The History of Greater Minneapolis Intergroup

   
40 Years of Intergroup Services 1968-2008
Alcoholics Anonymous began in Minneapolis with a 12th Step call during the Armistice Day Blizzard in November of 1940 by two men visiting from Chicago. The first AA meetings in Minneapolis eventually were held at 2218 First Avenue South. It didn’t take long for those first meetings to spawn new meetings at new locations, often in the homes of AA members.

By the early sixties Alcoholics Anonymous had grown beyond Minneapolis, with meetings in the suburbs, including Richfield, Robbinsdale, Fridley and Columbia Heights. Due to this growth, the AA members of Greater Minneapolis realized there was a need for further reaching 12-step services. They had the vision of an Intergroup Service Office that would provide vital 12-step services, such as phone answering 24 hours a day by sober members of AA, lists of AA members willing to do 12-step calls and a published AA meeting directory. Your Service Office is one of 500 Intergroup/Central Offices in the United States and Canada. The first Intergroup Office in Minnesota opened in St. Paul in 1966.

The Minneapolis Intergroup Office that you know today opened in September 1968 at 24 East Franklin Avenue. Since then, the office has moved several times. Many of our members recall visiting the office at 6300 Walker Avenue in St. Louis Park, which was our home for 15 years. The office moved to its current location, 7204 West 27th Street in St. Louis Park on August 1, 2000.

Regardless of the location, the core focus of Minneapolis Intergroup has always been to provide AA 12-Step Services. I want to review some of these vital services that have been developed over the years:

• Our 24 hour HOTLINE phone service is the lifeline to new AA members. The Intergroup office answers more than 20,000 phone calls annually to find meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. We are pleased to say our members are answering the phone 24 hours a day, 365 days a year – ensuring that a sober member of AA is always available to share experience, strength and hope.
• There’s also AA literature. The office has sold thousands of Big Books, AA Conference Approved Literature and AA Grapevine Publications since 1968.
• This past year we began stocking the Big Book in all available non-English languages; this has been very successful when carrying the AA message in another language.
• The AA Orientation meeting began in 1970 and now meets every Saturday morning at the Lutheran Church of the Reformation in St. Louis Park. This meeting provides speakers on topics helpful to newcomers, including Steps, Traditions, and chapters in the Big Book.
• In 1977, Intergroup began publishing a newsletter. You know this newsletter today as the “MIRUS” – which stands for Minneapolis Intergroup Recovery Unity and Service. There are 2500 copies mailed or distributed each month.
• In our Celebration of Intergroups 40 Years of AA Service the MIRUS articles on the 12 Steps have been written by members of our fellowship who came in between the ages of 13 and 22. We look towards our future with these younger members who will be the old-timers of tomorrow.
• We publish a When & Where meeting directory. This is quite a project, since there are over 1,100 groups meeting in 500 different locations in our area. More than 12,000 copies of our pocket size directory are used each year, either by our own members or those from the professional community.
• The Speakers Desk – which is taken care of through Speaker Desk volunteers, assist in facilitating speaker to both out side agencies and AA groups that want thisservice. We send over a 100 speakers a month to various locations in the metro area of Minneapolis.
• During the past six years, our younger AA members have visited more than 6,000 Middle and High School students in our community to present AA Information overviews to school health classes. We have a special IG committee that coordinates these AA information requests through our Service Office. We furnish each of the schools with an ample supply of pertinent AA literature at no charge. A more recent request came from a Girl Scout Troop wanting to learn about AA, what is interesting about this request is that the Troop members are only 7 years old.
• AA members can also find meeting information on our Web site, which is updated weekly. It is also used as a Public Information service to the professional community.
• There are more than 1500 visits a week to our site looking for AA meetings and general information about Alcoholics Anonymous.
  

In addition to individuals contributing their time, the office also has paid special workers. This includes an Office Manager and Staff Assistants, all active members of our Fellowship with over 85 years of combined AA experience. Due to their commitment, you can always be sure the office doors will be open at 9 a.m. Monday through Saturday, and they will welcome you on your next visit.

