... a loving invitation ...

I got an unexpected letter from A.A.'s General Service Office last week.  It starts out: "Please accept a loving invitation on behalf of the General Service Board..."

They've asked me to chair a workshop on "A.A. Web Sites" at the International Convention.  The workshop is scheduled from 9:30 AM to 11:00 AM on Saturday, July 3 in the Henry B. Gonzales Convention Center, Room 217 A-C.

This is great in that, as chair, I get to participate and I don't have to worry about putting something together to create a cogent talk.  The format is that there are 3 presenters who share for about 15 minutes each and then the floor is open for general sharing from anyone attending.

The reason I'm sharing this here now, 4 months before the event is because:

1. I'm excited, honored and humbled.
2. Since I blog anonymously, I figured the few of you who might be at the Convention and reading this now could figure out a chance that we could hook up at this session (if we've not figured out a way to meet earlier).  I don't plan to drop my anonymous participation here but I see no potential harm in meeting and greeting each other during and after this session.
3. I don't plan to mention it (my particular participation in this session) again here but it's in my calendar to show up and it would be nice if some of the rest of us could be there as well.

I'm sure this will not be the only session at the International dealing with online experiences (e.g. there is another session titled: "A.A. in Cyberspace: Carrying the Message") - I will probably see some of you at other sessions but I may not know who you are - there will only be 50,000 of us there...

Anyway, I really appreciate the opportunity and wanted to share my exciting news with y'all.

Note: If you want to chair or present at an A.A. International (I think it might be too late for this year as I think the program is set - so you might want to mark your calendar to plug in around 2013-14), the process is to let someone in General Service (GSR, DCM, Delegate, etc.) know of your interest and have them recommend you.  While you can send requests and suggestions to G.S.O. directly, I've heard they are deluged with myriad requests and they tend to give preference to those requests that come as recommendations from people they know.

How I was "found" for this slot was that a G.S.O. staffer looked at our Area's web site, contacted the Area Web Chair who, in turn, passed my name along since I'd worked some on the site with her as well as led the Area Web Task Force that created the guidelines which support our Area's web efforts.

I truly hope to see you there.