Newsletter – 24 October 2024
Kia ora koutou
Awareness Week
It is Awareness week this week!
To help raise awareness we have posters up throughout the country with Phantom Billstickers and are running ads in NZ Herald and Stuff online and on iHeart Radio during the month of October. There will be a large banner ad in the Sunday Star Times this weekend.
We have been running a trial social media ad campaign on Facebook and Instagram during September and October. These ads reached 96,928 people. 8,532 people clicked on the ad and 2,878 people clicked on the link to our website. That’s a great outcome for our first attempt!
GSO Update
We have a new Office Manager – Susan Webber who can help with any literature orders or administrative questions. Susan can give advice on popular items or help you place orders. If you require a large order for a specific event, she can give a list of suggestions and order in the items for the event.
Susan has a background in accountancy and information systems and has experience working in voluntary roles on Boards and Trusts. We hope you will join us in welcoming Susan in her new role.
Technical issues with Website Shop
Apologies for the outages over the last few weeks with our website and the shop. Our web provider is helping to ensure these don’t happen again. If you do have any difficulties placing an order, please email [email protected] and Susan can help you.
Searching for products in the Shop
You can now search by product code in the Search box on the shop page. e.g. B-1a for the Big Book, B-2 for the 12 Steps and Traditions Hard Cover.
Group ID when placing an order
When you place an order for a group, please include your group ID as well as the group name. This makes it much easier for us to process your order.
If you have forgotten your group ID, you can look on the website, and search for your meeting. If you click on your meeting, the screen that shows all the information about the meeting, also has a 4-digit number just under the address. This is your group ID.
Meetings – Alcoholics Anonymous Aotearoa/New Zealand
Payment details for orders
When paying for orders, please include your group ID and either the order number or the invoice number in the payment details. Again, this makes it much easier for us to process your payment correctly against your order. If there is no order or invoice number, payments are allocated to 7th Tradition.
Please note that a $10 shipping cost will be added to orders below $150 from 1 November.
Website Upgrade
We are planning to upgrade our website. The focus will be on the navigation and content of the site. We are seeking feedback from the fellowship on navigation, accuracy of information, and missing content and have a survey form that members can complete here to help us: https://forms.office.com/r/zGSu1tQ18P
The feedback we collect will be used to inform the April 2025 Conference so decisions can be made on what changes the fellowship wants us to implement.
Website Publishing Guidelines
It has come to our attention that some information on our public facing website is not in line with our 6th Tradition of non-affiliation and our 12th Tradition of anonymity. To align with these traditions, we will be progressively removing from the website any flyers or information that refer to organisations other than AA and asking the event organiser to redraft their flyer without reference to the outside organisations. We will also be providing greater oversight of what is published on our website including a review of all event flyers by our webmaster before they are loaded onto our website to ensure they do not break our Traditions. To ensure your event flyer is uploaded onto the website in a timely manner, it would be helpful if you would review all content before submitting it to ensure it meets AA’s guidelines for Website publishing and Relationship between AA and Al-Anon.
Te Reo Translation Project
The translation project is progressing well and on track. Chapters 9, 10, and 11 are remaining to be completed and the timeframe we have been given is the end of November. The translation of the Mihi/Forward will be completed once all the translations have been fully agreed on.
Following the translation there will still be work required to have the translation approved by AA World Services and Conference before we are able to publish the completed work. We will continue to update the fellowship on this exciting and historic project as it progresses.
National Convention 2025
The 62nd annual Convention of Alcoholics Anonymous New Zealand will be run from 17-19 January 2025 at the Copthorne Hotel & Resort in Waitangi, Bay of Islands. The theme of the Convention is Acceptance is the Answer.
Registration fee is $100 for the weekend (early bird $85 available until 1 January 2025), or Saturday only $70. Registrations are now open, and special accommodation pricing is available from the venue to members attending – contact [email protected] to register or for event information. Please continue to check the Events page for the most up-to-date information about the Convention as this is being continually updated.
12-Step Contact List
Our Help Email team continue to receive emails from people seeking help and need more people on our 12-Step contact list in Westport, Greymouth, Gisborne and Taupo. If this is an area of service where you would be willing to serve, please get in touch with [email protected]
Board Vacancies
The Board is seeking applications for Class A (non-AA) and Class B (AA member) Board members. Applications can be found here and are due by 31 July 2025.
We always need a range of Conference experience and professional expertise, especially in the areas of media, legal, and finance. We are keen to hear from you if are considering applying for the Board.