Nicotine Anonymous- A 12 Step Program offering support to those who want to stop smoking and other forms of tobacco and nicotine addiction.

Nicotine Anonymous Northern California Intergroup Minutes

March 14, 2009

Mandana House, Oakland

In attendance: Keith, Ed, Joyce, Terry, David, Melissa

Minutes of January 2009 meeting were read by Joyce; Minutes of November 2008 meeting were read by Melissa. Both were approved with amendments.

Monday Petaluma: Averaging 5-8 people per meeting.
Thursday San Rafael: A "powerhouse" with 10-15.
Monday Oakland: Averaging 7-8. Time has changed back to 6:15pm. Now meeting in the Serenity Room (at the same address).
Interlink Self-Help Tuesday Santa Rosa: 2-6 per meeting.
Saturday San Francisco: Still going strong at 12-18 per meeting.
Monday San Francisco: Hanging on with 4-8, mostly newcomers. Two new co-secretaries, one with one year, one a newcomer.
Tuesday Santa Rosa: About 4-6. Mostly old-timers, with a few newcomers who keep coming back.
Saturday San Rafael: Heard it was starting to pick up again. Not sure about their numbers right now.
The El Cerrito AA Fellowship is considering allowing a new Nic A meeting to meet at their facility.
There's a new Hayward meeting: Sundays 7:30pm, contact person is Victor.

Regular balance as of March 14, 2009: $457.73 (see Ed's Treasurer's Report for detail)
Saturday San Francisco meeting just contributed $98 to the Delegate Fund as of this morning. Delegate Fund is also expecting donations from Saturday Berkeley and Monday Oakland by mid-April.

Keith has heard from Catherine regarding the writings we did at last year's Retreat. They will appear in upcoming issues of 7 Minutes.

We're going to discontinue stocking 3-day chips.
Our next order will be for 100 Desire chips (because they go the fastest), and nothing else. We have already a big inventory of all other denominations, especially the upper years.

The Retreat will be at Samuel P. Taylor State Park, same location as last year. Terry has hard copies of fliers, which include Catherine's contact information for anyone who wants to camp. Joyce will include a flier with each meeting schedule she sends out in May.
Keith will check with Harry to see if he emailed electronic copies of the Retreat flier to Mike B. to be posted on the Nor Cal website and to World Services to be posted on their website.

Joyce got the official meeting list from Joe at World Services (Worldwide Meeting Directory/List). There are 21 meetings held in Northern CA, 19 of which are registered with Intergroup. Two meetings are not affiliated with Intergroup, including one in Hanford (Central CA) who sent us a donation. Joyce is double-checking and updating all info.
Joyce passed out Nor Cal meeting lists for us to double-check. Also the latest version of contact list to be updated.
Should we include online meetings in our May schedule? Yes. Also telephone meetings (VONR). It's all about freedom from nicotine!
Joyce is going to send officers a Nor Cal contact list. Please create your distribution lists for Nic A emails from that spread sheet (because each of us seem to have incomplete lists, and not enough people are getting information).

January 24 meeting:
- Jan S. met with someone from the Oprah show in January (a director of research) - very exciting! Oprah is starting a healthcare network, and Nicotine Anonymous may be included. Jan S. also plans to get in contact with the Ellen Degeneres show.
- Years ago, Nic A members wrote letters to Ann Landers and Dear Abby, and the response was huge (more than 7000 letters!).
March 7 teleconference call:
- So far, about 41 registrants for the WS Conference, about typical for this time (more will come during the last month prior to the conference).
- Various workshop topics will include: Contributions (a possible "Faithful Fivers" donation system); changing our By-laws to be more inclusive of online groups; Outreach; and the Newcomers' Booklet, which has been spinning around for a while but has never gotten approval.
- There's an idea about coming up with a new book every couple of years to invigorate literature sales. Some ideas for new books include: stories from 7 Minutes; transcripts from Gratitude Meetings and or Speaker Meetings; a Step workbook; a second edition (new stories) of our Green book.
  - There is a note to try to keep new books affordable. A Year of Miracles at $14 is a bit of a hard sell to newcomers; the less expensive format of our Traditions booklet would be great.

Mike B. not in attendance and still not updating website when requested. Melissa and Ed will make contact with him to see what we can do to help make website updates happen.

Meeting last time (January) in Sacramento
- About 11 total attended, about half from Sacramento area.
- Although at times it was difficult to hear people due to acoustics, still it was great to have such a good turn-out.
- Very appreciative of Sac folk for hosting!
Next meeting (May) in San Francisco?
- Melissa will look into having it at the Alano Club like last year.
- The 2^nd Saturday of May is the 9^th, which is right before Melissa's finals and doesn't feel like enough time to plan it anyway. Ed will be out of town on both the 3^rdand the 4^th Saturdays, and the 4^th Saturday is Memorial Day Weekend as well. So it looks like the 5^th Saturday, May 30, will be the best option.
- Melissa will let the group know by email if she is able to reserve the Alano Club or not.
- On the agenda for next meeting: Election of officers; Disbursement of conference delegate fund.
Motion made to table discussion of by-laws until next meeting: PASSED.