also popular are Paths to Recovery (B-24), Reaching for Personal Freedom(P-92) and Blueprint for Progress (P-91).

Al-Anon’s World Service Office publishes a series of Guidelines on many Al-Anon topics. Here’s the “Guideline for Starting a New Al-Anon Group..”