We want to thank our Intergroup staff: Chuck, Steve, Ginny and Claudia for providing an atmosphere of service to our callers and visitors.

All across the greater Minneapolis Area, AA groups stay in touch with the Intergroup office by electing an Intergroup Representative. The reps meet every month to hear updates on the office activities, help their groups get involved in 12-step opportunities and have their groups’ voice and ideas heard.

In addition to Intergroup Representatives, Minneapolis Intergroup is governed by its 12 member Board of Directors, who is elected to three-year terms – four rotating each year. Because of this commitment our by-laws require that all AA members who submit a resume for open Board positions have a minimum of 5 years of continuous sobriety. The Annual Meeting and Board elections are held the 4th Thursday in September. Notice and information is always available in the MIRUS Newsletter.

There is currently 209 years of combined AA experience serving on your IG Board. Early in our history, this Board included members of Al-Anon. In the 1980s it was decided our fellowships would be better served if AA and Al-Anon had separate Offices. We have been fortunate over the years to be located in the same building with Al-Anon Information Services of Minneapolis. This has facilitated a spirit of cooperation between our two fellowships, for which we are very grateful.

The same spirit of cooperation has also developed over the years with the General Service Structure. Your Minneapolis Intergroup actively participates with the 11 metro General Service Districts, Southern Minnesota Area and your General Service Office. We have been pleased to house the Temporary Contact Desk for the Southern Minnesota Area 36 Treatment Facilities Committee over the past 15 years at the Intergroup Service Office and we are the main contact point for the Area 36 Corrections Committee and their Correctional Facilities Contact Program. Three years ago we added a toll free number so incarcerated inmates can have immediate meeting information before their release. If you would like to be involved with the many 12-Step opportunities that carry the AA message, please visit our 12-Step Service Tables during the evening.

In whatever capacity you are helping Intergroup carry the message; your service work is priceless. In addition to the time you contribute, 7th Tradition Contributions from AA groups and individual AA members, along with literature sales, ensures your Intergroup Service Office can continue to provide vital services. Every time you purchase a Big Book at Intergroup you are buying it from yourself. The office is operated by the members for the Members. In this manner Intergroup is self-supporting. Consistent with this principle, Intergroup does not accept contributions from outside the AA Fellowship.

The Service Office is a busy place these days. Most visitors are from the local AA community, although the office has hosted AA Members and Professionals from around the world. We have been visited by healthcare workers from Japan, Peru, Brazil and Vietnam. The Serenity Prayer in Japanese is now hanging in the office. The non-alcoholic (Class A) Trustee chairperson for the General Service Office in Brazil made a visit a few years ago. We now have a beautiful color poster celebrating the 60th Anniversary of AA in Brazil. This past January Leonard Blumenthal Class (A) Non-Alcoholic Trustee and Chairman to our General Service Board took the time to visit your Service Office. He has a long history with the Edmonton, Canada Intergroup/Central Office.

Please stop by and see us soon, have a cup of coffee. You’ll find all the bustling activity I have described and the opportunity to learn more about AA’s past on our wall of history.

In closing, since 1968, Greater Minneapolis Intergroup has been providing these “Vital Services” envisioned by the founding board 40 years ago. Our vital services are in greater demand more than ever. The early board members could not have predicted we would be playing such a strong role in our community. We respond to requests for information about AA from schools, religious groups, medical groups and businesses. We are also responding to the 12-Step needs of teens and pre-teens with special 12-Step services. I’m sure you can see the original vision lives on stronger than ever, one day at a time, day after day. It’s the spirit of participation that makes this possible. In that spirit, let us not forget that at this very moment a sober member of Alcoholics Anonymous is either standing by to answer our phone, or is now speaking to a member of the community who may have a drinking problem.

Thank you and enjoy our 25th Annual Gratitude Night - 40 years in Celebration of Services.