METRO IG’s SUGGESTED SEVENTH TRADITION ANNOUNCEMENT
Our Seventh Tradition states that “Every OA group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.”
The rent for the [insert name of meeting] meeting is [insert dollar amount] per week.
This meeting also purchases literature packets that it gives out free of charge to newcomers and returnees, and makes contributions to Metro Intergroup, Region 6 and World Service to carry our 12th Step message of recovery. Whatever you choose to contribute, please “GIVE AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT.”
If you cannot afford to contribute right now, please keep coming back. Remember, you are always welcome at an OA meeting.
To Our Group Treasurers
“We have no dues or fees, but we need you more than we need your money, so keep coming back.” Is this what the Seventh Tradition announcement sounds like at your meeting? How do you feel seeing the basket go round and round the room, barely making the rent? Do you ever wonder what would happen if your meeting could not afford to pay its rent or lost its meeting space?
The way in which the treasury announcement is made at your meeting can make all the difference between:
- Being a healthy meeting
- One that has literature available
- One that has newcomer packets to hand out
- A meeting that is able to contribute to Intergroup, Region 6 and World Service
- A meeting with a prudent reserve (World Service suggests a 6-month reserve)
OR … one that is barely scraping by.
Our disease may tell us that we don’t have enough. However, when we look around the our meeting room, even in our own hands, are we drinking a $5.00 cup of “designer” coffee and do we then put even less than the price of that cup of coffee in the basket when it comes around? Do we leave the meeting to go see a $16 movie? A $20.00 one?
Do we talk about our gratitude for the new jobs, new lives and the abundance we have received as the gifts of our OA program, but in our actions rationalize that a buck in the basket is just fine? We are shortsighted in our recovery if we think that all that matters is our own little meeting. Think about it — that you even found your way into the rooms at all was dependent upon the generous contributions of those OAs who came before you.
Our 7th Tradition pamphlet put out by the World Service Organization called Give As If Your Life Depends On It mentions a minimum average donation of $3.00 or more. The pamphlet also outlines all the services that Overeaters Anonymous provides, at all different levels. You may be benefiting from many of these services yourself and may not even be even aware of it.
We live in New York City, and accordingly, we need to adjust our contributions upward, reflecting what things actually cost. Look around the room. If the rent is $50.00 (which is typical in Manhattan) and there are 10 people at the meeting, $5.00 per person only makes the rent with nothing to contribute to do 12th Step work.
The suggested treasury announcement above (to be modified according to your meeting’s needs) tells the ENTIRE story, works to keep us fiscally sound, and gives us an accurate picture of what is entailed financially to keep a meeting going in New York City and to contribute to the larger OA fellowship which makes our local meeting possible.