Hey family! Great site! We're starting a new meeting in Columbia, SC and I was hoping to get some ideas for meeting formats. We will be meeting three nights a week. The name of the new home group is "A Spiritual Solution". One night a week will be "The History Of NA" book study. We will take the book and read a section (about 15 minutes of the meeting) untill we complete the book and then have an open discussion portion of the meeting. People will be able to discuss the topic or anything related to recovery.
There are a number of step study, sponsorship, pamphlet, how it works and why meetings and we want to have some different topics. No one ever study's the history of NA, so we anted to do that on one of the nights, but we have two other nights. Does anyone have any interesting topics to study once a week, year round? Thanks for your ideas!
Maybe have an open topic? or group consciounce on a specific topic? those are pretty easy to come up with because i'm sure someone will have had something come up in there day that thru them off track.
You can also pass a hat around and have a question and answer meeting that mostly for newcomers though.
NA formats are for meetings, book studys, step studys, traditions, open meetings how about a speaker meeting where you have a guest with some solid sobriety?
Welp hope that helps a little..... Welcome to the board gamecokks
All the best with your endeavors with A Spiritual Condition Group. Sounds very interesting, the format of the meeting. Studying history of NA, I realized lately, is very helpful in understanding the roots of our fellowship, how everything came into being, the steps, the literature, the pioneers, their shares that are available as speaker tapes on many online sites, the Traditions, their significance and why they are not negotiable, the problems faced by the fellowship, the mistakes, the hard-earned lessons, evolving and growing thru those painful times, it's all so amazing to explore and study the miracle of NA unfold from the early fifties. I have, in fact, become a history enthusiast, and have my own archives collected from all over the world.
One suggestion by me would be to use the NA coffee table Book "Miracles Do Happen" in these meetings, take a part of it, and to have a discussion and sharing of insights. Also, reading shares from the old editions of NA Way Magazines, from the 80s would amaze you all, I'm sure.
There is also a lot of literature, written stuff, by many awesome pioneers and early members of NA that never got approved, available at NA Archive sites. Path Of Recovery, written by Greg P who also wrote the NA Symbol page in the Basic Text, and a few IPs, would be very enlightening.
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"If we do an honest examination of exactly what we are giving, we are better able to evaluate the results we are getting."Chapter 10 - Emotional Pain - NA Way of Life.
